Cross-posted at Plural Politics

So it wouldn't be a Dheeraj post if it weren't full off piss, vinegar, bravado and bluster. Let's just get that out of the way. Here's what I have to say about Senator Clinton's appearance on Fox: desperation is the least attractive quality in a candidate. There's more [...]

My good buddy Kevin Sullivan thinks it was a great idea. I could not disagree any more. Arguing against a straw man Netroots activist, Kevin says,

I think Hillary Clinton’s performance on The O’Reilly Factor last night should put to rest the whining and crying we’ve heard from a few marginal Leftists. These critics seem to believe that a Democrat’s face on Fox is tantamount to treason. But in truth, these appearances allow them to hone their message, hit their positions and reach out to the kind of voters that the Democratic nominee will need in places such as Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. It doesn’t appeal to the sensibilities of the Netroots, but the Netroots is indeed tiny, divided and often irrelevant. The loudest person in the room isn’t necessarily the wisest, and Senator Cinton did herself well with last night’s appearance.

He also then compares O'Reilly to Tim Russert.

I’ve defended Russert in the past, and I’ll continue to defend him for what he is. Leftists who complain that he relies too heavily on “gotcha” politics don’t understand the purpose of the Sunday morning shows; and they confuse these forums for outlets of high-minded journalism. Tim Russert isn’t trying to expand your mind, man! He isn’t trying to elevate the public discourse. Let the public elevate their own damn discourse.

What Russert does do is allow candidates a message box–he hits them with the same things you’d likely see in a direct mail piece in a close race. He allows them to test their blurbs and their canned responses, preparing them for the next 1,000 times they’re likely to hear those questions. It’s a symbiotic relationship–Russert gets to “gotcha” important people, and those important people get to inoculate themselves from those “gotchas.”

O’Reilly tried it on Hillary, and she responded masterfully.

Now, Kevin is a good buddy of mine, as I mentioned earlier, but there are some very glaring problems with his analysis here.

1. Going on Fox costs Hillary more voters than it gains her.

Let's assume for a minute that Fox is the preferred journalistic outlet for the white blue collar workers who delivered Reagan and the Republicans victory after victory. By this point, those voters have built into their political identity the behaviour of pulling a Republican ballot. Those who are going to vote Democratic by and large already do. She's not liable to pick up very many of these people by going on Fox to reach them in general, but given the crazy means by which Fox conducts their interviews, there's no guarantee that she and the Democratic platform are fairly represented to these people. (More on that later.) Moreover, because of the stance that the Democratic base has taken on Fox, it's going to cost her voters from an outraged base. They may not be that many people on their own, but they are the ones who stuff the letters, make the calls, knock on the doors and donate the money. They are the ones who exhort their colleagues to vote. THey are the ones at work whom their colleagues turn to in order to find out what's going on with that whole election craziness. For these people, it will be further proof that Hillary is not trying to grow the party or protect it in its current state, but is in fact trying to carve out a whole new coalition for herself.

This is going to bleed her dry from all but the most committed activists, especially considering that she went on O'Reilly, who is the symbol of all that's wrong with Fox.

2. Fox is not a legitimate journalistic outlet

My problems with Fox have very little to do with their editorial biases. Hey, even the crazies are entitled to their own media, like WingNut Daily. But let's not for a minute pretend that they're journalistic entities as we understand them. In most journalistic entities, there is a very firm division between news and editorial. Just look at The Wall St. Journal. If it weren't for the neanderthals they found to write their opinion section, one would have absolutely no idea that they actively promote Republicanism. Had Hillary sat with an interview with WSJ's DC Bureau Chief, no one would have a problem. The problem is because of what Fox is.

If you're ever so inclined, I advise that you watch Fox non-stop for one business day. You will find virtually no news reporting. All the content on that channel is personality driven or editorial. More than that, they're so sensationalist and biased that they make William Randolph Hearst look like a professor of political science. It's not as if she's walking into an environment in which they'll ask questions like, "Senator Clinton, what is your position on the Democratic base's view that we need more federal funding for public health options for African-Americans in rural areas?". She's walking into an environment in which the question is more likely going to be, "With all due respect, Senator CLinton, why are you running for the nomination of a far left, soft on terror, anti-white party who thinks that it's okay to take money out of the hard working taxpayer and use it to provide condoms to irresponsible welfare queens? When will the Democrats learn that it's not okay to rob Peter to pay Likwidesha?" There no possibility for her to unpack and refute all the nasty assumptions latent in that question on the show, and everyone knows it. Moreover, whatever answers she does give will be so ridiculously edited and manipulated that you'd swear that Fox had some resurrected DJ Screw to come back and do production for them.

It is important to understand that Fox does not engage in journalism as we understand it. They are not committed to truth-seeking nor are they committed to writing the first drafts of history. What they do is masquerade as journalists in order to spread their political message. Instead of thinking of them as an opinion magazine, think of them as one gigantic infomercial for the GOP.

So, now, the Russert comparison....Paul Waldman and I agree that Tim Russert is an embarrassment, but he's still a mostly objective journalist. He hits everyone with his brand of "gotchas" equally. More importantly, Russert is one journalist on one network, albeit, an important one, and not an integrated part of a communications strategy intended to suppress the Democratic vote. To compare Russert and O'Reilly in any meaningful sense is to make a category error. You cannot imagine that a sloppy journalist is the same thing as a paid spinmeister.

With any luck, Kevin will have something to say about this. Flame on.

-dx