master debate

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs. it's refreshing that several democratic candidates have pledged to boycott the fox noise debate next september. not only has john "crossing over" edwards vowed to avoid it, but also barak "to the future" obama and hillary "not necessarily the sopranos" clinton, as well. one reason (well, the only reason, actually: e.g., fox's bias; but one example of that reason) was fox's insistance that obama studied muslim extremism as a 6 year old child, without anything to back up such an assertion. so at least some dems show some spine and refuse to attend the congressional black caucus institute-sponsored debate on fox noise next fall. but some in the multi-millionaire media just can't see the logic in this. scott collins, writing in the latimes, says the dems should just buck up and show up: so it needs to be said: the democrats are dead wrong not to debate on fox news. and it's hypocritical for the supposedly nonpartisan media to stand by and do nothing while a tv network — even one with an obvious rightward tilt whose fairness and balance deserve every bit of the scrutiny they're getting — is trashed by mega-million-dollar political campaigns in the heat of a white house primary battle. when politicians, one of whom may very well be the next president of the united states, start using their platforms to lob missiles at news-gathering organizations they don't like, it's hard to see how that's much different than president nixon's infamous "enemies list." well, here's the difference, scott: nixon's list were people whose careers he, as president, wanted destroyed...boycotting fox news is a representation of the free market system. if candidates thinks they won't get a fair shake from somebody, and that somebody has been proven to be biased and subjective, why should those candidates validate that somebody as fair and objective? let's start calling them as we see them, shall we? fox is unfair and unbalanced. think progress points out (as does c&l) that last night on hannity and colmes, both hannity and guest annthrax coulter did another one of their famous hit jobs on obama: coulter remarked, “anyone named b. hussein obama should not use the words ‘hijack’ and ‘religion’ in the same sentence.” host sean hannity added that obama’s remarks were part of a “black separatist agenda.” the timing was not lost on us, so we wrote a letter to the latimes: sirs and madams: it is deliciously ironic that the same day the l.a. times presents scott collins chastizing the democrats for boycotting presidential debates on fox news, ann coulter and sean hannity make the democrats' case for them. on the hannity & colmes show on june 25, coulter accused sen. barak obama once again of being a terrorist, while sean hannity accused him of having a "black separatist agenda." and yet scott collins would have the democratic candidates overlook such slurs and bigoted vitriol and lend credence to fox news as an "objective" journalistic organ. scott collins' premise is completely wrong. fox news is not a "news-gathering organization" that just happens to tilt one way or the other. it is a platform for right wing innuendo, smears and agenda that just happens to report a news item now and then. we would hope that the entire democratic party would refrain from appearing on that very subjective channel.