Well this is a bummer.

TV Newser reports that Obama has agreed to appear this week on FOX News Sunday.

Greg Kelly announced this afternoon on Fox News that Sen. Barack Obama has agreed to appear on Fox News Sunday this weekend.

The possibility of an Obama appearance on the program rose to prominence after anchor Chris Wallace started the Obama Watch last month, monitoring how long it has been since Obama promised to appear on the show.

"Barack Obama is going to appear on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace this Sunday. It looks like that Obama Watch clock did the trick," said Kelly.

The Daily Show had a great take on the Obama clock, which is patterned after the clock used on FOX’s “24”, a show whose central premise was the assassination of a black presidential candidate.

Needless to say, we here at FOX ATTACKS are pretty bummed out about this. Maybe Obama is going on because he feels he made some sort of promise to FNS’ Chris Wallace and wants to keep his word, which I suppose is an honorable thing to do. But when you’re dealing with an organization as relentlessly, unapologetically dishonest as FOX, I wouldn’t put appearing there high on my list of priorities.

My guess is that Obama is more likely going on to try to win some votes in Indiana in North Carolina. But if he thinks he’ll do it by going on FOX, this strikes me as a huge error. As I stated in a previous post, FOX VIEWERS WILL NOT VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS. As Mark Mellman found, 88% of FOX viewers voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 election while just 7% voted for John Kerry, when Bush only received 51% of the vote for the rest of the population. As Mellman noted:

No demographic segment, other than Republicans, was as united in supporting Bush. Conservatives, white evangelical Christians, gun owners, and supporters of the Iraq war all gave Bush fewer votes than did regular Fox News viewers.

And this margin isn’t because Bush had been doing such a great job in his first term — he was already well on his way to being the Worst President Ever. So why would FOX viewers vote so overwhelmingly for a Republican? BECAUSE THEY WATCH FOX. It’s what FOX viewers are trained to do like Pavlov’s dogs — when they hear the words “Democrat”, “liberal”, “Clinton”, or “Obama”, they growl, bare their teeth, and turn their ears back. But when they hear “Republican”, “Bush”, or “conservative”, they wag their tales and roll over to have their stomachs rubbed. This reaction is reinforced daily with constant negative stories about Democrats and constant positive stories about Republicans until the reaction is simply an instinct, requiring no thought and impervious to any kind of new information. As I said in my previous post, Obama would have a better chance trying to win votes at a KKK rally.

But if Obama was upset about the questions he got at the ABC debate, he better load up on anti-nausea meds before he goes on FNS. After all, the smears and bogus issue questions he heard on ABC originated on FOX, from Rev. Wright to Farrakhan to flag pins to patriotism to the Weather Underground etc. It’s because FOX has “legitimized” these stories with non-stop coverage that other networks, including ABC, felt that these were issues that really needed to be addressed (viewers, however, had a much different opinion).

The best that can come of Obama’s appearance is that it will be nothing. Obama won’t win over any FOX viewers, and he won’t lose any since they would never vote for him anyway. But the chances of this are extremely slim. Wallace, like the rest of FOX, will fling every piece of trash and “gotcha!” question imaginable at Obama, hoping that he makes a mistake. Every question will be asked in an extremely biased way — he’ll probably be asked why he wants the US to “surrender”, “lose”, or “declare defeat” in Iraq. Remember what happened when Wallace essentially blamed Bill Clinton for allowing 9/11 to happen?

And even if Obama handles everything well during the interview, the rest of FOX will pick apart every single detail of the interview to find anything they can portray negatively or any quote they can distort. That’s all FOX is doing now anyway. Why wasn’t he wearing a pin? What about his body language? Why did he pause like that? Nothing will satisfy them. They will never allow Obama to be portrayed in a positive light, and they won’t let reality, honesty, or integrity get in the way.

Nearly 40,000 people signed our open letter supporting Obama’s decision not to go on FOX. We’re disappointed that he’s decided to go on. Hopefully it won’t cost him.

 

PS  In the featured video for this post, see how Wallace selectively edits the Daily Show clip to use it as "proof" that "pop culture" is on on FNS' side. Now watch the real clip. That's the kind of dishonest "journalism" Obama is subjecting himself to — for no apparent benefit.