White House v. Fox News

The White House has had a rocky relationship with Fox News ever since President Obama took office, but over the past few weeks things have deteriorated. Tensions increased after the Fox network aired a reality TV show instead of an Obama speech to Congress. In response, when the President visited the Sunday shows of all the major networks, he skipped Fox News. Chris Wallace wasn't happy about the snub, and called the Obama administration "the biggest bunch of cry babies I've ever dealt with." But things really escalated after WH Communications Director Anita Dunn slammed Fox in an Oct. 12 interview with CNN's Howie Kurtz: "Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party...Let's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is." This means war!

October 12: Glenn Beck airs a segment about Dunn's comments, saying that the White House is "more worried about the war on Fox than the actual war in Afghanistan." He proceeds to take out a map of Manhattan and point out the "location of the enemy" (Fox News headquarters), and then uses tank and helicopter action figures to demonstrate what a White House attack on the network would probably look like. He also tells his viewers to "write this day down in your journal" because "I don't think that they've used White House resources, your tax dollars, to target the media before." Later, on October 16, Beck attacks Anita Dunn personally, airing a clip of her citing Chinese Chairmen Mao Zedong as her favorite philosopher.

October 13: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is asked during a press briefing to comment on Chris Wallace's remark that the Obama White House is "the biggest bunch of cry babies" he's ever dealt with. Gibbs says, "I haven't cried yet," before moving on to the next question. This is not the first time Gibbs has dismissed Fox News. Back in September, he appeared on Fox and Friends to criticize the Fox broadcast network for airing the reality show So You Think You Can Dance instead of President Obama's health care speech to a joint session of Congress. Gibbs: "I do hope that people will check into the reality of what's going on in America rather than the distraction of a reality TV show."

October 16: Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Fox News' parent company, responds to Anita Dunn's comments at an annual meeting with his shareholders: "There were some strong remarks coming out of the White House about one or two of the commentators on Fox News...And all I can tell you is that it's tremendously increased their ratings."

October 18: On Chris Wallace's Fox News Sunday, Fox News contributor Karl Rove calls Dunn's comments a White House attempt to "throw the grenades, turn on the flame thrower." He says the White House is "getting very arrogant and slippery in its dealings with people, and if you dare to oppose them, they're going to come hard at you and they're going to cut your legs off." Rove also said: "This is the White House engaging in its own version of the media enemies list. And it's unhelpful for the country, and undignified for the President of the United States to so do." Wallace also pipes in, "Anita Dunn's facts were just plain wrong."

October 18: David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Obama, appears on ABC's This Week, and says Fox News is "not really a news station." Axelrod continues: "We're gonna appear on their shows, we're gonna participate -- but understanding that they represent a point of view."

October 18: On CNN's State of the Union, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel responds to a question about the White House conflict with Fox News: "It's not so much a conflict." He continues that Fox News is "not a news organization, so much as it has a perspective." Emanuel goes on to downplay the feud, saying "the concentration of the White House isn't about what Fox is doing."

October 19: On Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly provides his own theory about why the White House has begun attacking the network: "The President is very angry about being associated with far left individuals...the latest is Fox News breaking a story about White House Communications Director Anita Dunn praising the brutal Chinese dictator Chairman Mao." He goes on to list other "far left" figures in the administration, such as Kevin Jennings and Carol Browner. Says O'Reilly: "The continuing reporting on radical elements within the Obama Administration has clearly rankled the President and his advisers."

October 20: In a segment called "Press Control," Fox News' Sean Hannity addresses the White House criticism, saying that you'd think "the White House would have better things to do than bully this news organization, but you'd be wrong." He tells viewers that the White House is trying to "bully" them into believing that "the news the White House doesn't really like, well, isn't news. Well that is cynical, that is manipulative, and that is an abuse of power." Hannity goes on to posit that "the Obama team, they're accustomed to having full control over journalists, and these organizations." Watch the full segment here.

October 20: On her show On The Record, Greta Van Susteren digs at the attacks, calling them "silly." She continues: "Maybe all this time On The Record at 10 p.m. has been doing an entertainment show and we didn't even know it...Could this be a more fun fight, or what?" Guest Tucker Carlson is less amused by the controversy, calling it "whining" that's "also infuriating." Van Susteren continues: "For some reason it struck me as...so patently absurd." However, "the fact is we can still do our work, we can still get our questions answered -- maybe not by the White House." She concludes: "The thing that I think is disturbing is that you may have a beef with a person in an organization...but you don't want to indict the entire organization."