TPM Editor’s Blog

Cheering the Fox News Takedown

TPM Reader AS:

I really love the shots they’re taking at Fox.

First, I think it’s a great strategic move. The GOP depends upon their ability to make stuff up and inject it into the political consciousness. Their whole modus operandi is rooted in their ability to distort reality. And they’re able to do that because of talk radio and a couple of other media outlets — Drudge, for example.

If the administration can hurt of cripple their ability to make stuff up and get people to believe it, it will affect every single fight we get into moving forward. It’s a very practical, useful thing to do. As long as they can just make stuff up, we’ll never be able to win. We have to address that.

And I believe, very sincerely, that Fox News will come out of this dust up very much diminished. Not as a business. But as a credible source of information.

Second, people like me, out here in the wild, need our leaders to take a few shots in the culture war. It’s demoralizing when they don’t. I know that they’re actually running the government, working out deals with Iran, keeping the economy going, and so on. They don’t have that much time to deal with the clowns at Fox. I get that.

But we don’t always see the gears turning in the background. And we do see the Hannity’s and the Becks going crazy. We they hit us and hit us and hit us, and we never hit back, it’s kind of awful.

So I’m really glad they’re doing this. It’s a great thing.

David Kurtz

David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.

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