This morning, interviews with President Barack Obama aired on every major Sunday news show except one: FOX News Sunday.
Host Chris Wallace was clearly not happy about that.
“Every president is thin-skinned, but I wonder whether this administration, this White House, has a particular problem with criticism,” Wallace said.
Moments earlier, Wallace flashed a White House statement onscreen about the administration’s decision not to send Obama on FNC.
We figured FOX would rather show So You Think You Can Dance than broadcast an honest discussion about health insurance reform. FOX is an ideological outlet where the President has been interviewed before and will likely be interviewed again…Not that whining particularly strengthens their case for participation anytime soon.
The So You Think You Can Dance jab comes as a result of the FOX broadcast network’s decision not to air President Obama’s health care speech to a joint session of Congress earlier this month (FOX News showed the speech).
“The whining, I think, refers to me,” Wallace said Sunday, “and the fact that I called the White House on The O’Reilly Show Friday the biggest bunch of cry babies I’ve ever dealt with in my 30 years in Washington.”
The gang on FNC then spent several minutes Sunday morning debating why the Obama White House didn’t trot the President out on FOX News Sunday, with hypotheses ranging from rallying the base to demonizing FNC to playing favorites to having a poor understanding of their own communications strategy.
“Wear it as a badge of honor,” suggested Paul Gigot of The Wall Street Journal.
Late Update: Here’s the video.
