Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Judicial Watch, a right wing group whose primary function is to foment right wing hysteria by spreading misinformation, issued a press release regarding White House emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These were from the first year of the Obama administration, when the White House  was more open about its contempt for Fox than in subsequent years.

Hostility towards Fox  is hardly unjustified considering how Fox regularly disregards normal standards of journalism to advocate for the opposing political party and regularly spreads falsehoods about the Obama administration. We might expect members of the Obama administration to have an opinion of Fox comparable to what we would expect  them to have for a mouthpiece for the Republican Party–which for all practical purposes is the actual purpose of Fox.

Judicial Watch performed the usual right wing  distortions of the email which we have seen many times before, such as in the bogus “Climategate” affair in which right wingers made claims about emails stolen from climate researchers which did not hold up when the actual emails were reviewed. Chris Good summarized the email, with one notable example of how Judicial Watch distorted the content in the first paragraph:

In its summation, Judicial Watch also includes a seemingly damning quote from communications aide Josh Earnest, “We’ve demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews…” but omits the rest: “… — but yesterday, we didn’t.”

The emails show White House staff discussing the official response statement to White-House-vs.-Fox stories being written and contemplated by members of the Washington media.

Taken out of context, the emails sound kind of incendiary, revealing a deep disdain for Fox News and its reporters. Flipping through the pages of emails, they reveal something more instructive: How a political press shop works, behind the scenes.