OBAMARAMA

Following a speech to the Radio & Television News Directors Association Foundation in which FOX News Channel president Roger Ailes compared Sen. Obama’s name to Osama bin Laden, the station received a letter from the head of the Nevada Democratic Party and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

“Comments made last night by Fox News President Roger Ailes in reference to one of our presidential candidates went too far. We cannot, as good Democrats, put our party in a position to defend such comments,” state Democratic Party Chairman Tom Collins and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid wrote in a letter sent Friday to Fox News.

In the same letter, they pulled out of the debate. Here’s what Ailes said in the speech that prompted the letter, at something called the “First Amendment Awards”:

“And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don’t know if it’s true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, ‘Why can’t we catch this guy?” [Full video below]

While not remotely funny, I’m not sure Ailes’s comments warrant the NV Democratic Party’s move. Rather, their move is justified by the incessant falsehoods streaming from the channel Ailes operates — but since that’s not the reason they cite, it positions them to be judged on the comments themselves, which strike me as a joke about President Bush as much as anything. It also opens them up to the charge that the NV Democratic Party is “controlled by radical, fringe, out-of-state interest groups,” which is exactly how FOX News responded.

Of course, FOX would have responded the same way no matter what the reason. But I really think the decision to pull the plug on the debate would have been a lot more powerful (and the motives more sound) if it had either been forced by the refusal of the candidates to participate, or if it had been based on the fact that FOX hosting a Democratic debate would be like Jeter and A-Rod umping a Red Sox/Yankees game, and if it had been articulated as such.

Still, the end result is good, if not ideal. The more that can be done to underscore FOX’s bias on a national level, the better.

Here’s the video of Ailes’s comments, the relevant portion of which comes at the beginning. The rest, if you’re interested, is his sickening lecture on the First Amendment and his justification of FOX as a channel that “encourage[s] diversity of thought and speech in the newsroom.” He must mean that their rabid Republican broadcasters are balanced out by the presence of a few Libertarians.

As you can see, Ailes’s jokes were dumb and definitely inappropriate.  I’m almost inclined to say that his “joke” about Sen. Clinton was even more outrageous than his “joke” about Sen. Obama.  Regardless, what is more galling than a news channel president making partisan jokes and then going on to defend the impartiality of his company? What kind of example is he setting for his employees? If the president of MSNBC made a similar joke about a Republican, you can bet your bottom dollar FOX would be running the clip night and day and talking about the station’s liberal bias. The double standard here is absolutely appalling.

Let’s just hope the cancellation of the debate means an increased national awareness of FOX’s Republican bias.

(Hat tip to Stacy for the link.)