Alex Koppelman, Salon, April 3, 2007
So far the lefty blogosphere is one for two in its campaign to keep Democratic presidential candidates from debating on Fox News. On March 9, after both John Edwards and Bill Richardson announced that they would not participate, the Nevada Democratic Party dropped plans for a debate to be broadcast by Fox. On March 29, the Congressional Black Caucus announced that it would go forward with its own Fox-sponsored Democratic presidential debate in the fall.
But boycotting debates is not the same as boycotting a network. Most of those national Democrats who’ve criticized Fox, like former Clinton advisor Paul Begala and pollster Mark Mellman, have stopped short of calling for the party to avoid Fox altogether. They would just like Democrats to realize what they’re getting into. “As long as you’re willing to treat Fox News as a political adversary, and you think you can use Fox News to further your arguments, you should do it, says Matt Stoller, a blogger at MyDD.com and a leader of the charge against the debates. “But don’t go on there assuming that Fox News is a neutral news outlet.”
Plenty of Democrats do appear on Fox. In fact, John Edwards, the first of the announced presidential candidates to drop out of the Nevada debate, has appeared on the network more than 30 times, most recently in late January of this year, and Mark Mellman has appeared more than 80 times.
But Fox also has a stable of regular commentators, some under contract to the network, who pop up frequently as representatives of the Democratic or progressive viewpoint. They do not appear to know what they have gotten into. Though these Democrats tell Salon they are doing their best to reach out and sway potential voters, they often seem to be used to further a conservative political agenda, fulfilling one of several roles that ultimately just helps the network’s right-of-center hosts make their arguments against liberals.