I don’t think CNN made any particular stance in this segment. They just played clips of a Senator and used it as a springboard for a balanced debate about it.

Virtually no one watches Cooper’s show, so I don’t think this has backfired. I think it has all played out exactly as the administration hoped.

Obama is a very smart man who intentionally picked a very dumb fight, one he knew would suck all the oxygen out of the room. Here’s the reasoning:

• 1. Health reform is complicated, Obama lacks the ability to explain it and his plan has generated tepid support and enthusiastic opposition.

• 2. The economy is complicated, but employment numbers are not. He can’t afford to have the media dwelling on 10 percent unemployment while replaying the clips of his administration promising that the stimulus plan would halt unemployment at 8 percent. In politics, this either means he was either lying or incompetent.

• 3. Afghanistan is complicated, but he boxed himself in on this issue with Bush-like campaign rhetoric about this being a war of necessity. The longer he goes without making any decisions, the more he looks like a state senator who prefers to vote “present.”

So, here we have a president who is loathe to make difficult decisions for fear they might turn out to be wrong (or right, but unpopular). So he has decided to create a loud and colorful distraction the media can’t resist. This big silly conversation is dominating the cablers but — in all honesty — doesn’t really interest most of the country. This is a classic inside the beltway controversy, lots of razzle-dazzle and virtually no substance. Unless the administration starts making decisions that affect Fox’s ability to function as a news network (Fairness Doctrine, revoking press credentials, etc.), this is much ado about nothing.

Colby Hall you can calm down with the hyperventilating title now. The incompetent mainstream media’s demands as to why Obama would dare to question Fox News’ lies doesn’t mean that anything has backfired. The ‘strategy’, if you want to call telling the truth a strategy, is to simply point out that Fox News is not a news organization but a blatantly partisan oppositional propaganda machine. Fox News is the 24/7 political communications arm of the Republican party. Now, you and Anderson Cooper can try to pretend that it’s a legitimate news organization that sticks with the facts but reality says otherwise.

From openly promoting “Tea Parties” and every other anti-Obama political demonstration they can find; to advancing the “Death Panel” lie every chance they got; to targeting, smearing and engaging in a character assassination of one of Obama’s education officials (who happens to be gay); to celebrating when Chicago lost the bid for the Olympics as a victory for “Fox Nation”; to actively pushing an irrational fear of an imminent ‘czar’-government takeover of everything; Fox News’ distorted coverage of everything that President Obama does has made it crystal clear that it is a propaganda network packaged as “fair and balanced”.

The cowardly mainstream media can come running to the defense of the blatantly propagandistic fake news organization all they want. I’m just glad that the Obama Admininstration has finally decided to call them what they are.

Caelum, do you feel MSNBC is equally guilty of pushing partisan agenda for the left? Don’t be a coward, as you labeled the mainstream media, just answer honestly.

Shooter.. Caelum doesn’t know. The whole thing is just another copy/paste-job from somewhere else.

The headline is misleading. As M said, CNN didn’t take any stance.

I agree with the others about the headline being misleading. CNN wasn’t inspired on its own to compare Obama’s White House to Nixon’s. A republican made the comparison so CNN was just asking a panel if the republican’s comparison is valid. Tomorrow if a democrat compares the republicans in congress to Nixon or Al Capone or whomever CNN will be asking a panel if that comparison is valid.

Straitshooter, if you had MSNBC trafficking in outright lies from the Left then I would agree with you. They might have a liberal slant, but they base their opinions on FACT. Let me know when MSNBC spreads a lie equivalent to the “Death Panel” lie; let me know when MSNBC promotes and sponsors anti-GOP political demonstrations in D.C.; let me know when they cheer the loss of the Olympics for America. MSNBC might have a liberal slant, but they’re not the communications arm of the Democratic Party. They don’t shill for the Democrats the way Fox News shills for the Republicans, in fact they take on the Democrats and hold their feet to the fire. Fox News has defended the failed Presidency of George W. Bush to this day. The majority of their viewers don’t know that there was never a connection between Al Qeada and Sadam and that the whole reason GWB took us to War (WMD’s if I recall) was a LIE. If they can’t tell that basic fact to their audience then they’re not a news organization. Fox News and the 2 million Conservatives that watch them operate in a whole different reality from everyone else and unfortunately the COWARDLY mainstream media is too afraid to point that out.

I’mNotBlue instead of talking about copying and pasting something, let me know if anything I said in my comments is factually incorrect.

Neither MSNBC nor Fox traffics in lies, and you would see that if you could deactivate your partisan hatred long enough to watch both honestly.

Death Panel: Suggested by Sarah Palin, discussed on Fox and MSNBC opinion shows, but Fox news reports and reporters never stated that the proposed legislation included death panels. Sorry, you’re just wrong.

Cheering the Loss of the Olympics: Again, that would be the right wing opinion shows like Beck and Hannity. Go find me the NEWS story where Fox reporters cheered this development. Wrong again.

WMDs: You say lie, others say inaccurate intelligence. I should remind you that every senior member of President Clinton’s foreign policy team, including Clinton and Vice President Gore believed there were WMDs in Iraq. So did his CIA Director, who also served under Bush. So did all the Democrats in the House and Senate who gave Bush the authority to invade. Were they all lying, or were they all basing their stratements on the same flawed intelligence reports?

You know what is a lie? That Rush Limbaugh advocated a medal of honor for Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin. You know who reported it as fact? Rachel Maddow. She was the last media figure to finally issue a retraction. What took her so long when everyone else owned up to their mistakes like a professional days before she got around to it?

Caelum, let’s be civil: I can accept Fox has its flaws and many over there openly root for the GOP to succeed. Are you so close minded that you can’t admit the same about MSNBC?

To build on Shooter’s point… here you go Caelum.

http://insidecablenews.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/maddows-limbaugh-mis-quote-update/

Start there, and then tell me again how “MSNBC doesn’t lie.”