One of the most jolting aspects of President Barack Obama’s victory has been the fact that some Republicans that denounced “Bush derangement syndrome” are now painting his administration as not just one they oppose because it’s run by a different party with different policies, but as one that wants to destroy what America’s founding built — and take away everyone’s guns.
And Fox News seems to have found its niche comfortably in that context, as a key conveyor of this message via its talk show style news opinion shows and even in occasional headlines in those little blurs under the screen when news is delivered.
CNN’s Rick Sanchez clearly had enough of this — and looked at political narrative versus reality in the segment below. Sanchez also deals with a prevelant conservative talk show theme that polls show Obama is one of the most polarizing President noting something we’ve noted here: how could Obama not be polarizing when Fox News and conservative talkers locally and nationally are painting him as someone not just dangerous on policies but a socialist (in some cases called a fascist) and a clear-and-present-danger to maintaining America as it has been and cherished constitutional rights that Americans worked and died to protect?
The grave implications of setting up opposition as your-whole-country-is-at-stake-it’s-time-to-save-America has been discussed elsewhere and seems to have some emerging implications for the GOP as a party (see upcoming post). Here’s the Sanchez segment:
FOOTNOTE: I long considered Sanchez’s segments some of the best on CNN. About a year ago I was invited to be on one of his segments as the “center” blogger. Sanchez does his homework, is passionate but his passion is backed up by his research, and knows packs a lot of content into a small amount of time. Sanchez also blasted Fox’ Shaun Hannity on another matter in February.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.