Of course the same could have been said by the conservatives about CNN during the last administration, but that’s neither here nor there.

What is most disturbing is the rabid nature of the latest round of attacks – some aimed at me, but most seem to be aimed at Jake Tapper for bringing this up in the first place. First, I don’t care about what people say to me – I already have a fair collection of “love notes” from people who were far worse, and decided it was a good idea to make threats against my life in the past. What bothers me is the level of intolerance that I am seeing from the people who have been screaming foul against Fox News for precisely that offense. The hypocrisy threat level is orange, inching toward red!

Yesterday via Twitter I was informed by Markos Moulitsas that the administration declaring that Fox News is not a legitimate news organization does nothing to that organization’s ability to exercise its rights under the First Amendment. He is right, but only because the amendment addresses the actions of Congress alone. No matter how much anyone wants to deny it, the White House denying the network access has repercussions far beyond the briefing room. I can see a future of fewer posts on DailyKos because without Fox News, they wouldn’t have as many people to call on their BS.

However, the contention of various people around the Web that this statement from the White House was appropriate on any level is absolutely wrong. As I keep saying, perhaps the message is accurate, but the messenger shouldn’t have said it. The White House is meant to be in the news, not control it – and denying Fox News like this is controlling that network’s ability to cover news. When members of the press report false information, other members of the press call them on it. The press is the watchdog of both the government and itself.

Quick on the heels of the White House statement on Fox News, I ended up with emails from MoveOn.org urging members to encourage actions that would ensure the demise of the network. Silencing opposition apparently has become acceptable to them?

Senator Lamar Alexander knows just a little bit about the dangers of government dabbling in this sort of behavior, and he isn’t off-base comparing this to Nixon’s enemies list. Even The Huffington Post thought Alexander’s comments merited a page on their site. If worrying about our supposedly free press becoming a progressive echo chamber – at least where television news networks are concerned – or the White House taking steps similar to those we saw during the Nixon Administration is politically incorrect now, then I have absolutely no hope of ever being accepted by the new left.

The wheel has turned folks. Those of you on the left who have been crying for years about being ignored by the beastly right-wing, and are now rejoicing in the possibility of shutting down a news network have become what you despised. If someone had told me four years ago that the GOP had any hope of becoming a righteous party again, in the midst of the dirty tricks being played by Bush, Rove, and Cheney, I would have laughed them out of the room. But right about now the left is offering the GOP a golden opportunity – time will tell if they take it. Amazing what a little time and power can do to even the best of people. Thank you for making it so much easier for me to state publicly with pride that I’m a Goldwater-conservative – it was depressing having to whisper it at times!

Everyone knows what Fox News is about – just like everyone knows what the tabloids we see every time we go through the check out lines in the grocery stores are selling. Just remember, you call them on their false statements and absurdities – you don’t silence them!

As someone who is regularly accused of being a RINO because of my obvious distaste for the neo-conservative party line, particularly where social issues are concerned, I know it is difficult for some people to remember that underneath it all, I am still a conservative. I tend not to agree with the opinion programming on the Fox News network, but that is primarily because of the generally inflammatory nature of them. Promoting hatred and intolerance was never part of what I consider being a conservative.

During the Bush administration, there was an environment of fear that kept the media from honestly questioning the policies and decisions that were handed down. “That’s un-American” was echoed regularly, purely because we were supposed to be united in a fight against terrorism. Eventually the questions came to light, and the media seemed to have regained a sense of its purpose – watchdog for the people.

Now, like it or not, Fox News is in the position of being watchdog. The media in general is supposed to have accepted standards of practice, and should be capable of reminding their fellows when they step out of line. It is not the job of the White House to do this, period. When President Obama took the oath of office, he swore to defend the Constitution, including the First Amendment. Until Fox News is dragged into court for going beyond the protections that the First Amendment affords, the government in general has no business making statements about the legitimacy of the organization as news source.

I said yesterday that defending the rights of others to speak freely is part and parcel of having that right. As it stands now, the White House has set itself on a dangerous course that leads to a government-run press. And before anyone starts screaming foul against that statement, consider this. While it might be tempting to say that this is repayment for the Bush years, or the turning of the political wheel, the relative silence of the liberal press after 9/11 was largely self-imposed. What flavor of fear – fear of the administration, terrorists, or financial losses for speaking against a highly popular president – caused it doesn’t matter in the final analysis. The bottom line was that the media chose to turn a blind eye on a myriad of sins over the years. The books depicting them are still trickling out of the presses.

The difference now is that the administration is doing the talking, and making a call that should have been made by the people or the rest of the media. Fox News is free to say what they want as long as they are not committing slander, libel, or a criminal act in doing so. Conversely, everyone else is free to call out the errors, problems with research sources, or any other issues they may have with what Fox News says. The administration is overstepping its bounds by refusing to make itself available to Fox News, period. The sad part of it is that there are far too many people thinking that this isn’t a problem – or worse, a good thing.

Disagreeing with what a news organization has to say is not grounds to state that it is not a news organization.

A while ago Christian Toto explored the issue of journalists not dealing with bias in the media appropriately at length. Every word of what he said there is absolutely true, and should become the introduction for every textbook on journalism from this point on. I pine for the old days of the GOP, when the attitude of the party toward most social issues was that they were for the people to decide on their own, privacy was a real concern, and smaller government was a real goal. I also look back longingly on a time when calling a collection of journalists “ladies and gentlemen” meant that was precisely what they were, and politicians maintained a love/hate relationship easily with the media – as in they never actively stated they would be unavailable to the press (except when they were in trouble), and used editorial pages and similar venues to voice their concerns when they disliked coverage on them.

There used to be a line between the media and government – journalists kept their suggestions for how to govern on the opinion pages and programs, and politicians stayed out of the business of journalism until they left office. The line has faded, but isn’t completely gone – yet. I hope I never see the day when it completely disappears, because that will be the true death of our free press.

However, I am a very big fan of the First Amendment. I think I was forced to read the Constitution from beginning to end sometime in my grammar school years – between 4th and 6th grades. From the beginning, I understood that it was a “cool” thing that we had the right to speak out (something that we couldn’t do in our Catholic School classrooms.) Needless to say, I had some very strict teachers, and one thing I definitely remember is that they drilled it into our heads from the very beginning that freedom of speech also meant that we had to defend that same right even for people we didn’t agree with.

When I read Jake Tapper’s exchange with Press Secretary Gibbs today, I was more than a little annoyed. The knee jerk response was, “Who the hell do they think they are?!?!” Granted, that was probably magnified by the fact that I’d been debating Obama’s acceptance of the U.N.’s resolution on free speech elsewhere, but still.

I don’t care how silly, out of bounds, or anything else that Fox News is or becomes. The White House has no business stating outright or otherwise that it is not a news organization. It is not in the job description, and bluntly, those who did it may as well go to Constitution Center and defecate on the Constitution itself!