CBC/Fox Debate Cancelled
By Steve Benen Wednesday Aug 22, 2007 5:30pmRemember the Democratic debate co-sponsored by Fox News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute? The one the top candidates decided to avoid?
Fox News and a black political group say they will not hold a Sept. 23 Democratic presidential debate in Detroit, which the leading candidates already were planning to skip.... The debate, co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute, was to have been held at the Fox Theatre.
Institute chairman U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in a statement on the group's Web site that the "overwhelming number of party presidential debates has created a scheduling challenge."
"Revisiting the CBC Institute's debate schedule will allow the time necessary to complete all debate logistics in an effective manner," he said. The group had said it planned to sponsor two Democratic and two Republican presidential debates.
The netroots worked very hard on this, and deserve a lot of credit for the outcome.
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discredit fox. good going
What's really fun is imagining the corporate dumbfoundment going on in Fox conference rooms right now. When a project doesn't go as planned in the corporate world there are two responses, typically. The first response is, if the project is the brainchild of a Teflon-coated executive, that the thing never happened.
Fox can't do Teflon with something like this. It was publicly announced. So the second response is to savage the idiot whose idea it was and drum them out the door.
At any rate, I hope this accelerates the meltdown of the propaganda arm of the Neo-cons. It's gotta be getting difficult to keep a brave face on things over there.
HAHA, YouTube debate is taken more seriously than the Fox News debate!
Very well done.
I would say that was a really nice left hook...
& the winner is....
Netroots!
Not to be (too) picky, but the word is canceled.
Hmmm.....A black group teaming up with FOX. What's next, a Labor Day picnic with the KKK?
EnricoFermi @ 4:
I read that the RNC refused a YouTube invite to do another Debate like the Progressives did.
Hey guys, I just saw that Freedom's Watch ad by Ari on CNN and tried to call the number, they would only connect me through if I agreed with the ad. Here you guys try. 1-877-222-8001
Great news! Next, the Democratic Convention should refuse to give Fox "reporters" the same credential and access as actual news reporters get, letting them in as commentators. Truth needs no excuse, other than itself, and this is one step in telling the truth about Fox.
Thompson should have told the truth rather than making up a weaselly excuse about "scheduling." You think the CBC Inst. has gotten clued in yet?
... @ 5:
Right. And the angry white guys who get their news from the Angry White Guy News Channel will be pissed at the Democrats? They might even decide to vote Republican? Egads! That's a shocker!
EnricoFermi is a troll - I think that's what you call them. He normally disrupts threads on the Newshounds site.
The time to delegitimize Fox News starts now!
This was gonna be called the "Boob Tube" debate, right?
... @ 2:
What a strange little comment.
Candiates who bail from FOX do not get their message across to the large FOX audience. Chris Wallace and Brit Hume are excellent interviewers, but may ask tough questions. What's wrong with that?? The candidates might even change a mind or two. The spin will be that they are afraid of the questions. How will this help them? I don't get it. Dodd goes on and makes his point in spite of the interviewer. Candidates should welcome the opportunity to debate rather than bail.
Well let's not kid ourselves too much. The # of viewers for the debates has really dropped off. The number gets less and less each debate. I'm sure that in itself played heavily into decision.
I'm really tired of the debates already. I didn't see anything at all new in the repub debate, and the dem debates are starting to get old too. I bet that if any of the big 3 dem candidates had held off and not announced candidacy until now, they wouldn't be hurting at all. We need something fresh in the debates, and Thompson isn't it.
Excellent comment scruzman.
scruzman @ 19:
The spin out there today is that Fox isn't a legit news channel and the spin is that "everybody KNOWS FOX is a republican mouthpiece..."
For once, the spin is the truth.
Hume and Wallace are biased as hell and they ask leading questions - not 'tough' questions.
Why legitimize a propaganda channel?
Woohoo!!! This is great news... I can't for the life of me figure out what the CBC wanted with FOX. I'm glad this is cancelled. It shows yet again that Fox has no credibility.
CONGRATS! THIS IS A GREAT DAY! THE RACIST PROPAGANDA MOUTHPIECE OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY WAS TOLD TO STICK IT! DRINKS ALL AROUND! FOR THE LIFE OF ME I CANT EXPLAIN THE CBC'S INVOLVEMENT IN THIS! I ALWAYS THOUGHT THEY WERE A BIT SUSPECT!
Institute chairman U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in a statement on the group’s Web site that the “overwhelming number of party presidential debates has created a scheduling challenge.”
Shit! Even THAT was a LIE! Can you believe ANYBODY?
Clap for the Dems/netroots all you want, but Fox News is going to spin this as "Dems are pussies that are too afraid to even take on Brit Hume" and they're going to beat it to death. And it's mystifyingly going to work with their audience.
slippytoad @ 3:
You should've watched the Fox Noise channel during Election Night '06. So many dejected faces it was pure comedy.
CG @ 26:
Why do we care what their audience thinks? If you still watch Fox News because you think you get actual news from it, then you're so far down the rabbit hole that the sky is just a hazy memory. There's nothing a Democrat can say or do (unless you're a DINO like Joe Lieberman) to reach these people anyway. Makes more sense to reach the majority of Americans than to pander to the kool-aid drinkers.
strawberry @ 11:
Straw, someone called into Randi's show today and said the same thing. The ad is a disgrace. Fleischer and crew ought to be ashamed of themselves.
And_yer_point_is? @ 28:
So they should give up on 30% of the population? I don't think you'll find too many successful strategists that would endorse that plan of attack...
EnricoFermi @ 4:
As it should be. Citizens' questions should be taken more seriously, because criminals (Fox News) can't vote.
I can't say that I was actually looking forward to a debate being on FOX, but I was looking forward to Kucinich, Gravel, and others acutally having a minute or two to speak...
Tell me now, do us netroots also get credit for ABC's cropping Kucinich out of the debate photo on its site? Do we get credit for them burying the poll(s) that unscientfically say Kucnich won the last debate? Do we get credit for every other major corporate news outlet not covering anything but the "top candidates" or relegating acutal discussion on key issues to small paragraphs buried off the first page?
Just to reclarify the mission ahead, the day we stop letting corporate media decide who we vote for is the day we get a "win." Till then, we are a minority voice. It's good to feel self-important, but let's not over do it.
Dr Acula @ 8:
Um, no, it's not. Unless you're British.
scruzman @ 19:
http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=555
The above link refutes your argument better than ever I could.
Fox News Cancels Democrat Snubbed Debate
Fox News, increasingly shunned and challenged by Democratic candidates and progressive bloggers, has canceled a highly touted debate — a watershed development that could have implications on several fronts:
Fox News and a black political group s...
Well done!
The leading Democratic candidates should listen to the netroots. If Kerry did he would be waking up in the WH this morning.
Of course, it should be obvious that participating in a debate co-sponsored and aired on the Republican Propaganda Network is a very bad idea for Democrats. Even if the actual questions of the FAUX moderator weren't meant to show the candidates in a bad light (which would be unprecidented at that network), the pundits there have a history of talking all over the candidates and sneering at them. This is a no win situation. A total boycott of FAUX is reasonable.
Actually, the candidates should start fighting back against all MSM asshats (Timmah Russert I'm talking to you) who think that regurgitating Repug talking points is "journalism."
Sweet, I was hoping this would happen!
Screw Fox, they can spin it all they want, but there are consequences for naked partisanship, and any candidate they attack should simply respond that they don't consider Fox to be a valid news organization.
I hope that this is an indication that there is a struggle within the CBC to regain its self-respect and not, as they state, a scheduling conflict. If it is/em> a scheduling conflict, I would have to conclude that they have yet to find their collective mind, having mysteriously lost it somtime in the recent past.
BlueKnuckle @ 34:
Interesting article. They do raise some good points, but I still think many of their arguments rely on "wishful thinking", and I'm not sold on its central thesis. Their foundational claim is that "the problem is that people care about Fox News". My counterclaim is that people care about Fox News whether Democrats hold their debate or not. They tried to spin it as though Fox News is worthless if there's no opportunity for guests to shout over each other or liberals to throw tomatoes at, but that's off base because Fox News has their own cast of worthless Liberal punching bags. So the element of a looming bloodbath is always there. And even if it wasn't, Rush Limbaugh doesn't rely on the theatrics so much and he still seems to draw a crowd. Certainly Fox can take the Rush Limbaugh approach without the aid of Democratic candidates and still attract viewers.
Wait for it, the reichwing will use this story to accuse the Left of being racially biased.
Why on earth would CBC Institute agree to host a debate with Fox News anyway?
'Splain please.
[...] bloggers are claiming victory. Steve Benen @ Crooks and Liars: “The netroots worked very hard on this, and deserve a lot of credit for the [...]
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