Things I Like Are Cool – Things I Hate Suck

Beavis and Butthead had a very simple rule for cool:

“Things I like are cool.  Things I hate suck.”

Never mind the circular reasoning, nor the a priori consequences. For most of us, we live with the inconsistency anyway.

However, when it comes to policy and governance, we expect a little better. Particularly when the argument at hand is squarely on the shoulders of defining the Objective from the Subjective.

Which brings us to this fascinating article from the New York Times, about the growing war between the White House and the part of Fox News that does news instead of opinion.

In recent weeks, Fox has been snubbed by the administration. The story details a frank and secret meeting between David Axelrod and Roger Ailes, that appeared to have cooled things a bit – until flaring up again.

Telling, is this admission about the squabbling:

“We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional news organization,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the deputy White House communications director.

There are two issues loaded into this simple declaration.

First is the use of the phrase “aided and abetted.” True, competitors like Jake Tapper questioned the administration about how Fox was being singled out. But “aiding and abetting” sounds like criminal language, and was not used by accident. It’s a clear hint that opposing this administration is akin to being rogue, if not downright illegal.

But let’s get beyond the connotations of the phrase, and instead focus on the circular reasoning it represents. The nature of the argument is thus:

• Fox News is not objective, but brings a subjective slant.
• ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and CBS are all objective.
• ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and CBS all agree that Fox News is a news organization.

Now, if several news outlets are in agreement on a set of facts, you would think they are objectively telling you the truth.

Yet, in this case, while accusing Fox of carrying a subjective agenda, the Obama White House also accuses the rest of the media for perpetuating that fiction.

Who is being Objective and who is being Subjective here?

Exacerbating this sentiment was the admission by many of those mainstream outlets, including the Times, that it was not sufficiently in touch with what was being reported on Fox:

Executives at other news organizations, including The New York Times, had publicly said that their newsrooms had not been fast enough in following stories that Fox News, to the administration’s chagrin, had been heavily covering through the summer and early fall — namely, past statements and affiliations of the White House adviser Van Jones that ultimately led to his resignation and questions surrounding the community activist group Acorn.

The real complaint, then, is that Fox news has an agenda that the “mainstream (non-partisan) media” then adopted as worthy of interest.

I guess that must be the enabling aiding-and-abeting behavior.