Glenn Beck to White House: "Call Me"

Something has  happened recently that most of us never thought possible: the White House has actually been engaged in a smear campaign against an entire television network. Fox News, the Obama administration says, is not even a “real news channel.”

Of course, if one believes that heavily biased MSNBC is a “real” news channel, one’s views may rightfully be called skewed and therefore less than credible — but let’s put that aside for now.

The goal of the smear campaign is twofold: first and foremost, the White House wants to discredit Fox News. Unlike its competitors — such as CNN and CBS — Fox stirred up one controversy after another involving key Obama allies and advisers. Without Fox, former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones — a self-identified communist revolutionary who loathes America — would still be in office.

Secondly, one cannot help but get the impression that the White House is trying to bully Fox into submission. They want Fox to believe that image problems will cause its ratings to drop significantly. The message: Stop criticizing Obama and the people he has surrounded himself with, or find yourself without an audience.

Glenn Beck — and the entire Fox News channel with him — does not appear terribly impressed. Beck mocked the White House Tuesday by installing and displaying in his studio a bright red phone — similar to the infamous red phone of the Cold War era — and telling White House press secretary Robert Gibbs to call him the next time he believes Beck makes an inaccurate statement. Beck’s feisty attitude should give us all hope that he will continue to be critical of the Obama administration.

But there is reason to fear for Fox nonetheless; the network might be powerful and influential,  but it is difficult to see how it can resist a ruthless White House determined to isolate, ridicule, smear, and even annihilate it, much longer. Color me perturbed.