Fox As Hound

 

Richard Blow is the former executive editor of George Magazine. He is author of American Son: A Portrait of John F. Kennedy, Jr., and is writing a book about Harvard University.

The weird thing about Fox suing Al Franken was the way they dissed the guy.

Perhaps you know the specifics. Franken has written a book attacking right-wing media called Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Bill O'Reilly's picture is on the cover, and O'Reilly and Franken quarreled at a recent book panel. Ever Zen, O'Reilly called Franken an idiot and told him to shut up.

Now Fox News Channel has filed a lawsuit charging that the book title is an illegal use of its trademarked phrase, "Fair and Balanced." (And you thought Fox just ignored that phrase.) According to The Chicago Tribune, the eight-inch thick legal filing points out that "Franken has recently been described as a C-level political commentator who is increasingly unfunny."

I couldn't help but wonder what authoritative source described Franken thusly, so I did a Nexis search for the phrase "C-level political commentator." That only turned up references to the lawsuit. A Google search had better luck: On June 4th, a conservative Web site called The Washington Dispatch ran a column by one C.K. Rairden, a freelancer who mostly writes for The Platte County Landmark.

That's a weekly paper in Missouri. "I don't know how many people will open this column to read it, as Al Franken's name alone does not spark much interest," Rairden wrote. "Franken is a 'C' level political commentator and usually unfunny as a comedian." Powerful stuff.

No offense to Mr. Rairden, but the folks at Fox must been a little desperate for insults to cite that one. (Why not just have O'Reilly call him an idiot again and quote that?) In trying to suppress Franken's book, Fox looks anxious -- and that anxiety has produced a watershed in the ongoing struggle between liberals and conservatives in the media.

Over the past couple of decades, conservatives have done well for themselves, both politically and financially, by attacking liberal domination of the media.

There was enough truth in the charge for them to gain traction, and there were enough people pissed at the media to consume this line of attack. But essential to the conservatives' critique was their status as outsiders, underdogs, plucky martyrs gasping for breath under the heavy boot of the lefty press.

Helped by the fact that he was overweight and geeky, Rush Limbaugh epitomized the movement; he spoke to the self-perceived losers of the world -- the white male ones, anyway -- and they believed what he said because he was one of them. When Rush succeeded, became powerful and wealthy, they loved him even more, because it gave them hope.

But in the past few years, the conservatives' ability to proclaim their loser-dom has become increasingly dubious. The facts just don't support it.

Fox is whooping CNN. Conservatives prowl the bandwidth of talk radio like drug dealers guarding their blocks. Over at The New York Times, Howell Raines has imploded, while Ann Coulter sits atop the newspaper's bestseller lists and rakes in multi-million dollar advances. (Though it's telling, I think, that Coulter's latest book, Treason, looks back to the 1950s for evidence of liberal crimes; at the moment, liberals just aren't that ominous.) Then there's that whole White House and Congress thing.

What are these people complaining about? Republicans are on top. What are they worried about? Well, when you're on top, there's only one direction to go.

That's the context for Fox's lawsuit. Conservatism was once a grass-roots movement, but Fox is turning to what conservatives' consider the liberals' last resort, the court system. That's what you do when you've got a lot to lose... and you're starting to lose it.


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Published: Aug 19 2003