You'd think the leader of the free world would have more important things to
worry about.

We are, after all, in the midst of a recession, two wars and a swine flu
epidemic. Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Russia is
rebuffing our overtures to cooperate in imposing sanctions on Iran. The
situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating amid a fraud-marred election and
White House indecision about a troop surge. Meanwhile, the dollar's value is
falling; Americans are struggling to hold on to their homes and jobs; and
Congress is flirting with a health care reform proposal that many consider a
cure worse than the disease.

But never mind all that. President Barack Obama has a serious issue to tackle.
After enjoying adoring, 99 percent content-free press coverage throughout his
campaign and recently winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his good intentions,
Obama has smelled a skunk at the garden party of his presidency. Irked that one
television network reports on his sagging poll numbers and tea-party critics
rather than sticking to the White House talking points parroted by such
bastions of objectivity as MSNBC, the conciliator-in-chief finally has decided
to get tough on a rogue regime. He has launched a full-scale, all-hands-on-deck
attack on ... Fox News.

After lamenting in June that "I've got one television station that is entirely
devoted to attacking my administration," Obama boycotted Chris Wallace's "Fox
News Sunday" show last month while visiting all of its competitors. He then
dispatched communications director Anita Dunn to explain on CNN that Obama does
not regard Fox as a "legitimate news organization" but as "the communications
arm of the Republican Party." As proof of Fox's bias, Dunn noted indignantly
that Wallace recently had fact-checked statements made by Obama administration
official Tammy Duckworth.

Not everyone shared the administration's outrage at this affront. So White
House officials upped the ante last week, taking to the airwaves to warn other
journalists about the dangers of following up on the critical stories about
Obama that Fox often breaks. White House senior adviser David Axelrod
admonished ABC's George Stephanopoulos to remember that Fox's news programming
is "really not news," so "other news organizations, like yours, ought not to
treat them that way, and we're not going to treat them that way." White House
Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel lectured CNN's John King on the importance of not
having "the CNNs and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox,
as if what they're trying to do [sic] is a legitimate news organization."

This sudden concern for the integrity of American journalism is puzzling coming
from an administration whose spokesperson recently was caught on video bragging
to an overseas crowd about Team Obama's ability to dictate coverage during the
election. As Dunn noted in January, "We controlled [press coverage] as opposed
to the press controlled it … Very rarely did we communicate through the press
anything that we didn't absolutely control."

Apparently, Obama and his handlers have learned that it is easier to control
media coverage while campaigning than while governing, just as it is easier to
make promises than to keep them. No wonder, then, that they have chosen to pick
a fight with that great bogeyman of the liberal imagination, Fox News. Perhaps
White House officials are hoping for a twofer from this feud: a chance to gin
up support from Obama's increasingly impatient base while distracting the rest
of America from his inaction on priorities foreign and domestic.

It's a time-honored political trick, and if any politician can pull it off,
Obama can. But sooner or later, this kill-the-messenger tactic will tire even
his strongest supporters. Then the president will be forced to stop complaining
about his critics and turn his attention to proving them wrong.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television and radio host and St.
Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.