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In Taking On Fox, Democrats See Reward in the Risk
NY Times
By LORNE MANLY
October 1, 2006

THE Fox News Channel doesn't officially turn 10 until this week, but the Democrats have already begun doing their best to spoil the celebrations.

The party crashing began last Sunday, when former President Bill Clinton transformed an interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" into a finger-pointing tirade against what he called a "conservative hit job." Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, quickly released a statement applauding Mr. Clinton for standing up to what he described as a right-wing, bullying propaganda machine.

In separate appearances on Fox News over the next two days, Lanny J. Davis, a former special counsel to Mr. Clinton, and Barbara Boxer, the Democratic senator from California, mocked the news channel's trademarked motto of being "fair and balanced."

And on Wednesday Paul Begala and James Carville, Democratic commentators for CNN, engaged in more than five minutes of high-decibel debate on Fox with Bill O'Reilly about Mr. Clinton's appearance, daring Mr. O'Reilly to "come out of the closet" and admit Fox News is a "right-leaning, anti-Clinton network."

The attacks represent a new twist on the Democrats' complicated dance with the cable news channel. Though Fox News maintains that its reporting is down the middle, Democrats have long complained that the news channel operates like a public relations outpost of the Bush White House. But never before has that anger built into a mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it-any-more moment, and spilled over in such naked and sustained fashion onto Fox News itself.

"The Republicans are using Fox News to gin up their base, and now — for the first time — the Democrats are doing it, too," said Steve McMahon, a Democratic strategist with McMahon, Squier & Associates who handled Mr. Dean's presidential campaign.

Engaging Fox News in such an aggressive manner, however, may not be the smartest strategy. If there's a base that needs energizing for these midterm elections, it belongs to the Republicans, and a Clinton-led attack may only revivify them. And so far, there is just one clear beneficiary: Fox News. The news channel has highlighted the contretemps on many of its programs, boosting the ratings in the process.

Democrats do not view Chris Wallace as a partisan gunslinger, as they do some other Fox News personalities. But his questions about whether Mr. Clinton did enough to destroy Al Qaeda ignited simmering Democratic and Clintonian anger.

Democrats had been furious with White House attempts over the last few months to to portray Democrats as weaker on national security than Republicans. And defenders of the Clinton administration were furious about "The Path to 9/11," the ABC docudrama that they claimed depicted the administration in an unfair light. All this fed into last week's reaction, Democratic officials and strategists say. "I think it's important for us to call it what it is," said Karen Finney, communications director for the Democratic National Committee, speaking about the recent incidents. "We can't let conservatives and Republicans get away with painting us in a corner and mischaracterizing who we are and what we stand for."

The incendiary interview appeared on the same day the pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was leaked. And the two events provided an opportune moment to strike, Ms. Finney said.

Soon after the "Fox News Sunday" telecast, Mr. Dean mentioned both items in a combative statement. And the Democratic National Committee followed up Mr. Dean's statement with an e-mail fundraising appeal, complete with a YouTube link to the interview.

"I think you're seeing the beginning of an alternative Democratic approach," a desire to strike back hard, said Mr. Begala, a former Clinton adviser.

"Clinton tapped into something in the Democratic zeitgeist," Mr. Begala said. "We're really tired of being bullied, particularly by Fox."

Democrats have believed, nearly from the moment Fox News began in October of 1996, that the news channel was institutionally biased against them. Fox News officials have disputed such charges, saying the network is merely a corrective to what they contend is a pervasive liberal bias in the news media.

Nonetheless, most Democrats have believed the network could not be ignored. If no one appeared on their shows, who would make the Democratic case? The cable news channel, despite a fall-off in ratings over the past year, still towers over its competitors. And although the viewers who regularly watch Fox News are more likely to be Republican, Democrats and independents still turn up in significant numbers — 20 percent and 17 percent, respectively, compared with 34 percent who are Republicans — according to a recent survey from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Swing voters are important in some states, particularly the Northeast. How they react to the Democrats' more confrontational approach could help determine how far the Democrats get in their efforts to gain control of the House and Senate.

Some Democrats said they believe that a more muscular approach in taking on the Republicans could help them grab onto an issue that has been an Achilles' heel for the Democrats in recent elections: national security.

And that couldn't make some Republicans happier. "I think it puts national security front and center and reminds people that this administration is taking the fight to the terrorists and recognizes the threat America faces," something the Democrats do not, said Danny Diaz, Republican National Committee spokesman.

The Republican National Committee is doing its bit to spread that point of view. After the Clinton interview, it sent talking points to its grassroots membership and to the news media, and ramped up efforts to book people on TV and radio programs to comment on the debate.

And Fox News executives have not seemed to mind furnishing screen time to Democrats so they can bash the network. (Roger Ailes, the chairman and chief executive of Fox News and Fox Television Stations, was unavailable to comment for this article.)

After all, the ratings don't lie.

The first three days of the week saw primetime and daily increases of 20 percent and 13 percent, respectively, compared with the average over the previous four weeks. And "Fox News Sunday" got its best ratings in three years.

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