We Newshounds have created countless blog posts about the furious and exaggerated outrage statements made by the folks at Fox News. Take, as just one example of about fifty million, Michelle Malkin going purple over President Obama’s use of children as "human shields" in his gun control press conference. Now at least one conservative columnist is fed up with the vitriol from the right.  

A few days ago, CNN commentator Erick Erickson urged fellow conservatives to move into more substantial areas of debate. "Conservatives, frankly, have become purveyors of outrage instead of preachers for a cause," he wrote. "Who the hell wants to listen to conservatives whining and moaning all the time about the outrage du jour?" Not only is it exhausting, said Erickson, it doesn’t work; it sure didn’t work in the last election.

Erickson didn’t mention any media outlet by name, but in a blog post from today’s Media Matters, Eric Boehlert called it the "Fox News Outrage Model." "Being outraged," he writes, "... has become a signature of the far right movement over the last four years. It's also blossomed into Fox News' entire business model. Fox News makes a pile of profits each year overreacting to imagined Obama slights." Have they forgotten that the sainted Mr. Reagan was popular for being a "feel-good" president? There's isn't much feel-good feeling in Fox's stable of whiners and moaners and bitchers.

Do you think they’ll change their ways? I doubt it. Fox News and its like-minded buddies cling to the outrage model, like someone who won’t give up those old shoes even if they’re full of holes and causing blisters. They'll probably turn on the critics instead, as they've turned on Colin Powell who, last week on Fox and Friends, Laura Ingraham called, among other things, a “weapon of mass destruction”. 

In truth, gentle reader, I won't be unhappy if Fox sticks to the outrage model. It'll probably reduce the Republicans' chances of climbing out of the hole they've dug for themselves.