When Fox News aired its “Live Free Or Die: ObamaCare in New Hampshire” special, I called it a thinly-veiled gift to former Fox News contributor Scott Brown who just happens to be running for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire this fall. It turns out I was more right than I knew: Brown is actually using it as part of his campaign.
From Media Matters:
Brown’s campaign website states that he is hosting “a special screening” of the Fox News documentary Live Free or Die: Obamacare in New Hampshire on August 22 in Dover, New Hampshire. Brown’s campaign describes the special as “the documentary that” incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne “Shaheen doesn’t want you to see.” Brown also promoted the event on his Facebook page and Twitter account.
Fox likes to say that there’s a big difference between their news and opinion shows and that their news shows are objective. If that were really the case, then Fox would almost certainly be given pause by a senate candidate – one that was formerly a paid contributor to Fox – using its “objective” documentary as a campaign tool.
But it's almost certain Fox will not give it a second thought.
Ten years ago, those same “documentaries” were being used to market George W. Bush in his second campaign and to attack John Kerry every way they could.
It should be no surprise that GOP candidates, particularly ones as closely tied to Fox News as Scott Brown, are using that propaganda directly for the purpose it was intended.
I know, I know – who writes to newspapers? That’s the way we had to do it back in the “old days.”
