What is Obama's FOX News Strategy?

The Obama administration has taken a fair amount of grief for its campaign to marginalize Fox News, saying the cable network is "not a news organization" but rather "the communications arm of the Republican Party."

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, not a fire-breathing conservative, calls it "dumb on multiple levels" – a distraction from policy messages, a boost to Fox ratings, and, she writes, "it deprives the White House, to the extent it refuses to provide administration officials to appear on the cable network, of access to an audience that is, in fact, broader than hardcore Obama-haters."

Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution scholar on White House press relations going back decades, says, "It makes them in the White House look terribly political, and political means petty in our lexicon."

The White House has also opened itself up to charges that it is creating an "enemies list," à la President Richard Nixon – a charge made on the Senate floor Wednesday by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) of Tennessee, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate with a reputation for collegiality. He also cited recent administration criticism of the US Chamber of Commerce, the insurance industry, and the insurance company Humana, among others. - ABC News Story