Huck Imagines a World Without Fox News

Former Republican governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee gave up a pretty candid comment yesterday on his radio show that really won't surprise too many people.

Huckabee suggested that minus Fox News Americans would think Obama is doing a great job.

Speaking about America’s media landscape in general, Huckabee suggested that without Fox News acting as a counterweight to “mainstream media,” most Americans “will assume that Obama really is just doing a great job and he just can’t get those crazy Republicans to help him out.”

Like I said, nothing shocking at all. But there are a couple things Huck is taking for granted here.  The latest CNN poll has President Obama at 52% approval.  In other words, most Americans already support the job he's doing despite Fox News trying their darnedest to bring him down.

Secondly, without Fox News Americans wouldn't think anything.  Republicans would though. Republicans would no longer have the most watched news program in the world touting lies like Obama is on a spending binge, or that Obama has grown government to unprecedented levels, or that Obama is a secret Muslim that hates America, or that Obama hates white people, or that Obama had secret brain surgery.  None of that would be going on without Fox News.  Or at least wouldn't be going on at the level it is currently.

Finally, the whole premise to Huck's comment is the classic tale of Republican ideology concerning Fox News. Republicans really believe that Fox News acts as a balance beam against the liberal media.  They believe all other forms of media are liberal tree huggers and that only Fox counters such bias.  They counter it not by pandering a Republican theme.  No they believe Fox counters the liberal bias by reporting the Truth.  If the Truth just so happens to lean Republican then so be it.  You can't argue with the Truth.

"People who watch Fox News really believe that they are engaged in a process that separates them from all the people who don't watch Fox News, namely that of Truth. These people believe that Fox gives them an access to truth that is denied to Americans who are brainwashed by the mainstream media. They really believe that Fox News is not just a network that counteracts the biased liberal media, or even a network that reports the stories that the liberal media ignore, but the only vehicle for Truth that exists."