President Obama and Al Gore have been whining about Fox News lately, and Howard Kurtz has had enough. Dislike the network all you want, but it's successful where Gore's Current TV wasn't. "Isn't that the free market at work?" writes Kurtz for CNN. But the thing is, even Fox's success has its limits. So when Obama complains that Fox and Rush Limbaugh make it difficult for Republicans to work across the aisle with Democrats, Kurtz can't help but call that ridiculous. "After all, [Obama's] got the biggest bully pulpit of all."
Sure, Fox and Limbaugh have influence, but Obama "has an army, a navy, and a bunch of nuclear weapons, not to mention an ability to command the airwaves at a moment's notice," Kurtz points out. "And he's complaining about a cable channel and a radio talk-show host?" Not only do those outlets speak to "relatively modest audiences," but let's not forget that much of the rest of the media leans left. And collectively, "ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, the New York Times, and the Washington Post ... have far more weight than Fox, talk radio, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page." Click for Kurtz's full column. (More Fox News stories.)