NBC News director: Has Fox crossed the line regarding McCain?
Huckabee joining Fox News as political commentator
Former Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has been hired by Fox News Channel as a political commentator, and Fox's critics are certain to raise the roof at the network's taking on another key supporter of Senator John McCain. Fox previously drew fire after hiring Karl Rove, a former senior adviser to President Bush, as a political analyst in February.
Bill Shine, Fox's senior vice president of programming, issued a statement saying, "Gov. Huckabee's campaign experience and knowledge of politics makes him a great addition to our ongoing election coverage." Financial terms of the agreement were not released.
Huckabee's own statement said, "I hope to bring the unique perspective from 'inside the dragon's belly' as well as to try and speak for the millions of hardworking middle-class Americans who really do feel that their voices are not being heard."
Huckabee, an ordained Baptist preacher who served as governor of Arkansas for 10 1/2 years, won several caucuses despite a financially strapped campaign but dropped out of the Republican race in March when McCain clinched the nomination. He has been mentioned as a potential running mate for McCain and has formed a political action committee to help raise money for McCain and other Republicans.
Huckabee is known for his sense of humor, but it got him in trouble last month when he joked at the NRA convention, following a loud noise from backstate, "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He's getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he -- he dove for the floor."
Fox has been criticized for overlooking Karl Rove's ties to McCain while employing his services as a commentator. Amanda Terkel and Matt Corley recently observed in Salon that "Fox News hosts routinely introduce Rove as a 'former senior advisor to President Bush,' 'the architect,' a 'political wizard' and a 'famed political consultant,' But never has he been introduced as he should be -- as an informal advisor and maxed-out donor to John McCain's presidential campaign."
"The 'most influential pundit' in America, as Fox likes to trumpet, should have to play by the same rules as other high-profile political analysts," they continued. "For example, Paul Begala and James Carville are regularly identified as supporters of Hillary Clinton when they appear on CNN. But Rove has been able to act as an independent observer while criticizing Clinton and Barack Obama, McCain's likely general election opponent."
Despite multiple press reports, Rove has denied he is an adviser to McCain.
Fresh questions about Fox News were raised following their exclusive airing on Thursday night of a McCain town hall event held in front of a group of hand-picked supporters.
The event was originally billed as bipartisan, with Senator Barack Obama being invited to participate. After Obama declined, the McCain campaign first threatened to indicate his absence with an empty chair but scrapped the idea after Fox News took over production.
Fox continued to describe the town hall as bipartisan, with an audience consisting of "Republicans, Democrats, and independents" asking questions that would not be screened in advance. Only afterwards did Fox offer a "clarification" admitting that "the McCain campaign distributed tickets to supporters, Mayor Bloomberg, who of course is a registered Republican, and other independent groups."
As John Avarosis at AmericaBlog explained, "Basically FOX was duped into giving McCain an hour of free air time to campaign. Or, maybe FOX knew it all along, and since they couldn't legally donate an hour of free air time to help the Republican presidential candidate, they nudge-nudge-wink-wink were 'tricked' by McCain into doing it."
NBC News political director Chuck Todd appeared equally disgusted when he told Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC's Morning Joe, "This whole thing, I felt like we crossed a line here. ... It felt like, wait a minute here, does a news organization want to be comfortable just putting up cameras exclusively?"
"All of the questions were, 'Why are you so great?'" Brzezinski noted.
"When you promise exclusivity and relinquish editorial control," Todd concluded, "that's a new world that I don't think any of us want to be a part of yet."
(with wire reports)
This video is from MSNBC's Morning Joe, broadcast June 13, 2008.
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