FOX Honcho Talks Smack on Revote

Over the years my opinion of FOX News anchor John Gibson has evolved. Particularly because he can now be such a formidable interviewer - his stock has been rising. I relied on his series of reports (and book of the same name) entitled “Hating America – The New World Sport” – while braving the onslaught of venomous Anti-Americanism broadcast by the BBC World Service while traveling in Africa last Spring.

More recently, during the late stages of the 2004 Presidential Campaign – when Gibson’s interview of Liberal Brahmin (and shadow Secretary of State) Richard Holbrooke on the last-gasp Kerry effort to create scandal regarding missing Iraqi explosives - prompted the neutralizing Holbrooke admission: “I don’t know the truth” – proved pivotal in ending Kerry’s chances. Because of that, Gibson can be viewed as impressive by any standard.

So I always see it as something of a compliment when Gibson heads our way to do talk radio – like he has this week on KVI. Yesterday, however, was surreal - as Gibson said Republicans should back down and go away on the revote litigation – that they had, in effect, overplayed their political hand. I say Gibson’s just plain wrong on that, and here’s why:

This generation of Republicans has never been more united – and Dino Rossi is the reason for that unity. Look, I hold a center left political perspective, but I have been a Republican since watching Ronald Reagan’s historic swearing-in on the west front of the Capitol in 1981 – the day the Hostages were freed in Iran. It was truly morning again in America. Rossi, and Reagan before him, are uniters. We need to support our Champion. And the Revote challenge does just that.

Like Gibson, some of our elected Republicans urge to take that feeling of sympathetic support (like you, I regularly hear from enormously disaffected Democrats), and go on to win another day. Fold your battle flags, they say, and come out strong in two years. Well, these are not mutually exclusive ideas. I say, do both!

This from John Fund in yesterday’s Opinion Journal:

"If you want to get on local news, it's easier to be in a freak accident than to run for local office," says Marty Kaplan, a professor at the University of Southern California who worked on the study. The most extreme example occurred in Seattle, where 95% of all local newscasts ignored the state's hotly contested race for governor. "Time spent on teasers, bumpers and intro music" on Seattle local newscasts outweighed airtime devoted to the gubernatorial race by 14 to 1, concluded researchers. Given that Republican Dino Rossi surprised everyone by battling Democrat Christine Gregoire to a near-tie (an outcome still being challenged by Mr. Rossi in court) some Republican wags are joking that no local news coverage of their candidates may literally be good news for the GOP.

Lo and behold, looking at today’s Seattle Times, if there is a single byline written on the revote, I sure can’t find it.

John Fund has consistently reported on this story, and assiduously reminded readers of the national angle here with regard to the Red State/ Blue State dynamic. Mr. Gibson, where have you been? Under Dino Rossi’s leadership, the “upper left-hand corner” has become a quilt of Right-Wingers, NeoCons, Left-Center “Dan Evans” Republicans, Libertarians and “Dinocrats” poised to send this state back into the red. The Democrats may complain about the heat from the revote bonfire, but it is shining a lot of light as well – so bright, in fact, that FOX News just might be able to see it from inside the Beltway. So please, Mr. Gibson:

You report. We’ll decide.

(Hat tip to Sound Politics reader RiceRPFP)