War with FOX was a trick meant to distract us?

The "war" itself is laughable, for a number of reasons. The first is that all presidents do this to one extent or another. Press access is not a constitutional right or anything, meaning that the White House is free to invite anyone it wants into the press room, and exclude anyone it wants. Secondly, it's not "unprecedented" in any way, shape, or form. White Houses criticize the press all the time, and sometimes kick them off official planes, or completely deny them access in retaliation for stories they've run. It happens all the time, from both Republican and Democratic presidents. Anyone who thinks differently just doesn't have all that good a memory.

But the final reason why the whole thing is so ludicrous is calling Obama's White House "Nixonian" in its dealings with Fox News. This is laugh-out-loud funny, because Roger Ailes, the man who runs Fox News was Richard Nixon's media advisor during his first successful campaign for the White House, in 1968. So you've got the man who designed Nixon's press policies now being held up as the victim of (as conservative critics say) the same exact press policies being used against him. . . 

. . . Which brings me back to the real point I'm trying to make here -- why did the White House choose this moment to pick a fight with Fox News? This wasn't a slip of the tongue by one person up there, it seems more like a concerted effort. So what are they trying to distract the media's attention from this particular week? Or, more ominously, why is the White House throwing such political red meat to their base at this particular time? Is it to distract progressives from something the White House is doing behind its back?

My guess (which could ultimately prove to be wrong, of course) is that this whole fake (but shiny... oh, so shiny!) distraction was waved in front of the media in order to give some elbow room to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid as they are doing the toughest work yet on healthcare reform legislation. That has been the real story of the week, even though it is mostly dueling rumors and leaks (so far). Obama showed a masterful ability to distract Republicans earlier this year, by pushing so many issues simultaneously that the Republicans couldn't react to all of them with sufficiently indignant rage, because there were just too many things for them to focus on. Rage diluted is rage denied, in other words.

You could even call it a variation on Ailes' "orchestra pit theory." In Roger Ailes' own words:

If you have two guys on a stage and one guy says, "I have a solution to the Middle East problem," and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?

Providing a center-ring tiger fight for everyone in the Washington media circus to focus on has taken the spotlight off the closed-door negotiations which will ultimately decide what the healthcare reform bills from the House and Senate will look like. This is serious, serious horse-trading, and the last thing Pelosi and Reid need right now is screaming Republicans with nothing better to talk about. Hence, the Fox News tempest in a teapot was served up instead.