Media Matters has uncovered even more internal Fox emails revealing a purported network-wide campaign to link Barack Obama to "Marxists" and "socialism" during his 2008 presidential race.
October of 2008 was a busy month for Fox News exec Bill Sammon, now the managing editor of Fox's Washington, D.C., bureau.
Media Matters has cataloged the multiple appearances he made on Fox News trying to tie Obama to socialism -- but more troublesome perhaps are his Fox News internal emails that continue to be leaked (some former co-worker has it in for him!).
For example, on October 27, 2008, Sammon sent an email to his Fox News colleagues with the subject heading "fyi: Obama's references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists in his autobiography, 'Dreams from My Father.' Plus a couple of his many self-described 'racial obsessions'..."
The body of the email contained the references -- and, unfortunately for Sammon, there weren't too many. His email only mentioned five somewhat tenuous references from Obama's book, e.g.:
"In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael of SNCC and Black Panther fame, speak at Columbia. At the entrance to the auditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature."
90 minutes after sending the email, Sammon appeared on the broadcast of Fox's LiveDesk to discuss the quotes, and later that day FoxNews.com posted a piece by Sammon under the headline: "Obama Affinity to Marxists Dates Back to College Days."
That was fast.
But Sammon apparently wasn't the only one at Fox attempting to ratchet up the socialist talk.
Another leaked email from Fox producer Elizabeth Fanning shows that staffers were encouraged to ask questions linking Obama to communism.
In an October 27, 2008 Fox & Friends segment on Obama's campaign, Steve Doocy asked Fox News' contributor Michelle Malkin, "Isn't this what happens in socialist countries?"
This question was regarding Obama's reported cancellation with WFTV (ABC's Orlando affiliate), following anchor Barbara West's interview with Joe Biden, where she asked him how Obama "was not being a Marxist" after his "spread the wealth" exchange with Joe the Plumber.
Doocy's question seemed like a spontaneous question -- but it wasn't. It was almost an exact replica of one of the five scripted questions sent around the night before by Fanning: "Isn't this what happens in Communist countries?"
This, by the way, is during the same month that Sammon said on LiveDesk:
Let me be clear: The media is biased. I have spent a lifetime in the media. I spent ten years as a White House correspondent surrounded by my friends from other major news organizations. They're liberals. They just are.
Indeed.
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