Sour grapes between rival media outlets MSNBC and FOX News: While big-name pundits from the left-leaning network were reportedly in a meeting with President Obama Tuesday regarding the “fiscal cliff,” this morning’s Fox & Friends panel mocked that the meeting was really an opportunity for President Obama to “thank” the MSNBC hosts for his re-election .
Tuesday afternoon, MSNBC hosts Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, and Al Sharpton were spotted visiting the White House, with Schultz tweeting that they were there to talk about the fiscal cliff. A White House spokesperson said that the meeting also included a number of other “influential progressives” with the intent to “discuss the importance of extending the Bush middle-class tax cut.”
The visit raised a few hairy eyeballs, as MSNBC has been criticized in the past for being a bit too close (even biased) in favor of President Obama.
Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, and Gretchen Carlson, the hosts of the FOX program Fox & Friends , talked about the meet-up today, asking why President Obama is doing a press blitz with left-leaning publications instead of solving the fiscal cliff problem with congressional Republicans.
“I’m shocked by that,”Kilmeade said. “To invite five talk show hosts in…all from the same channel? That’s outrageous.”
Carlson disagreed: “I’m not surprised by it at all. That station’s delivering the message of this administration, so it makes sense.”
“If you think about it,” Kilmeade added, “the president has said he’s not talking to Republicans, unless they agree to raise the raise. He hasn’t talked to Majority Leader [Eric] Cantor in over a year. But yet it’s time to meet the talk show hosts on another channel. That’s incredible.”
“Well, maybe it was a thank-you of sorts for the re-election,” Carlson said.
Here’s the Fox & Friends video via Mediaite , but we want to know what you think. Is FOX just being whiny, or is President Obama meeting with left-leaning journalists and pundits a bit sketchy? Sound off!
