Dems Dump FOX Nevada Debate [VIDEO]

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 3:00 PM on March 9, 2007.

The Democratic leader in the Senate and the Nevada Democratic Party have just announced the cancellation of the highly-controversial, Fox-sponsored presidential debate.

(Of course, the Democrats should never allow the laughably-Republican FOX to lay any official claim to Democratic anything, let alone a showcase of its leadership in the lead up to an election, but...)

The dealbreaker, according to Dems, was remarks made by Fox President Roger Ailes last night, likening Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden (video, right) -- a move that piles idiocy atop idiocy given the fact that his network shamefully pushed a similar fraudulent story recently; since debunked and artfully packaged by Robert Greenwald in this VIDEO.

Mr. Ailes was receiving a First Amendment Leadership Award.

As we reported here a couple of days ago, John Edwards had already backed out, saying that "We're definitely going to debate in Nevada, but we don't see why this needs to be one of them."

Then, yesterday, Harry Reid distanced himself from the decision to work with FOX in the first place, telling bloggers "I don't like FOX News," while PoliticsTV declined FOX's invitation to webcast the debate stating that "FOX’s offer was as one-sided as a Bill O’Reilly diatribe." FOX had demanded that all re-broadcast rights remain the property of FOX.

On top of these high-profile criticisms were a series of campaigns working vigorously at the local and national levels to make this happen: A MoveOn petition charging that "FOX is a mouthpiece for the Republican Party, not a legitimate news channel" amassed 265,000 signatures, BlogPac launched its own campaign -- assisted by AlterNet and numerous blogs -- and local Nevada Democrats passed a resolution calling on the state Dems to drop FOX.

It seems pretty clear that the power of the netroots and local politics have asserted themselves as influential emerging forces yet again. After all, earlier today the Nevada Democratic Party's Spokeswoman, Kirsten Searer told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that: "We have no intent to sever [our] relationship [with FOX] at this point."

Matt Stoller, president of BlogPac and major netroots organizer, commented: "The lies of FOX News and Roger Ailes have no place in public discourse, journalism, or the Democratic Party presidential debates... FOX sees truth as the enemy, and misinformation as a tool to hurt their political opposition."

Tagged as: election08, debate, democratic party, fox

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.