Some more evidence that Fox News is not a news organization but actually the communications arm of the Republican Party has emerged. Sen. John Cornyn explained yesterday that Sharron Angle, the Republican nominee for Senate in Nevada wouldn't be talking to the press for “a few weeks”:
Cornyn echoed several of his previous statements suggesting Angle isn't quite prepared to face the media, and will be fairly sequestered, at least until she has a full staff of campaign veterans running the show for her.
“You're going to have complete 100 percent access to her, but I think it just makes sense, at some point that I think she needs to get staffed up and prepared,” Cornyn said. “I don't think anybody would be prepared for a race like this where 20 or 30 million dollars is going to be spent in negative advertising.”
I asked when he expected she'd be able to face a group of reporters without feeling the need to give 'em the slip. “I don't know, I mean I just think it's going to take a few weeks...but you know it's really up to her,” Cornyn replied.
Angle is apparently not ready for actual journalists, but she's ready for Fox News, so her June 14 interview with Fox News' Fox & Friends makes total sense. It featured Steve Doocy attempting to hide Angle's position in favor of “transition[ing] out” social security, and was soundly panned by the local Fox affiliate in Las Vegas (they called it “an interview rife with inaccuracies, softball questions and poor research”). Later that day, Angle appeared on Fox News' Hannity, where she took more softball questions from Sean Hannity, and promoted her website and asked Hannity's audience for donations.
As Sen. Cornyn noted, Angle is staying away from the real press, who might ask challenging questions and not attempt to coddle the candidate. Instead, she chose to make her post-primary appearances on Fox News, and the results were predictably softball affairs. Conservatives seem to know that if they want a softball non-news experience, the doors of Fox News appear to be wide open.