You can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding

Sigh. Proof that getting Democrats to do anything as a group is still like herding cats:

For Democrats, Debate on Fox Reveals Divide

WASHINGTON, May 26 — Four years ago, the leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus began looking for a television outlet to co-sponsor and broadcast a presidential debate to address the concerns of minority voters.

Only one news channel made an acceptable proposal, and an unlikely channel at that: Fox News, in what some Democrats viewed as an effort to associate itself with a group that could help it make good on its claim of presenting “fair and balanced” news coverage.

But now that relationship is being shaken by the decision of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina to shun the debate, a move that has exposed fault lines among two major constituencies of the Democratic Party. While the withdrawal by the candidates frustrated members of the black caucus, it mollified liberals who had objected to the involvement of Fox News, whose programming includes some of the most conservative and pro-Republican commentary on the air.

I have to admit that I can understand why the Congressional Black Caucus would think this might be a good deal. Any political group of any kind faces a kind of dual loyalty: they need to represent the group of people they speak for, but they also need to represent themselves, in order to get enough power and influence to make a difference. As the story points out, there were few networks jumping up and down to take the debates on (although it is interesting to me that Fox beat BET for the debates).

Nonetheless, they might wish to ask themselves where this is taking them. Fox's ratings have slipped recently. Their Republican-friendly, right-leaning tendencies are well documented in places like Media Matters for America. And it isn't simply Fox News. The whole Rupert Murdoch empire is largely a right-wing mouthpiece, which he is looking to add to in a major way.

This same news organization plays up to the Republican "base's" fear of brown people all the time. To wit:

On the March 29 edition of Hannity & Colmes, Fox News' Sean Hannity stated that the actions of protestors -- including "[p]eople holding the Mexican flag up" -- "seemed to be, in many, many ways, outrageous." Hannity subsequently asked a former adviser to Mexican President Vicente Fox to "condemn some of" the protestors' actions, but did not specify which actions

n the March 30 edition of Hannity & Colmes, Fox News analyst and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) stated that "the American people, frankly, when they see a huge crowd in a city carrying flags other than the U.S., I think they're pretty unimpressed, and frankly, a little bit irritated by the idea of people who are here illegally telling us they're going to blackmail our politicians into passing bad laws."

• On the April 2 edition of Fox News Co.'s Fox News Sunday, Fox News anchor Brit Hume stated that the sight of "tens of thousands of people demonstrating, waving foreign flags, on behalf of illegal immigration and against the idea that America should enforce its own laws" was a "repellent spectacle." Hume added that as a result, "reasonable Americans are probably having a difficult time finding anybody to root for in this debate."

All from MMfA (I know, I'm relying on them a lot here, but they do good work.)

While Fox is not the only news station spouting race-based nonsense by any means, their record on the issue is wider and longer, and with more purpose. Their alignment with the same political party that brought America the racist "Southern Strategy" is well established, despite their protests to the contrary. While I don't have any time for ideological purity, which I think is undesirable and impractical, and I certainly don't think that Democratic groups should march in any kind of mindless lockstep with one another, I do think it is reasonable to ask any Democratic Party oriented group what the long-term gain would be aligning themselves with a news organization so hostile to interests that are even vaguely liberal or Democratic.