Delegitimizing the FOX is a worthwhile cause - getting access to the voters he needs is probably a bigger need right now.

His handlers shouldn't have made it seem that Obama was going to be combative BEFORE the interview took place.

No, Greg, you are kidding yourself. "Take Fox on" doesn't necessarily translate to "He's going to criticize Fox."

Nowhere in the IM the senior adviser sent you do the words 'criticize', 'confront', 'tough talk', etc, appear. You set yourself up to be disappointed on this one.

And I never said that you claimed he was obliged to follow through with your interpretation of the adviser's comments.

JimboF is right. When you "take on" a job, it doesn't mean you're fighting the job. Sorry, Greg, but Obama did take on Fox, and your title is wrong.

Greg,

You have missed the main point of this by a mile. The point is not to legitimize or delegitimize the Fox network. The point was to talk to the audience of Fox, the audience that is key to 'winning the blue-collar voter' you and your colleagues in the media have been obsessing about.

Never mind that the term "blue collar' is an anachronism since all of our blue collar factory job have long-since been shipped overseas.

But let's keep using the term, since it, you know, is so accurate.

But I digress.

The fact is, that you're focusing on the trees and missing the forest. There are -- how many? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? -- of people in that Fox audience who are probably as dismayed as most of us are by the horrible and criminally negligent way in which the neocons and their front men, Bush and Cheney, have run this country into the ditch. The obscene overspending by a Republican, the support of a bloat in government, especially in the security apparatus while agencies that protect us were gutted, are all issues we have in common with more traditional conservatives. It's important for Obama to let them see that he's not a radical and scary black man, because that's the image that Fox has been peddling so far. By calmly and rationally and respectfully addressing these questions, he has done what was necessary.

I don't think you are right on this one.

You've prgressed from merely repeating attacks against Obama to making up your own. Nice job, Greg.

And I clearly said in the post that he wasn't obliged to do this.

Oh - but now you're harping on him for not having been confrontational. So which is it? Seems to me like a huge case of schadenfreude, Greg. Looking to pounce on the smallest thing, you chose this.

When I heard Obama was going to "take on" Fox, I interpreted that to mean he was finally going to address that as a responsibility of his campaign - to "accept as a challenge", meaning, something difficult to do. Just so you're aware that there's far more than two ways to interpret that phrase.

We all know he went on FOX to reach out to the lower income white voters in Indiana where he now has to win. But he just can't do it. So there is Chris Wallace in the roundtable saying I gave him his chance. I think she hurt him in the last debate and in the closing days of the PA campaign in ways we can't quite grasp yet.

Greg, you seem to have made the mistake of assuming that taking on Fox necessarily meant getting into a slap-fest with them. Your assumption and your expectations were simply wrong. It doesn't reflect on Obama in the slightest. He didn't get red-faced and shake his finger at Chris Wallace like Bill Clinton did. He just calmly won him over by answering the questions that were asked. He didn't filibuster, he did't opportunistically spin. What he did was demonstrate that he is who he claims to be and that he'll talk with the Republicans to achieve comity and compromise.

The left-wing bloggers who opposed this interview need to grow the Hell up. Fox is not going to go away. The best we can hope for is for them to see the error of their ways and present the news in a more balanced way. But as long as they see the Democrats as the enemy, they'll continue to attack instead of reporting the news. I find it incredibly hypocritical of left-wing bloggers that they claim to support Obama's position on negotiating with the enemy, but he's not allowed to do an interview on Fox. You want blood? Choose Hillary. You want to see problems get worked out in a calm, deliberate way? Then Obama's your guy. Pick a side.

Depends on what the meaning of "take on" is. You've got your fixation. I think it means set the record straight, and so apparently did the Obama campaign. And nothing about his personal style would even suggest to anyone who's been watching this campaign that it was going to a slugfest. But who gives a crap anyway? Fox News is a blogosphere issue. Obama is running a campaign for the presidency. Take a pill, Greg.

Greg, dare I say your line of thinking is full of shit?

If you were looking for a smackdown from Obama today, you didn't get it. If you knew ANYTHING about politics you'd know that Obama was NEVER under anyone's obligation or expectation -- not even yours!!!! -- to do anything.

Maybe you need to turn WWF or WWE or pop in the DVD of Rocky or Fight Club.

Your argument is FLIMSY, young man. It is patently ridiculous -- I'll say it again -- on its face. If this is the best you can do, with regard to your reporting, you need to give it up.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GREG, STOP COMMENTING WITH SNARKY SHIT ON THE THREADS UNDER YOUR POSTS! HAVE YOU NO SHAME?

Sorry Greg, I get your back when I think your critics are unfair, but this time I think he has a point.

You put an awful lot of weight on an "unnamed campaign official" to set expectations, but I didn't hear the campaign push this anywhere else on any other news source. Forgive us for being skeptical that you're now being hard on what you otherwise would consider a solid performance because of a source you can't even name for us.