You think the Obama White House hit a nerve over the weekend when it purposefully left Fox News Sunday off the president's generous list of Sunday talk-show appearances?
The subsequent whining and childish name-calling from Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace became incessant and, of course, revealed more about the bitter and bruised host than it did the White House. No doubt the pity party that the thin-skinned journalist threw for himself in the wake of the embarrassing snub was genuine. But it went on for so many days and became so consuming that it seemed there was more to it than Wallace being forced to watch the Obama newsmaking parade from the sidelines.
I think the slow-motion temper tantrum perhaps reflected Wallace's larger realization that his days of being taken seriously as a journalist are fading and that he can no longer be associated with the collectively unhinged Fox News family and maintain any dignity in the process. (Wallace's Sunday program airs on Fox TV, the entertainment sister to Fox News.)
Wallace realizes his days of having it both ways -- of being able to cash Rupert Murdoch's annual seven-figure checks without being tarred by Fox News' unique brand of idiocy -- are over, that the jig is up. Not only does the White House not care about Wallace's perennially last-place Sunday show, which functions as an in-house RNC broadcast and is watched by about as many people, but there's little indication that Wallace is still viewed as an important player within the Beltway press crowd.
Read the full Media Matters column here.