The lyric about the fox knowing “many things but the hedgehog knowing one big thing” reads like a line about Fox News. We can know many things and disagree about what we think we know. We can disagree about one important thing, the network’s call of Arizona, without calling for a boycott of the network. We can also agree that no other network has a record of criticizing President Trump’s enemies and questioning the friends of the president’s critics.
My criticism is on the record, too, but I choose to review the whole record. I respect Laura Ingraham’s advocacy, and admire Leo Terrell’s career as an advocate. I revere Tucker Carlson’s honesty, including his prescience about George W. Bush, and Sean Hannity’s zeal.
I have no interest in switching channels in the way NeverTrumpers switch sides, because I detest Jeffrey Toobin and Rachel Maddow. (I would sooner buy the former a bathrobe than watch him disrobe, just as I would rather rely on a seeing-eye dog than see the latter maintain her dogmatic faith in hoaxes.)
My interest is in Fox’s defense of the president’s words and actions, in contrast to those who continue to distort the two. That other outlets want to censor what the president says, that other outlets want to attack what the president does, that other outlets do not want the president to have an outlet, period, is a reminder of the stakes in the outcome of this election.
No other network of similar influence wants to pursue the allegations against Hunter Biden, or debunk the allegations Democrats lodge against President Trump.
No other major network distinguishes between energy in the executive—the energy of this executive, the president of the United States—and the failure of state executives to lead. The leadership crisis is real, with riots and murders in New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
No other network wants to credit President Trump for advancing the development of a vaccine for COVID-19.
No other network wants to discredit those who believe science is a license for specific groups to ignore science, as is the case with Antifa and Black Lives Matter.
Fox may be wrong some of the time, but its competitors are wrong all of the time.
In their hostility to the Right, with firmness in the rightness of bad ideas, Fox’s competitors seek to dictate the news. This fact trumps all other news.