Remember a couple of months ago, when news broke about memos to FoxNews staff from their Washington managing editor Bill Sammon? One, sent in the middle of the HCR debate, told staff to use terms like "government option" and never to say public option; the other was a directive to maintain a tone of "skepticism" when discussing global warming. Turns out another one came to light last week:
During the final days of the 2008 presidential race, Bill Sammon used his position as a top Fox News editor to engage in a campaign to link then-Sen. Barack Obama to "Marxists" and "socialism," internal Fox documents and a review of his televised appearances show.
On October 27, 2008, Sammon sent an email to colleagues highlighting what he described as "Obama's references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists" in his 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father. Shortly after sending the email, Sammon -- then the network's Washington deputy managing editor -- appeared on two Fox News programs to discuss his research and also wrote a FoxNews.com piece about Obama's "affinity to Marxists" that was disseminated throughout the conservative blogosphere.
[...]
By that evening, the subject line of Sammon's email had been inserted -- word-for-word -- into show notes written in preparation for the next morning's Fox & Friends, which featured an appearance by Sammon.
Eric Boehlert is right -- it is a little hard to realize for those of us who had been following the election so closely, and so were familiar with the hysterical anti-Obama messaging, but it really is rather amazing, in retrospect, how vehemently anti-Obama the wingnuts were and how unified they were in their talking points, from the get-go. This hammering by FoxNews on the OBAMA THE MARXIST!!!1! theme, from October 2008 on, helps explain why.
(h/t: Poli-Sci-Fi Radio)
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