Broken Fox Boycott Leaves Dems Looking Dumb

When, a few weeks ago, I made the case that the Democrats' policy of shunning Fox News debates was silly and self-defeating, I overlooked one of the best arguments at my disposal: inevitability.

Boycotting Fox -- the leading all-news network by a comfortable margin -- was always bound to be a time-limited strategy, one that the winner would have to ditch in the general election, when the need to court potential cross-over voters comes into play. Still, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama allowed themselves to be led into folly by pander-king John Edwards.

With Edwards out of the picture, Clinton showed some foresight yesterday in agreeing to debate on Fox -- a move that makes her, not Obama, look like the kind of bridge-building candidate who can reach out to swing voters. (In fact, both of them have made multiple Fox appearances during the primaries, just not in debates.)

Obama hasn't yet responded to the latest Fox invitation, nor to press inquiries about it. I assume that means he's hunkered down with his advisors, trying to figure out how to avoid being outmaneuvered by Clinton while keeping the MoveOn and DailyKos left in his corner. The irony here is that, of the three leading Democrats, Obama was always the worst suited to the role of anti-Fox warrior, with all his talk of healing the partisan divide and learning from Republicans.

What have the Democrats accomplished with their nearly year-long boycott? Very little, besides deprive Fox of big ratings for the debates it would've hosted. As for the stated goal of delegitimizing the Republicans' favorite outlet, any gains they made in that regard are already being wiped out by the propaganda victory Fox is now enjoying. (Watch Chris Wallace* bragging about it on The Daily Show if you don't believe me.)

UPDATE, 2/7/07: Obama spokesman Bill Burton says, "We're still working on our schedule."

*This originally said "Chris Matthews," which was just plain wrong. If I had to guess, I'd say Chris Matthews was probably perfectly OK with the Democrats boycotting Fox.