Ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair admits to undue influence from Rupert Murdoch. “Once they’re against you, that’s it."

Courtesy of The Daily Beast:

Blair, who dominated British politics for a decade when his Labour government was in power from 1997 to 2007, described working under threat of running afoul of the country’s powerful news empires, which he described as relentless opponents. “Once they’re against you, that’s it. It’s full on, full frontal, day in, day out—basically a lifetime commitment,” he said. “With any of these big media groups, if you fall out with them, watch out. It is literally unrelenting.” 

As to how he dealt with the issue of press influence, Blair admitted that he chose to work with it, instead of trying to change it. “I took the strategic decision to manage this and not confront it,” he said. “But the power of it is indisputable.” 

Blair added that political leaders in Britain “have to be in a position where you are managing this major force,” saying the prospect of taking on powerful media interests “would have been a huge battle with little change of winning.” 

But Blair had one constant press ally during his tenure—the U.K. media empire of Rupert Murdoch, whose influence over the country’s politics has come under the spotlight as the phone-hacking scandal continues to develop. So far, the scandal has focused intense pressure on the current resident of 10 Downing Street, David Cameron, whose government has been accused of forging too close a relationship with Murdoch and his lieutenants. It was Blair, though, who famously flew to an island in Murdoch’s native Australia to address executives of Murdoch’s News Corp. in 1995, two years before the Murdoch papers switched their support to Labour ahead of Blair’s first election win. And it was Blair who became a godfather to one of Murdoch’s daughters after leaving office. On the stand today, Blair also admitted that he’d let Murdoch in through the back door for meetings at No. 10—a practice that has drawn Cameron considerable heat.

I quite literally read this with my mouth open in utter amazement at how clearly, and easily, Blair was reduced to a Rupert Murdoch lapdog.

I also firmly believe that Murdoch exercises a similar amount of influence over American Republican politicians as well. Essentially helping to dictate policy, such as manufacturing the Tea Party and shoving their faux agenda down the throats of the American people, and pressuring them to fall in line or risk having the power of Fox News destroy their political career.



The negative impact of Fox News on our political landscape cannot be overstated. They essentially demonstrated the reach of their power when they worked in collusion with Jeb Bush to steal the election for his brother George:

But in November, Fox News celebrates another milestone--the sixth anniversary of its role in the miscalls of election night 2000, the debacle that prompted all of the networks to project George W. Bush the winner in Florida at 2:20 in the morning after the election, and thus the next President of the United States. In fact, the vote count at the time of the projection showed the election was too close to call, and all the networks eventually rescinded their calls--but not before Al Gore had called Bush to concede. Later, Gore called back to un-concede, but that "flip-flop" was leveraged by Republicans and conservative media to create a hostile political environment in Florida, which ultimately proved fatal to Gore's efforts to get a full and honest hand recount in the state. A postelection analysis by a consortium of media outlets showed that had such a recount been conducted, Gore would have won Florida--and the presidency--by anywhere from 42 to 171 votes. 

Fox's role in the miscall was pernicious because it was prompted not by a careful analysis of vote data but by George Bush's brother, Jeb Bush, who persuaded his cousin at Fox News, John Ellis, to make the call. Ellis was the head of the network's election night decision team, the group responsible for analyzing election data provided to each network by the now-defunct Voter News Service (VNS), and for deciding whether the network should project a winner in each state. Earlier in the evening, all the networks had projected Gore the winner in Florida, but they retracted their projections within two hours. At the time, it was not clear that whoever won Florida would win the presidency, and little damage was done to either candidate by that miscall.

As if that were not enough it appears that Murdoch almost certainly used his vast influence, which Tony Blair freely admits to, over the Blair administration to force Britain to join with the Bush administration in their attack on Iraq. Which Murdoch believed would lower oil prices:

Most revealing of all was Murdoch's reference to the rationale for going to war, blatantly using the o-word. Politicians in the United States and Britain have strenuously denied the significance of oil, but Murdoch wasn't so reticent. He believes that deposing the Iraqi leader would lead to cheaper oil. "The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy...would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country." 

He went even further down this road in an interview the week before with America's Fortune magazine by forecasting a postwar economic boom. "Once it [Iraq] is behind us, the whole world will benefit from cheaper oil which will be a bigger stimulus than anything else." 

Well THAT certainly did not work out as planned now did it?

No matter how you look at it Murdoch has had a devastating affect on journalism, politics, and human rights all over the world. In fact, all things being equal, he should be arrested and brought up on charges by the World Court.

And while that is happening his media empire should be disassembled and its assets sold off to competing, yet far more reputable, media outlets.

However that is still a fantasy since, despite the scandals in Britain, News Corp still seems to have survived, and Fox News has remained thus far untouched. (Though I have little doubt they are in it up to their eyeballs.)

The problem is that as long as Fox News remains on the airwaves in the US they will continue to disrupt out political system, and block President Obama's agenda, until they can again get another GOP puppet in the White House to push forward the Murdoch, and Roger Ailes, agenda.

 And it looks like they already have the next possible one in their clutches.

Though Romney told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham a few days later that Fox News also has "a lot of independent" and Democratic viewers, the suggestion to donors was that his campaign's media strategy should extend beyond Fox News in the general election. And yet, that's still where Romney has headed most frequently since Rick Santorum, his chief Republican rival, dropped out of the race. 

Since that Palm Beach fundraiser, Romney has appeared six times on Fox News -- more than on all other national broadcast and cable networks combined. Romney also recently gave his first interview following a controversial Washington Post piece, which reported that he had bullied closeted gay classmates in high school, to "Fox & Friends" co-host Brian Kilmeade, who questioned the paper's motivations on his radio show. 

Romney has already learned that the ONLY place he can safely screw up, or explain past screw ups, is Fox News.  So once again Murdoch holds the strings on his next pick as the Presidential marionette.