I’ve held off on commenting on this for a good long while, mostly because it seemed like a terrible waste of everyone’s time. The Obama administration keeps taking hits at FOX because it’s an easy target. And FOX pitches a fit over it because pretending to be brutalized by the White House makes for good ratings. But as far as I can tell, the center of this “controversy” isn’t really a serious debate.

I mean, if at this point, you’re still convinced that FOX values solid journalism over thinly-veiled xenophobia, conspiracy theories, rumor-mongering, ad hominem attacks and all sorts of other clownish antics, than either A) you have never watched a television or logged onto the Internet in your life, or B) you think Barack Obama is a Muslim, and there is absolutely no hope for you.

That being said, while the debate itself is painfully banal, how it’s being approached by the various interested parties, is kind of fascinating. In a depressing way, that is.

For one thing, there’s the aggressive defense being mounted by former Bush administration officials and other prominent Republicans. Their heavy investment in this highlights what I think is one of the more interesting facets of the network. While MSNBC is frequently described by its detractors as “liberal” (You know the whole network’s a bunch of pinkos because Rachel Maddow has a show–never mind the three straight hours of Joe Scarborough every. Goddamn. Morning.), nobody claims that they’re a wing of the Democratic Party. The common complaint is more that they’re ideologically slanted.

And to be clear, I have absolutely no problem with ideologically slanted reporting, as long as it’s accurate. But, Glenn Beck’s pseudo-populist Ayn-Rand-meets-L.-Ron-Hubbard batshittery aside, FOX is far more partisan than it is ideological. That’s why they routinely echo GOP talking points.

So the Republicans defend them, and get more airtime (and for paid contributors such as Karl Rove, presumably more cash) as a result. Meanwhile, the Obama administration, rather than having to argue with rational, intelligent critics, can spend all of their time deflecting attacks from a bunch of functionally illiterate talking hairpieces. It’s win-win!

Meanwhile, a lot of other journalists working for widely read, more respectable media institutions are defending FOX, which is a deeply depressing phenomenon to observe. I mean, Helen Thomas? Really?

I think Serwer’s going a little easy on them when it comes to the reason why, although it’s still understandable. While a constant stream of invective from FOX might be a laughing matter for the White House, it isn’t for individual journalist who value their jobs, and I can’t help but wonder if this defense has something to do with the fact that journalists have been cowed into avoiding going after the network.

Or, perhaps more disturbingly, it’s because FOX’s shoddy journalism has been normalized. Sure, despite what Karl Rove says, MSNBC might not just be a left-wing version of FOX (some of their commentators are ideologically liberal, but they’re not Democratic spokespeople, and saying the network is liberal ignores the three straight hours of Joe Scarborough they foist upon an unsuspecting nation every goddamn day), but they still bring in the dough by focusing more on entertaining and pyrotechnics than solid journalism. There’s one exception to this–Rachel Maddow–but practically all of the “personality” programming on both CNN and MSNBC is shallow and egregiously stupid, while not quite reaching the depths of insanity that FOX has.