By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Analyst

Oct. 19, 2009 – This latest war of words between Fox News and the Obama White House in my view is a no-win situation; Fox News is never going to do positive stories about the administration and the administration can’t waste time battling a 24-hour cable news network.  But it seems things heated up last week when President Barack Obama’s communications director, Anita Dunn, told CNN that Fox was viewed by the administration as “a wing of the Republican Party.”

Anita Dunn’s words apparently set off what followed over the weekend with Fox News Channel calling foul and White House staff not backing down. 

Every political junkie will tell you they watch all the cable news channels to “keep up” and usually admit they check out Fox News to get the Republican spin and “opinion” on the issue of the day.  Fox’s stock and trade is anti-Obama stories and dissing most Democrats and their policies, so I’m not sure why they care what the White House says.

Dunn said the administration isn’t cutting the network out – they just deal with them knowing they have a predisposed perspective.   Dunn said, Obama “has appeared on Fox shows in the past (and) he certainly will appear on them in the future.” 

One of Obama’s top advisers, David Axelrod, restated on ABC’s “This Week” that administration officials will appear on Fox even as he reiterated that the network should not be treated as a news organization.   Ouch!

According to The Associated Press, Fox network executive Michael Clemente said it was “astounding” that administration critics couldn’t distinguish between news and opinion programming.  “It seems self-serving on their part,” he said.

“The administration was being attacked, members of this administration were being attacked, policies of this administration were being misrepresented — and that’s a generous interpretation of how they were being described,” Dunn said. “The reality is that at some point, the administration has to defend itself.”

It’s doubtful this will be ending soon, but it should.  I say let’s get back to health care reform.

What do you think, are  you a Fox News viewer?