Even Chris Wallace is tired of excessive harping on Obama

Chris Wallace, on FOX and Friends this morning 3/21/08 to promote this Sunday's FOX News Sunday, took the Friends "to task" over what he saw as excessive and unbalanced coverage of Obama's radio remarks about his grandmother being a "typical white person." The Friends, Gretchen Carlson, Steve Doocy, and Brian Kilmeade, were in full defense mode and ultimately spun the chastisement to FOX's benefit, asserting that personnel don't always agree on everything.

Doocy claimed that Wallace's "twenty hits" (presumably checking in twenty times, randomly) prevented him from seeing the other side of the story, or a more fair presentation. Wallace said he'd seen enough.

Kilmeade sarcastically thanked him for calling them out on the air rather than via email, so viewers could see for themselves that FOX is not in lockstep.

Carlson said that Obama was deflecting attention from what folks really wanted to hear, his denial of and disassociation from Wright's remarks. (Haven't we heard it already, for days on end now?) Wallace responded that it is the media that is deflecting attention from Obama's subsequent speeches on Iraq and the economy.

ThinkProgress has the video.

This could be exactly what it seems to be, a difference of opinion. But knowing that FOX is so carefully messaged and controlled top-down, it could also be a staged event to reinforce the faux notion that Chris Wallace is independent. Were the three stooges set up? In any event, it was refreshing and anything but par for the course.