No honeymoon for Obamas at Fox News

While the Obama administration is into its second week in office, critics on the right aren't giving the new team much time for a honeymoon.

Republicans in the House of Representatives lined up in unity on Wednesday to oppose the Democratic stimulus package supported by President Obama, despite repeated meetings and visits by the president to get GOP support for the bill. The bill passed anyway.

Perhaps it's no surprise that leaders of the opposition party would oppose their political adversary in the White House, but there's another place where the Obama administration isn't getting much of a honeymoon, according to media observers. That place would be Fox News.

Monday night on "The O'Reilly Factor," NPR news analyst and Fox News political contributor Juan Williams harshly criticized first lady Michelle Obama, who he called "Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress." Carmichael, also known as Kwame Ture, was a 1960s black activist who was a leader in the Black Panther Party.

Without prompting from the host, Williams said the first lady has a "Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going." He said "her instinct is to start with this 'blame America,' you know, 'I'm the victim.'" mentality. "If that stuff starts to come out, people will go bananas, and she'll go from being the new Jackie O to being something of an albatross," Williams said.

Media Matters, a liberal non-profit research group, accused Williams of "baselessly" attacking Mrs. Obama. "Williams provided no evidence for the claims that Michelle Obama's 'instinct is to 'blame America' or be 'the victim,' nor did he provide examples of her having "this Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going,'" said Media Matters.

It wasn't the first time Williams had been accused of attacking Mrs. Obama. Last August, during the week of the Democratic Convention, Williams complained that Michelle Obama sometimes uses "this kind of militant anger." According to Williams, "She can be, it seems, rather cynical or dismissive of people...I don't think she wants to get anywhere near the race issue, anywhere near the militance issue."

Williams's latest comments were denounced by some observers. But longtime critics put the blame on O'Reilly and Fox News as well.

"When Bill O'Reilly gets Juan Williams, the eternal happy Negro, on his show to congratulate him on his racism, that's like Hugh Hefner getting a stripper to come on the show and tell him that he's not a sexist," said Syracuse University Professor Boyce Watkins told CNN 2 years ago.

And hip hop recording artist Nas famously denounced Fox news during a protest in New York last year. "Over 600,000 people of every color across the country are demanding that Fox stop their racist attacks on the Obama family and on black America. We already know that Fox is not a news network," Nas said at the time.

In a new piece, writer Tolu Olorunda argues that Fox News "hates the first family, and black people in general." He also takes aim at Williams, labeling him the "African American go-to guy for black-bashing, immigrant-bashing [and] Iraqi-bashing" and calling him "Fox News' golden black boy."

"Fox News has no plans of halting its relentless attacks on black America and the Obamas," wrote Olorunda. "The demonization of Michelle Obama, Barack Obama and possibly Malia and Sasha Obama, doesn't seem to be nearing its demise," he added.

Olorunda calls on progressives to "draw the line, support anti-Fox news organizations, contact Fox News' corporate sponsors/enablers and hold this repulsive, junk-news organization accountable the next time such an incident takes place."