One can't exaggerate how large Fox looms in the liberal imagination. They see it as huge and mighty and credit it with almost mythical powers. It is a propaganda channel whose mission it is to destroy the Democratic Party. That's part of why Clintons' performance had such salience. Finally he was standing up to an evil empire.
It is odd that they are so spooked. In October America is set to become a nation of 300 million. What a big country. Fox News's average evening prime-time viewership is less than two million. Its average daytime is less than a million. And if my mail is an indication, they're already Republicans. Fox's power is that it is an alternative to the mainstream media. It did not take its shape by deeply inhaling liberalism and slowly breathing it out.
The left sees Fox as a symptom and promoter of anarchy. The old unity, the old essential unity one used to experience when one turned on the TV in 1950 or 1980, has been fractured, broken up. We are becoming balkanized. Fox, blogs, talk radio, the Internet, citizen reporters--it's all producing cacophony, and heralds a future of No Compromise. No one trusts the information they're given anymore, as they trusted Uncle Walter. This is bad for the country.