Barack Obama didn’t call out FOX for what they are — a Republican propaganda outlet — when he appeared on FOX News Sunday to talk to Chris Wallace. Unfortunately, this means Obama, the Democrats, and American democracy lost.

Obama did a respectable job answering Wallace’s light/medium-biased questions, but he didn’t go after FOX the way his campaign claimed Obama would in a Friday statement to Talking Points Memo. Instead, he made the error of treating the interview as if it was actually an interview, not an ambush staged by enemies committed to destroying him. Because FOX had two main goals for Obama’s appearance: to further the appearance that FOX is actually a news organization and to gather ammunition against Obama.

FOX clearly accomplished their first goal, since nothing could legitimize FOX more than having a top presidential candidate (and a Democrat, no less) do a sit-down interview with them. What Obama and his campaign failed to realize is how destructive it is to the Democratic party, as well as America and its democracy, to have people think that FOX is anything other than a Republican propaganda outlet. By legitimizing FOX, the stories they run, the lies they tell, and the opinions they espouse are also legitimized. There’s no better example of this than the recent ABC debate, where George Stephanopoulos thought that Sean Hannity would be a good person to ask for questions to ask Obama. Why would Stephanopoulos think that Sean Hannity—a racist, serial liar, and FOX’s strongest, most consistent purveyor of anti-Obama misinformation—is a “fair and balanced” authority on Obama? Because Hannity is on FOX, and Stephanopoulos thinks FOX is a news organization. “Fair and Balanced” is right there in their slogan. And because more high profile democrats don’t identify FOX for what it is, FOX is allowed to retain its appearance of legitimacy, which is all they want. They don’t want to be a news organization — they simply want to create the appearance that they are a news organization to provide cover for their propaganda. And, sadly, Obama was a willing participant in furthering that appearance.

Regarding FOX’s second objective of gathering ammunition to use against Obama, I’d say they succeeded in that, too. Because I can guarantee you that an army of trained monkeys at FOX are currently poring over every single aspect of Obama’s interview, looking for anything they could conceivably conflate to use against Obama, and they are more than willing to lie to accomplish that goal. In the year to come, be ready to see endless “analysis” of any statement Obama made during the interview, with “commentators” pondering whether some statement about healthcare or lapel pins actually means that Obama is an Islamic terrorist Al Qaeda sympathizer who wants to enslave the white race while sodomizing FOX viewers with their own rifles before taking them away and raising their taxes. Or they’ll just ignore the statements he made about his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and claim that Obama has not addressed the FOX-created “controversy” about Wright. As I was writing this, I received an alert that a guest on Hannity’s America on Sunday claimed that Obama has not condemned the actions of William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground, when Obama has done just that both in the ABC debate and during his interview with Wallace. But Hannity allowed the guest’s statement to stand without challenging or refuting it, because Hannity is perfectly willing to lie or let others lie for him if it hurts democrats and helps republicans.

Check out one of our latest videos, THE FOX IS WRONG! Obama and you can see it for yourself. Rev. Wright appears on FOX on March 1, 2007 and says that Obama’s church does not espouse black separatism or black supremacy. But what happens? Hannity spends the next YEAR talking about how Obama’s church espouses black separatism and black supremacy by simply ignoring the evidence to the contrary, even if it was presented on his own show. The clip of Wright saying the opposite is simply buried as if it never happened. And for FOX viewers who didn’t see the March 1 interview or don't remember it, it never did, especially since everyone on FOX goes on as if it never happened.

Or watch as Obama makes a demonstrably, unequivocally correct statement (echoed by military specialists as well as the president of Afghanistan) that because the Bush administration has not allocated enough troops on the ground in Afghanistan, the military is relying more on air power, which results in more civilian casualties and more tension between the US and Afghani civilians we’re relying on to help us hunt down Al Qaeda. But what does FOX do? They claim that Obama is “slamming US troops” and calling them murderers who “target civilians.” Of course, this is not at all what Obama was saying — it’s military and civilian leadership that allocates troops, chooses priorities, and approves of targets and tactics, not individual soldiers. But FOX doesn’t care. They really, really don’t. Lying is just the means — ensuring Republican dominance is the end, and one that seemingly justifies any means.

So while there doesn’t appear to be much fallout from Obama’s interview yet, just wait — FOX will create some. As I said on Friday on MSNBC, most people, including FOX viewers, will never see the whole interview. They’ll see clips on YouTube and soundbites that FOX will repeat and spin until the nomination and beyond. And if recent history is any indicator, you can expect the traditional media to pick up some of those stories and run with them, believing they are “legitimate” stories because FOX has been obsessed with them for so long. And if this happens enough, not only will Obama's candidacy suffer, but so will the concept of American democracy.

Full transcript of the interview here.