They're delirious over at Fox News about landing the top spot on the White House enemies list. And I don't blame them.

There's no higher honor for a journalist than to land on a government's enemies list — particularly when the pol throws down the gantlet publicly. And it's something that you can enjoy when you know the government's not going to actually murder you, as it does in so many countries. (See the Committee to Protect Journalists.)

Sure, I'd like to strangle Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity — who wouldn't? But that would be wrong — mostly because I'd be caught. For a government, that would be wrong on all counts.

When paranoid Richard Nixon and his aides were compiling the most famous White House Enemies List, Barack Obama was just a child of 10. That might be why Obama's acting like a child now.

Take a look at "Is Fox Part of a Larger White House Enemies List?" That's the nutwork's own celebration from Wednesday's "On the Record" (transcript) in which bore correspondent Greta Van Susteren starts it by saying, "There is breaking news in the White House war on Fox News ..."

As usual, Fox News's talking heads are full of shit, but the broadcast wasn't. Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander warned Obama not to compile what amounts to an official enemies list, and Fox News gave him a big bear hug. But Alexander was being more than just another partisan Republican when he sternly lectured Obama. Alexander speaks from experience:

Give Alexander some props for publicly acknowledging that he was an operative for the most paranoid and petulant president in U.S. history.

Obama's bone-headed move just gives an excuse to his political opponents, who should have their arms twisted on health-care and financial-industry reform, to waste their time responding to him and getting face time while doing it.

It used to be said that you don't pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel. That advice to politicians is probably no longer valid, considering the newspaper industry's embarrassing shrinkage these days that has greatly reduced its ability to penetrate the populace.

But it's now true that politicians shouldn't pick a fight with news organizations, like Fox, that buy bandwidth by the terabytes.

Don't be shocked or pissed off that Fox is proud to be an official enemy of the White House. Don't blame Fox for being cynical. Nothing's more cynical and anti-democratic than a White House's publicly announcing that an entire news organization is officially an enemy. You question that Fox News is a news organization? Don't be silly. Of course it is. It's full of reporters who do a solid job gathering the news. So the network's braying heads drown out the rest of the network's reporting? Let them bray. That's democracy.

You ever read the Israeli press? Despite the Israeli government's constant attempts at a crackdown, it's vibrant, contentious, full of views ranging from hard-left to far-right. That's democracy.

The Obama White House is actually dissing the American public by saying, in effect, "You're so stupid that you're being duped by Fox News propaganda, so we have to tell you that you're being duped."

What's more cynical than that? It may very well be true, but Obama and his advisers are hare-brained for saying it publicly. What's more stupid than that? A guerrilla war is more effective at winning hearts and minds. Obama's declaration of war simply hardens his enemies at Fox and gives them more ammunition.