White House vs Fox News: More than one way to kill a troll

This is what we on the internet call an "Epic Flame War."

The Obama administration, which would seem to have its hands full with a two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan, opened up a third front last week, this time with Fox News...

Administration officials seemed to have decided that they had had enough...

“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, said in an interview with The New York Times. “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”

Source: David Carr, New York Times

Now I am no fan of Fox News. Their ability to stand by the bad decisions made by their chosen party speaks for themselves. However, the one thing that the White House shouldn't do is attempt to beat them at a battle on their terms. You do that; you'll have to stand on the same battleground they've been fighting for years. If you lose, you lose massive amounts of credibility. If you win, well so what? You've just dirtied yourself in the mud for a minor victory.

Allow me to elaborate. Fox has been playing the "YOU'RE ALL A BUNCHA DIRTY HIPPIE SMACKTARDS WITH STOOPID HEADS" card for years now. They've gotten quite adept at it, perfecting their flame war techniques to Evil-Effeminate-Samurai-from-an-Anime like perfection. Regular forum trolls and 4chan regulars stand in awe of them, revering them with a mixture of hatred and mutual respect.

This in mind, the one thing you should never do if you're the administration behind a world leader is go "R NAWT! U R!"

So how do you deal with a Troll like Fox News? Well the most effective way is to ignore them. Trolls are notorious for being attention addicted and deriving them of it is a sure-fire method to drive them into an eat-their-own-face-off insanity. That logic, however, may not work against Fox news. For one, their audience is not a close knit online community but a mosaic of American Technocratic culture of millions, one with enough people who will not only engage them in argument but may even agree with them.

Another way is to Ban their IP, or in this case cut them off from the public eye, but that in itself is the tactic of barbarians and brutes. Historically, societies (America especially) do not like the idea of any viewpoint or mouthpiece being censored, even if its does not sync to popular opinion.

A surefire trick is to, of course, compliment the Troll, which may throw him off guard. Everyone calls Bill O'Reilly a pompous, condescending hypocrite and he just responds with that same smug self-satisfying smirk while stroking his tie. Yet imagine his reaction when Joe Biden goes on the O'Reilly factor and calls him a paragon of reason and fairness. His exact words would be "well that’s just your opini... Wait what?"

This, my friends, is what we call "counter-Trolling." If it's good enough for the Kotaku comment threads its good enough for the White House.