(Thumbnail image: The White House/Fox News)

PRES. OBAMA: "I've got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration. I mean, that's a pretty big megaphone. And you'd be hard pressed, if you watched the entire day, to find a positive story about me on that front."

ANITA DUNN: "Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican party."

DAVID AXELROD: "It's really not news, it's pushing a point of view."

President Barack Obama's interview with Brett Baier of Fox News might signal the end of his administration's long-running battle with the network, but the reasons for his appearance are up for debate.

We have perspectives from the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, Fox News and Gay Patriot.

Articles on the Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor suggest that Mr. Obama's appearance shows just how much he believes in the cause of health care.  Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz says,

"Hell has officially frozen over...He must really want to pass that health care bill."

And public policy expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson tells the Christian Science Monitor:

“Reaching out in unexpected venues also suggests that he [is going] to every length possible to make the case for his views.”

On the O'Reilly Factor, political analyst Brit Hume says that Mr. Obama's appearance on Fox has more desperate motivations.

Hume: "What does the fact that he's doing that interview with a network that they've attacked so repeatedly tell you? It tells you for sure, if you didn't know it already, they haven't got the votes."

Gay Patriot, a conservative blog, thinks Mr. Obama's interview is not only desperate, it's hypocritical. 

"So Fox is a just a bunch of right-wing extremists watched by right-wing extremist teabaggers… until Obama is on the ropes. What. A. Tool."

So is President Obama's appearance on Fox News a shameless ploy or an honest attempt to win support on health care?

Writer: Elizabeth Eberlin