"It legitimizes a right-wing network that is going to use that credibility to smear them in the general election," said Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org. "They're doing this because it helps them in the short term, but we all know it hurts them in the long term."
Pariser dismissed the renewed dialogue with Fox News as "a moment of weakness."
"The fight is not over," he said. "Fox will do plenty of things to remind the candidates and Democrats why they shouldn't be trusted."
Moody shrugged off such critiques, saying that, because of the channel's strength as a news organization, "we're starting to see people take another look at us."
The Democratic presidential hopefuls are now treating Fox News like a potential ally, not an antagonist. Obama's conversation with Wallace was notably genial, and Clinton was warm and seemed relaxed during her one-on-one with O'Reilly, even when he accused her of being a socialist. ("The O'Reilly Factor," which usually gets about 2 million viewers nightly, drew nearly 3.7 million Wednesday -- the most this year -- when he aired the first part of his sit-down with Clinton.)
It remains to be seen whether the Democrats' engagement with Fox News will cause a rift with the party's grass-roots supporters. On Wednesday, after airing part of his interview with Clinton, O'Reilly was visibly gleeful about what it meant for liberal activists.
"The greatest thing about this interview . . . is that it's emasculated all these far-left extortion types like MoveOn and the Kos, which threatened Hillary Clinton and threatened Barack Obama and all the other Democrats," he said.
When asked about the anxiety among liberal activists regarding the Fox News appearances, spokesmen for both Obama and Clinton said only that the network had long-standing requests to do the interviews, which fit into their schedules this week.
"Bill O'Reilly has a big audience, and Hillary Clinton is in the business of reaching out and talking to people, even if they don't agree with her all the time," added Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee.
Frustrated by what they see as a pro-Obama slant in much of the media, Clinton backers such as McAuliffe and Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell have been particularly complimentary of Fox News of late.
The channel even ran a promo recently featuring McAuliffe lauding it as "fair and balanced."
Hume said he found the praise "hilarious," considering the fraught history between Democrats and the network.
"To some extent," he added, "it represents the scales falling from their eyes."
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matea.gold@latimes.com
