In response to a student’s question, President Obama took a swipe at “certain news channels” which promoted tea party protests during his town hall meeting at a high school in Arnold, Missouri Wednesday morning.

Politico notes that it was a “veiled shot at the Fox News Channel, the cable news network closely associated with the protests.”

“When you see, you know, those of you who are watching certain news channels that on on which I’m not very popular and you see folks waving tea bags around,” the President said. “Let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our healthcare costs down over the long term, how we’re going to stabilize social security.”

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Huffington Post’s Sam Stein observes, “The shot across the bow at the Tea Party demonstrators follows prior administration efforts to paint those protests as decidedly non-reality based affairs.”

This video is from CNN’s Newsroom, broadcast Apr. 29, 2009.