Mickey Kaus, of all people, has one of the best takes on Obama v. Fox that I’ve seen:
I think Fox is also not neutral (which, again, doesn’t bother me) but it’s also not independent (which does). This isn’t because it’s owned by Rupert Murdoch–moguls are, typically among the more independent sorts. It’s because it’s run by Roger Ailes. I have zero faith that Ailes is independent of the Republican party or, specifically, those Republicans who have occupied the White House recently–the Bushes. As I said, I think if Karl Rove called Ailes in 2003 and said “We don’t want so much coverage of X” it’s extremely likely that X would not be covered on Fox. A … suggestive example of Fox’s loyalty is the debate on immigration, in which Ailes’ network initially seemed to try valiantly–against the beliefs of most of its audience–to push the Bush White House line in favor of “comprehensive” legalization (while brushing aside its viewers’ views).
It’s certainly possible, in theory, to have a faux news organization that pretends to be an ordinary, ideologically biased journalistic outlet but that, at the top, is actually taking orders from Moscow, or from Kennebunkport. That news organization might have lots of viewers and money and White House press passes and some great on-air correspondents–it’s not as if you could rip off their masks to uncover the alien underneath, like in V. ABC’s Jake Tapper would refer to it as “one of our sister organizations.” But that’s not what, ultimately, it would be about. It would be different in nature, just like Organizing For America would be different in nature if it decided to buy some cameras and cable time and start reporting the news.
As if one cue, there are report that Republicans want Roger Ailes to run for president:
“Ailes knows how to frame an issue better than anybody, and that’s what we need now,” said one friend of the he Fox founder, chairman and CEO.
Frank Luntz, the well-known Republican pollster, said Ailes would be a force if he made the run.
“I have known Roger Ailes for 29 years,” says Luntz. “No one knows how to win better than Roger.”
There’s really not much else to say. Fox News is run by a Lee Atwater protege who Republicans see as a possible 2012 Republican candidate for president.
Midnight Marauder
Mickey “Goat Fucker” Kaus wrote that? Are we sure this isn’t another elaborate hoax by the Yes Men?
General Winfield Stuck
Yes, we now have confirmation from the Goat Sector that the earth is in fact round.
calipygian
There was another great take on this, and I wish I could remember where I saw it, but it went along the lines of how at ABC, CBS and NBC the news directors all came up through the ranks of the news rooms, while Roger Ailes was a Nixon hack.
The headline was, “One of these things doesn’t belong.”
SnarkyBastard
And there you have the current GOP thinking in its purest, distilled form — Ailes is a viable candidate for president because he “knows how to win” and “how to frame an issue” in the campaign.
Not one word about his actual qualifications to, you know, govern.
All tactics, no strategy.
Blue Raven
So the Kaus that Bored got one right. Been a strange enough week, so it’s fair that he would.
General Winfield Stuck
I can’t think of anything to write about. Everything has been said by someone, and it’s only Friday. Oh well.
Calouste
@calipygian:
I saw that here on BJ yesterday or the day before that.
smiley
Ailes is old, white, and conservative. How’d that work out last time?
Regnad Kcin
may he enjoy Lee Atwater’s justly enjoyed deserts.
jl
If they held the election on Halloween, and gave Ailes the nickname “Aged Jowls of Justice” it might just work.
Like all right thinking Americans who read Brooks, I went and checked out what our stolid, independent, ruggest individulaist, and more-worthy forefathers of the nineteenth century would say about the WH-Fox News kerfluffle. Some very relevant Mark Twain passaged popped up on my internet screen:
On expertise of newspaper editors:
“I tell you I have been in the editorial business going on fourteen years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a man’s having to know anything in order to edit a newspaper.”
from The How I Edited An Agricultural Paper
On expertise of reporters:
“I am personally acquainted with hundreds of journalists, and the opinion of the majority of them would not be worth tuppence in private, but when they speak in print it is the newspaper that is talking (the pygmy scribe is not visible) and then their utterances shake the community like the thunders of prophecy.”
from speech, 2/1873
On the proper attitude of news organizations towards their competition:
“The inveterate liars of the Semi-Weekly Earthquake are evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods…”
…
“That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle-Cry of Freedom, is down here again sponging at [our local hotel]”
…
“We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Springs Morning Howl is giving out, with his usual propensity for lying,
from Journalism in Tennessee
OK, then, let’s move on to important issues.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Fix’t.
Has Mickey run out of goats?
demkat620
Roger Ailes for president? What planet are these people from?
Jim
Since total solar eclipses come along more frequently than Mickey Kaus having a cogent thought this date should be noted in history. Now there are two things I can agree with Mickey on, the toady Fox News and the superiority of rear wheel drive cars.
calipygian
@Calouste: Really? Wow. And I’m not yet 40 and I’m +0.
I might need a brain check up.
Maude
@SnarkyBastard: Remember Bush?
Violet
@SnarkyBastard:
Yep, that’s the modern GOP. All tactics, no strategy. It’s all about winning, not governing. And you can see where that got us.
Little Dreamer
He’s a little old, isn’t he? Not to mention that he’s whacked.
LD50
@Violet: Well, the modern GOP base doesn’t really care about governing. They figure that once they get one of their guys in, the ‘policy’ will be standard wingnut doctrine, and the details will sort themselves out later. They ‘base’ doesn’t care much about defining themselves, nor do they care that when they try to define themselves, the attempts are incoherent or wildly self-contradictory: all that matters is that it’s the opposite of whatever the goddamn libs want.
Ash Can
@calipygian:
But you may have been +12 the
morningnight you read it.Singularity
I would cry tears of joy if they nominated that douchebag. Have you seen Roger Ailes?
Ash Can
Seriously, if Ailes were to run — let alone get the nomination — Fox “News” would never recover, and neither would the assorted fuckwits, lowlifes and shitheels in the pundit and political worlds it currently props up. Fox would become the Ailes-for-President Channel, anyone who ever insisted it was a legitimate news outlet (e.g., Jake Tapper) would lose face and never get it back, and all the Sarah Palin/Mitt Romney/Mike Huckabee cheerleaders on its payroll would have to act like their memories had been wiped clean or start reading the want ads.
RUN, ROGER, RUN!
Cat Lady
Wait, I thought we weren’t reading Slate. Do we like Creed now?
freelancer
@Cat Lady:
No Creed! We hates it!
Chad N Freude
Rachel Maddow is reporting that Ailes has announced that he is not running. One reason cited is that he can’t take the pay cut.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
Yeah, Ailes is going to run in 2012. He’ll be older then Cranky McSame was last year. Talk about grasping at straws.
valdivia
love that they don’t even pretend that he should be running because he knows anything, is good with policy has a vision for the country or anything else of that category. They want him to run because he is a good operative, that is all. This si what the Republican party is all about. We don’t need to know anything else.
demkat620
@valdivia: Yes, its all abut the framing. Christ, when will they grow up?
Cat Lady
@freelancer:
Third worst band? What could possibly be worse than that crappy fake bombastic poseur tripe?
tamied
Creed reminds me of Jon Tesh on steroids.
JenJen
Roger Ailes for President, my ass. Sounds more to me like the assknobs over at Fox News are having a good laugh at the expense of every outlet who bit at this story (cough Politico cough), with a healthy assist from their buddy Frank Luntz. I’m not buying it. It’s just too stupid.
Cheryl from Maryland
How concerned/close is Jake Tapper to his sister organizations? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Svensker
@tamied:
With all the talk about Creed on the intertubes I had to go listen (never having heard them before)…. My ears are bleeding and I really want to punch that lead singer in the mouth — does he gargle while he sings, or have especially large molars? What is that sound he makes? Gaaahhhh.
Vote for Bitsy. She would never listen to Creed, not with those lovely sensitive ears.
Minionero
Why would they? It pretty much proves Kaus’s/the White House’s point: Fox News is an arm of the GOP, not merely an ideologically-biased news outlet.
Chad N Freude
@JenJen: See chad@Chad N Freude: It’s (a) a hoax, (b) a Fox News promo, (c) a manifestation of right wing idiocy that even Ailes can’t stomach, (d) Some combination of these. Or adiversion of attention from real issues. Also.
Chad N Freude
@Chad N Freude: That would read better if editing was available again!
calipygian
This is better than DILAN people !!!111!!!1!Q!!!
anonevent
@SnarkyBastard: It’s never about governing. They don’t consider government to be something worth doing. It’s only about redistributing power.
Cat Lady
@calipygian:
Those lyrics suck ass all on their own, but Scott Stapp makes Michael Bolton seem Dylanesque.
Cat Lady
@Svensker:
Yes, this.
calipygian
@Chad N Freude: If editing WERE available again.
Why do people hate the subjunctive?
mak
I suspect the whole Draft Roger Ailes thing is a birthday jokey tribute or some such, but given the credulousness of the target audience, I say: Run, Roger, Run! Campaign Slogan: “With jowls like that, he’s got to be good.”
Chad N Freude
@calipygian: I have even more difficulty with the subjunctive en Español. I wrote in rage, my inner grammarian too fearful to stop the hideous crime against English. Please forgive me, William Safire.
Chris Johnson
Here, have some Dutch gabber as a sort of anticreeditive:
Chris Johnson
Dutch gabber, linked correctly this time
Wag
Roger Ailes=Silvio Berlesconi. And we all can see how well that’s going for Italy right now ….
JackieBinAZ
This is the party that thought Fred Thompson had “star power.”
bobbo
“Protege” is such a nice word. “Spawn” is more appropriate.
asiangrrlMN
Fucking great. Now I have “With arms wide oppppppen” stuck in my head. Thanks.
Oh, and as For Ailes running for prez? Bring it.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: You wanna borrow some brain bleach oh wifey of mine? Actually Washington is a community property state (as I remind my brother/sister-in-law constantly) so you could just take it. Actually whenever I hear Creed that atrocious film Titan A.E. gets stuck in my brain. Yowza.
BTW did you catch up on your two hubbies doing a lil bonding last night?
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Yeah, I’ll take that bleach of ours, thank you very much.
And, yes, I cackled over my two hubbies gabbing away like bestest buds. If I were the jealous type, I would worry that you two are cheating on me (and your respective hubbies) with each other!
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: And, yes, I cackled over my two hubbies gabbing away like bestest buds. If I were the jealous type, I would worry that you two are cheating on me (and your respective hubbies) with each other!
:: Sigh :: You mention ONCE that you’re thinking about visiting another country (especially Australia) and suddenly he goes all verklempt. Actually the becoming a Kiwi idea might come into more fruition if I find some of my career goals thwarted. I’m not saying that’s happening (in fact I haven’t heard a peep out of my company’s HR department [both are internal moves] and my boss is following in the footsteps of Red Kitten in having another kid ANY SECOND NOW so can’t really follow up for me) but if things don’t line up right I’m gonna give them all the middle finger and pursue other opportunities. Luckily the unemployment rate in the Seattle area is a point below the national average and there’s TONS I could be doing over there. I’d just rather do it for the company I’m at and have worked pretty damn hard for.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: I knew I should never have told you two about each other! *Sob!
Heh. We are like the conservative Christians worst nightmare
cumcome to life.Re: Kiwi–that would be fucking awesome. Then, I could visit both mah hubbies in one trip. Cool. I hope you get to pursue that opportunity. What would the Dawg say?
Mark S.
Geez, I had finally gotten those shitty Creed songs out of my head from that thread earlier in the day, and now you assholes bring them up again. Fuck you all, I’m just going to quote from that awesome Slate article:
Humping the stone tablets, bitches.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I knew I should never have told you two about each other! *Sob!
You can sleep between us. Will that help? :)
Heh. We are like the conservative Christians worst nightmare
cumcome to life.(Risking massive format fail. FYWP.)
Actually I think you were right the first time.
Re: Kiwi—that would be fucking awesome. Then, I could visit both mah hubbies in one trip. Cool. I hope you get to pursue that opportunity. What would the Dawg say?
I think a lot of that depends on where he finally ends up. We talked about things like that when The Hague came up for the first time. Of course the Kiwi idea hadn’t entered into my head yet. Plus too much is still up in the air for any of this to really be discussed seriously at this point.
RACHAEL RAY IS IN SYDNEY!!!
asiangrrlMN
@Mark S.: Fuck you, too, Mark S. I had just managed to forget that. Now, before I go to bed, it is implanted in my brain once again. More bleach for my brain!
@Yutsano:
I do not want to get trampled in my sleep. I’d rather watch, thankyewverymuch. And mebbe take pics for the internet. I think this premise of ours (two married gay couples and the single bi woman who is fake married to one partner of each gay couple) would make a great sit-com.
Yeah, true. Must be hard living with a Marine because of all the uncertainty.
asiangrrlMN
@asiangrrlMN: Damn it. I was so close to getting the blockquote perfect. I forgot about the no space between the text above and the blockquote in order not to have the bold. Sigh.
Well, bedtime for me. I was hanging around, valiantly waiting for a late-night open thread, but apparently, it’s not meant to be.
Night, bitchez!
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Yeah, true. Must be hard living with a Marine because of all the uncertainty.
Living together is a virtual impossibility, especially with the two of us having such divergent career goals. It really all comes down to communication communication communication. We don’t hide much from each other. I care for the big fucker though. I’m a sap. :)
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: BTW have you noticed how you, me, and Sydney pretty much take over when the hour gets late? I think it’s kinda snazzy. :)
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Yeah. Damn right. Although, here I am, up again whilst you’re probably in bed, and no shiny new thread for me to besmirch, damn it!
Aw, that’s so fucking sweet.
Tattoosydney
@Yutsano:
@asiangrrlMN:
Yay!
The Grand Panjandrum
Fallows has a great take:
Pug
“I have known Roger Ailes for 29 years,” says Luntz. “No one knows how to win better than Roger.”
That Frank Luntz is a guy who really knows how to kiss the bosses’ ass.
Svensker
@Mark S.:
What does that mean?
I didn’t know rock had a hot-air balloon, unless you count the Fifth Dimension, which I don’t.
valdivia
@The Grand Panjandrum:
that was a very good take from fallows thanks for linking.
BruceFromOhio
Luntz, Ailes, Murdoch, Rove: all embody what has driven the SUV right off the cliff.
The Birthers and Baggers will keep the whining amped up for awhile longer, but I think the topic of “Fox News is not a news organization” has properly rooted and has a nice healthy life before it. Once the “sisters” get the memo, it might even become (gasp!) conventional wisdom.
It may even coincide with the hour that Rup’s 29.95 paywall goes up.
Mike
Fox News is run by a Lee Atwater protege
Actually, it’s the other way ’round. Ailes got his start as a producer for the Mike Douglas Show in the ’60s. From there, he moved into a key position on Nixon’s 1968 campaign team, producing commercials that subtly expressed Nixon’s Southern Strategy. It was Ailes who taught Atwater, and together they produced the ugly ads that leveraged George HW into the White House.
Fulcanelli
@Mike: So we’ve got a network run by a former Nixon campaign operative that works openly to relentlessly promote a selfish, divisive, destructive and highly partisan political movement made up of assholes in congress who scream how the current Democratic President is “Nixonifying” the White House because he supposedly he has an ‘enemies list’. But, but, but… Now it’s a bad thing.
Is it any wonder why the missing chromosome segment of the population, i.e., the wingnut ‘base’ doesn’t know whether to shit themselves or wind their watch?
This really is a brilliant strategy. Obama’s eleventy dimensional political ninja-fu chess skills are teh awsome. I foresee another Jonestown. Somewhere in Oklahoma.
Get used to a Democratic President. The opposition’s brain dead.
Ash Can
On the subject of poor, persecuted Fox “News” and how mean Obama’s being to them, you know the latest story about Fox being barred from that interview with Ken Feinberg? When all the networks rallied to protect their beloved “sister organization” and demanded, damn it, that Fox be included?
It was all bullshit made up by Fox itself. Shocking, I know.
Here’s what Fox will never publicly admit: When Treasury announced that Feinberg would be doing the interview, a number of networks asked to be allowed to bring in video equipment along with their reporters. Treasury said fine, and made a list of those networks.
Fox wasn’t on that video list, because they didn’t make the request.
In the meantime, the video-requesters figured out that everyone scrambling and squeezing to get their equipment set up in the room would just be one gigantic pain in the ass, so they decided to go with just one pool video set-up. Treasury forwarded its still-Fox-less list to the networks’ WH reporting pool. The pool guys noticed Fox wasn’t on the list and said that they needed to be in order to get a pool video set up (apparently the pool has the rule that if any networks are excluded from the pool video, even by their own (non)request, a pool video can’t be set up and each network has to furnish its own equipment). Treasury called the WH about it, and Anita Dunn said to go ahead and include Fox on the pool video list. (Note: This was the extent of the WH’s involvement in this whole phony kerfluffle.)
But why should Fox let the facts stand in the way of an opportunity to trash Obama?
Treasury has been running around trying to tell anyone who’ll listen that the Fox story is complete bullshit. Let’s see how many of the real news networks report Treasury’s story and, in doing so, be forced to admit that Fox “News” played them all for chumps.
GregB
Ailes has been endorsed by Frank Luntz and Frank Luntzes’ toupee.
That’s a twofer.
-G
Redshirt
This is just a marvelous story in a string of marvelous stories. I haven’t been this excited about the political scene since November.
The spell Fox News cast over America has been broken, and while there’s going to be a ton of pushback from the MSM (which we have seen plenty of evidence of, Chip Reid for ex), Fox is now on the way to an epic defeat. They will not be able to maintain the farce they have been perpetuating when the discussion is public and mainstream. And now it is, and it’s only a matter of time before they are broken in some form.
I hope/pray, at least. Fox News is clearly, and I mean this sincerely, a manifest malevolent force in our nation, and thus in the world. They must be stopped.
ThresherK
As if on cue, there are report that Republicans want Roger Ailes to run for president.
Do it. Ailes is Phil Gramm without the charm, vetting, or stump experience.
rumpole
So, in other words, Fox would be a non-stop Republican campaign commercial. And how would that be different from how it is now?