Now that Tina Brown has created the catdog of online news sites by merging the Daily Beast with Newsweek, expect more interviews where we hear Roger Ailes’ fair and balanced take on NPR:
“They are, of course, Nazis,” Ailes said. “They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.”
If NPR is the left wing of Nazism, does that imply that there’s a Nazi mushy middle? Can there be a Nazi splitter? And what would a swing-voting Nazi look like?
Captain Goto
Am I a bad person because the thought of a baseball bat intersecting with Roger Ailes’ arrogant pompous asshole face seems entirely appropriate and proper to me?
Jamie
The next big lie. You can’t be much more fair and balanced than that. Himmler would be so proud.
Breezeblock
@Jamie:
Maybe you mean Josef Goebbels?
Bullsmith
One thing you have to credit Ailes with, is a deep understanding of Nazi propaganda techniques. Another thing he, like all Republicans, is specialized in is projection.
Letting Nixon cronies and Australian internationalists copyright American Patriotism was not a good move for the country.
cleek
he does have a point.
who can forget Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s three-part series, “Who Can Rid Us Of The Jewish Vermin”, in which she called for the re-opening of the WWII internment camps, a ban on the construction of new synagogues, and the eventual deportation of all Jews?
and Diane Rehm has long been calling for the US to annex
The SudentenlandOntario.Violet
It never fails to amaze me how, when ostensibly speaking about others, wingnuts identify their own characteristics.
Palin is an expert in it. Want to see what she’s all about? Look what she accuses other of. But this statement by Ailes is pretty telling:
“These guys don’t want any other point of view.”
“They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda.”
How much more obvious could he be?
lacp
@cleek: Not to mention promoting that scurrilous propaganda piece, The Protocols of the Elders of Fox News.
Chris
Teabaggers; the first fascist movement to rise to power by accusing the
Jewsof being Nazis.It’s an original and innovative twist, I’ll give them that.
cleek
@Violet:
i like to think of it as a pre-emptive defense. if you pre-emptively attack your enemy with the attack that’s most likely to damage you, he will be reluctant to use that attack in return because it will look petty and revenge-driven.
plus, by the time he’s done defending against your initial attack, the public will be bored with the whole topic and they’ll just scoff and roll their eyes (“oh shit, not this again…”) if he tries.
it takes that attack off the table before it can be used against you, thus sparing you from having to defend, and it might just hurt your enemy.
it’s actually brilliant tactics.
too bad Dems don’t know what tactics are.
Elia
Ailes severely challenges my ability to use snark to overcome impotent rage. Seriously loathe this man. But I do take comfort in the fact that he is physically EXACTLY how I would design him if I were immature enough to judge people by their appearance…which I’m totally not, of course, at all…
Amir_Khalid
Newsweek‘s Time wannabe strategy finally failed last year, and now their year-old Economist wannabe strategy has failed as well. I can’t say I’m optimistic about their current strategy, which is to be the print appendage of a Huffington Post wannabe. Tina Brown just doesn’t seem to me like the editor to restore its news and analysis chops, whatever her resume may say.
As a retired journo, I don’t look forward to seeing yet more fellow journos put out of work. But I expect it will be sold on again in a couple of years or so, still bleeding money and still fading into an ever paler shadow of its former self.
I don’t even want to think of Roger Ailes, with his open contempt for objectivity, as any kind of journalist.
RalfW
I sure wish teh NPR would stop all their hate, and especially the incessant pushing for the internment of conservatives in work camps. It’s just so, you know, awful that they’ve launched that noisy, tacky 4th Reich movement.
Napoleon
@cleek:
This is absolutely part of it. Plus then you look like you are saying “you are too!”
Sapheriel
If NPR is the left wing, who is the right wing?
cleek
@Amir_Khalid:
he’s not a journalist. since the late 60’s, when he worked for Nixon, Ailes has been a media adviser to Republican candidates.
i think people should continue to use that description. it’s accurate.
Ash Can
This strikes me as fairly indelicate even for a prick like Ailes. I’m curious to see how NPR handles this, and how this whole thing gets spun so that it doesn’t turn around and bite Ailes in the ass. Maybe the story will just get disappeared as the day goes on. Or Ailes will issue a mealy-mouthed “apology” (“I’m sorry if everyone took me the wrong way”) and then it’ll be disappeared. I wonder.
arguingwithsignposts
Wow, Godwining his own interview. Got to hand it to him for that.
Of course, Ailes will never feel any shame, remorse, or – heaven forbid – actual consequences for his asshattery.
geg6
@Elia:
LOL, I was thinking pretty much the same thing when I read your comment.
My mom always used to say that, eventually, you get the appearance you deserve. If you live your life as an ugly person, you will show that in your appearance. It’s not always true (i.e., Sarah and Todd Palin), but it’s true often enough, especially as age takes its toll.
El Tiburon
Roger Ailes is a big-fat fuck.
And with that I win the internet for the day.
Alex S.
Someone should treat his Tourette’s.
Comrade Dread
He’s right, you know.
It’s a well known fact that Nazis liked unlistenable Tibetan tribal lute music and fusion jazz, spoke in soft, droning voices, and spent their time talking about global warming and whether Hitler should have spent more time on job creation and less time on genocide.
MattF
Seems like we’re hearing a lot from Herr Ailes these days. He’s… combative. Defending Glenn Beck, attacking NPR. Hmm.
Paris
Just yesterday there was a call for a national sit down strike in solidarity with the vast number of unemployed on Talk of the Nation.
Woodrowfan
when I think of tote bags and DVD’s of Irish dancers I always think of Hitler.
Amir_Khalid
@cleek: Ailes tells journalists under him how to do their jobs, which makes him responsible for the journalism at Fox (such as it is), so in effect he is a journalist — kind of. I don’t care to think about that, as I said, but there it is.
Citizen_X
@cleek:
Oh come on, it’s not like he’s anything like that now.
Actually, I think he should be described as “Roger Ailes, Chief of Republican media.” Simple, and accurate.
Blackfrancis
Enough with the the “hes a fat asshole”, fat this, etc.
I am also fat. The fact that I am often an asshole is not related.
Thanks for listening.
different church-lady
You know what would be like a bucket of water to Ailes’ Wicked Witch? If a whole bunch of people stood up and said, “Roger, who do you think you’re kidding with this stuff?”
I mean, no push back on the merits or crap like that. The ONLY thing these guys comprehend is bullshit. And the only thing that gets through to a bullshitter is when you tell them that their bullshit isn’t fooling you or anyone else.
NOTHING shuts down a bullshitter faster than the statement, “Just how dumb do you think I am?”, stated with maximum indignity.
JPL
@El Tiburon: I don’t know that…
Shalimar
Goebbels Accuses Opposition Of Nazism; Didn’t Intend It As A Compliment
blondie
At what point do the blatant lies become defamatory and, therefore, actionable?
Zuzu's Petals
Of course a partisan hack like Ailes would never let facts get in the way.
From a 2003 FAIR study of NPR’s news shows:
There may be something even more recent along these lines, but this is the one I seem to recall.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I think he meant to say this:
Yup.
A Duck
different church-lady: nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, or some such thing.
dww44
I read the article at The Daily Beast before coming to BJ. Ailes doesn’t surprise me, but taking a look via a click at the recent titles of Kurtz’s posts at the DB told me a lot more, namely that Kurtz himself seems to be empathetic to the conservative meme in all its disguises and not so much for liberals. Also, that his blog post titles are designed to be inflammatory. Kurtz is a real inside-the-beltway guy with all the prejudices that such a position carries.
He likes KO, he says, but then he does a pretty darn critical take on Olbermann in the recent piece titled “Vicious Infighting at NBC News” . The article purports to be all about reporting the truth, but it manages to come off as totally anti-Keith. Ends with the mental image of KO being totally isolated from his fellow NBC’ers at 30 Rock. One with no friends left.
Reading some of the comments there points out the utter futility of having an online conversation with conservatives who maintain that Fox is unbiased and has strong policies in place vis-a-vis punditry versus the news, unlike the biased MSNBC. We really are a politically divided country, and the divide only gets wider.
Jewish Steel
I’m a Hitler nazi myself. Kind of like a Reagan democrat. Sure, it might not be in my best self interest, but Der Führer, along with NPR, is restoring a sense of pride to the fatherland…
Quiddity
I think a Libertarian Nazi has more voter appeal these days.
mds
The way things are shaping up, future historians will probably say that we just experienced the answer to that question.
@MattF:
Yeah, defending Glenn Beck from the Anti-Defamation League, after Beck spent several days attacking a Holocaust-era Hungarian Jew for being a blood-sucking moneylender trying to take over the global financial system. Oh, and NPR? Totally Nazi.
New Yorker
C’mon, Roger, you gotta know your wingnut talking points better. Everyone knows Nazism is a left-wing ideology. Just ask Jonah Goldberg.
Also too, now I know why my NPR-listening aunt asked me if I wanted to join her in firebombing the 92nd St. Y last night….
Tom Levenson
“Is Howie Kurtz (or is Tina Brown) a Nazi?”
“Up to a point, Lord Copper.”
This is how it’s done. You can’t say they didn’t warn you right at the top of the masthead.
different church-lady
@A Duck:
Who said anything about the American Public™? I’m talking about PERSONAL indignity. “How dumb do you think I am?”
I’m talking about short-circuiting his smug little idea that everyone will eat his bullshit. If someone stands up and says, “Sorry, Roger, but I’m not falling for it, and I’m insulted you would even think I would be,” you’re doing two things: (a) taking the upper hand and (b) giving the world an example of someone who has enough confidence to call bullshit.
Seriously, try it with a car salesman some time: look the guy dead in the eye and say, “How dumb do you think I am?”
Zuzu's Petals
It seems Ailes has apologized, not to NPR but to the ADL:
JGabriel
mistermix:
A moderate Nazi doesn’t think Jews are genetically inferior, he just thinks their culture doesn’t mix well with Nazi culture.
.
PWL
Somehow, it seems like a case of the (very fat) pot calling the kettle black…
dj spellchecka
perhaps peak wingnut will never be reached, but i suspect peak godwin has….
Gregory
@cleek:
I must have missed it among installments of Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s three-million-part series, “Christians are teh awesome!”
Afraid to use a nickname
Some years ago I had an odd boss who listened to classical music on public radio all day, except for 12-3 when he listened to Rush.
In self defense I started listening on the truck radio going to and from lunch… It was hard, and I only lasted a few weeks, but it was valuable because I learned a few things about those monsters.
To know the truth in their speech, just reverse it. What they accuse Democrats of, they wish to do. They wish it so intently – with such desire – that they don’t even realize they give away many of their secrets to the public, for free.
When they call someone a Nazi, they’re self identifying Nazis for us, voluntarily. When they talk about death panels, they aren’t just making up absurd accusations to use against political opponents, they are expressing their deepest wishes. They want to be death panels to decide who will live and die, they want it so badly they show themselves for what they are, in public. They want to decide we freedom lovers must die.
Knowing this about them makes it harder for them to get away with many things. The only problem is that the leaders of the Democratic Party cannot bring themselves to believe that their political opponents – Rushbaugh, Karl Rave, Grover Nerdquistling, Mitch McCumwad – would run them into an oven in a heartbeat if they ever get the world to a point where it is politically feasible.
They don’t hate Republicans’ every breath. They don’t hate freedom, as the Teatards do. They can’t understand whom they are dealing with, and that’s very dangerous.
Villago Delenda Est
@Quiddity:
Thing is, that the Libertarian Party is as much about liberty as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was about socialism and workers.
It’s a marketing label. Designed specifically to deceive low information voters.
Libertarianism is, for all practical purposes, neo-feudalism. It’s about the liberty of a tiny minority at the expense of the life and liberty of the vast majority.
As C.S. Forester wrote in the Hornblower series, a ship’s captain in the Royal Navy, operating independently, had the greatest freedom that you could ever experience. His crew, on the other hand, was utterly at his mercy.