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If you read Rogers Ailes' dialogue on ABC's This Week, you will see just how entrenched his rhetoric is with what Fox News, the Teabaggers and the GOP puts on the air day in and night out. His own words are an indictment of his politics and the station he falsely calls "fair and balanced."

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AILES: Well, they tried to ban us. They tried to break the pool, but the other networks stepped up and protected Fox on it, because it was tortuous (ph) interference with a contractual relationship and sort of tramping around on the Constitution...

WALTERS: But now you're OK.

AILES: We're fine. I mean, we were -- it was not as bad as it was played, and things are not as great (ph) as they should be, but we have a good dialogue. And I saw the president and his wife at the media Christmas party. They were very gracious, very nice, both of them. And we have a dialogue every day with them.

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Lies...

WALTERS: What advice would you give to Barack Obama?

AILES: I think he's in a very tough spot. He is enormously likable and I think despite what everybody says, people would like him to succeed. But he came in with the belief that the radical change he wanted or what some people say is a radical change that he wanted would be widely accepted.

WALTERS: But give him some advice, boom, boom, boom now.

AILES: The first advice I'd give him is listen to everybody and then go in a dark room by yourself, because in the end, it's all going to happen in your brain. If you actually believe all these things that you're for, and Richard Neustadt in "Presidential Power" explains that the only real presidential power is the power to persuade the people, to be open, to go out to them and say this is the reason I believe this, this is the direction I believe the American people should go. If he doesn't do that and I don't think he can sell some of his programs. I think he has to become president of all the people and I think he's got to go to transparency and I think you'd be surprised. People who are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but you can't do this in back rooms surrounded entirely by political consultants.

He is the president of all the people.

HUFFINGTON: Well, Roger, it's not a question of picking a fight. And aren't you concerned about the language that Glenn Beck is using, which is, after all, inciting the American people? There is a lot of suffering out there, as you know, and when he talks about people being slaughtered, about who is going to be the next in the killing spree...

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: Well, he was talking about Hitler and Stalin slaughtering people. So I think he was probably accurate. Also, I'm a little....

HUFFINGTON: No, no, he was talking about this administration.

AILES: I don't -- I think he speaks English. I don't know, but I mean, I don't misinterpret any of his words. He did say one unfortunate thing, which he apologized for, but that happens in live television. So I don't think it's -- I think if we start going around as the word police in this business, it will be...

As we've noted, Roger Ailes lied through his teeth about Glenn Beck.

AILES: If you say -- if (inaudible) words are in the Constitution, if the founding fathers managed -- they didn't need 2,000 pages of lawyers to hide things, then tell, then tell...

KRUGMAN: Oh, come on. Legislation always is long.

AILES: ... then tell people it's an emergency that we get it, but it won't go into effect for three years. So you don't have time to read it, you...

---AILES: But there are 300 million people who have a health care plan that they are happy with. There are about 30 million people who don't have a health care plan. So as an executive, what do you do? You go fix the 30 million. You don't go over here and upset the apple cart for 300 million...

KRUGMAN: Which is exactly what the plan was.

AILES: No, no, no...

KRUGMAN: It was trying (ph) to leave the employer-based health care...

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: ... $500 billion away from old people.

He parrots the GOP's claims about health care. 300 million people don't have heath care and the HCR is not just about helping the 30 million people that don't have health insurance. It's about lowering costs, not kicking people out of a plan, doing away with pre-existing conditions. He's promoting the fearmongering that old people will not be covered and die too.

---AILES: Safety and sovereignty of the United States, and I think people, when they see a guy get all the way over Detroit to (inaudible) his underpants, but he could have, and now we're in a situation where we're going to have to either -- we took every body's shoes off; now we're going to have to take every body's underpants off. But the fact is, that's not going to stop. We've got to get much tougher. We've cut the hands off the CIA. We can't -- it's the Norwegians that are doing this. We know who it is. We can't seem to say it. So sooner or later, we're going to have to toughen up on all this stuff. And the American people know it, they feel it, and they're worried about it.

He uses Peter King's lunatic rantings about the underwear bomber. Another GOP trick.

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AILES: I thought he did a pretty good job of delivering his speech. He seemed to get a little bit of his energy back. He'd fallen away over the last few months. You know, he did some dumb things, like take on the Supreme Court. But the media saved him and blamed it all on Alito. But you know, that speech, he's got to follow it up with his -- look, there is an easy way to get it done. I went to the White House one night because I had to meet with Ronald Reagan. And there was a lot of laughter down at the end of the hallway. I waited about 10 minutes, and out came Reagan and Tip O'Neill, arm in arm, with a drink in their hand, telling Irish jokes. In the paper the next day, they kind of trashed each other's ideas, but they obviously cut some kind of a deal.

And that's, you know, there are ways. If he wants to invite the four Republicans and four Democrats over to the Super Bowl and say, come on, guys, we've got to get some jobs...

(CROSSTALK)

HUFFINGTON: He tried to do that. He wasted three months...

AILES: No, that's the way it gets done.

Obama has to do it the Republicans' way or else.

And if there's one thing he knows, it's conservative victim-hood:

AILES: He's tried to get Republicans to agree with him, there's no question. And the media will report that -- what they say is a Republican is evolving, as if he's a caveman if he leans towards the president on something.

--

AILES: I have no -- no idea, no idea whether she even wants to. I don't think she -- she knows. I mean, everybody hates her who's ever written a book because they didn't sell many. She wrote a book and it sold two million in two weeks, and so now they hate her, they have a new reason to hate her. I don't know...

Everybody hates Sarah because she sold a lot of books.

WALTERS: But you hired her to be a commentator. Do you think -- so you must think she has some qualifications? She seems to be very popular with certain groups. Do you think she has the qualifications to be president?

AILES: Fox News is fair and balanced. We had Geraldine Ferraro on for 10 years as the only woman the Democrats ever nominated. Now we have the only woman that the Republicans nominated. I'm not in politics, I'm in ratings. We're willing.

HUFFINGTON: Roger, you clearly are in ratings, but if you are in ratings, can you explain to me why Fox went away from the meeting the president was having in -- why did you go away, 20 minutes before the end?

AILES: Because we're the most trusted name in news.

He's trying to be a Kingmaker and he's grooming Palin to run for president. Talking about ratings is a joke. And he has the audacity to boast that FNC is fair because he hired Geraldine Ferraro.

What head of a news organization would go on the air and expose their own political agenda as far as he did? Fox News is an exact reflection of Ailes himself: an odious, compulsive liar.

Simple Simon

via Roger AIles

There's a word for this post. Genius. Read it.

Another One Bites the Dust Roger Ailes

Finally -- finally! -- an obituary that mentions some of the unpleasant truths about Reed Irvine:

Ideologically, [Accuracy in Media] paved the way for the tide of conservative talk shows, Web sites and news programming that would follow decades later. And while AIM occasionally lived up to its name, it also spent much of its time pursuing conspiracy theories.

In recent years, for example, Mr. Irvine turned his attention to such speculative topics as whether the death in 1993 of Vincent W. Foster Jr., the deputy White House counsel in the Clinton administration, was really a suicide. He also challenged the government's explanation of the crash in 1996 of T.W.A. Flight 800, alleging that it had been caused by a rocket.

Irvine also pimped the theory that the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was the work of al-Qaeda.

Yes, Irvine had no respect for the survivors of tragedy -- or for the truth.

Roger Ailes (the good Roger Ailes)
In comments, Cybelle asks:

Bill and his lawyers are claiming that there was no "wrong doing". wtf? Sexually harassing an employee and threatening her _is_ "wrong doing". What world do these people live in? Or is that some kind of lawyer speak for "this is over"?

It's lawyer speak for you can buy anything for enough money.
The O'Reilly settlement contains a statement that the parties assert there was "no wrongdoing whatsoever" by any of the parties, which also means that O'Reilly is admitting Mackris and her lawyer were not trying to extort money from him. Which, implicitly, at least, negates the assertion that O'Reilly didn't do anything wrong -- O'Reilly is admitting that Mackris had good reason to demand 60 million (or whatever amount) from him based on his conduct. Or, to put it another way, that every accusation in his complaint was false.
demanded). The irony of this story is that we've finally found one of those frivolous lawsuits the right keeps bitching about. O'Reilly admits that his lawsuit against Mackris and his attorney has no merit -- they did nothing wrong. Perhaps the New York State Bar should look into whether Mr. O'Reilly's (and FOX's) attorneys knowingly filed meritless litigation, particularly since O'Reilly wasted judicial resources -- his motion hearings -- suing people who were guilty of "no wrongdoing." (Of course, that won't happen, because the courts love it when litigants settle voluntarily, and it's hard to imagine any third party who'd have a basis to bring a claim based on a meaningless recital in a private contract.)

O'Reilly claims he did what he did to "protect his family." It's heartwarming to see a man pay millions to deep-six tapes in which he is heard abusing an underling and/or himself -- for the sake of his children. Welcome to the All-Vibrate Zone.

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It's been amusing watching Glenn Beck twist and squirm and try to explain what he meant last October when he proclaimed that President Obama was flying the American airplane right into the trees, "taking you to a place to be slaughtered."

After Arianna Huffington raised the matter with Fox Chief Roger Ailes this weekend -- and then explored it in some detail with Keith Olbermann -- Beck has been scurrying about coming up with a variety of shifting rationales for what he was saying.

First, he said, "I don't know if I've ever used the word 'slaughtered'." Then, upon discovering that he had indeed used it, still tried to claim he "had never used it on the air," but was only referring to SEIU's Andy Stern. Finally, he settled on the claim that he wasn't speaking "literally" about "slaughter," he was talking about, um, the economy! Yeah, that's the ticket!

That was the rationale he followed yesterday on his Fox News show, smirking and acting as though his rationale would reveal his critics for the fools they were. Of course, what you can really see is what a fool anyone who believes Glenn Beck is.

Here is what he actually said in October:

Beck: I told you yesterday, buckle up your seatbelt, America. Find the exit -- there's one here, here, and here. Find the exit closest to you and prepare for a crash landing. Because this plane is coming down, because the pilot is intentionally steering it into the trees!

Most likely, it'll happen sometime after Christmas. You're gonna see this economy come up -- we're already seeing it, and now it's gonna start coming back down again. And when you see the effects of what they're doing to the economy, remember these words: We will survive. No -- we'll do better than survive, we will thrive. As long as these people are not in control. They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered!

As Arianna noted in her response:

No, Beck contended again and again and again, the whole time he was just talking about "the economy." Barack Obama is going to slaughter the economy. Even though he clearly said "taking you" not "taking the economy."

So, to review the ever-changing explanations: Beck never used the word "slaughter" -- until it was proven that he did. Then he only used it in reference to Mao, Stalin, or Hitler -- until it was proven that this wasn't the case. Then, when he used it, he wasn't referring to the Obama administration, he was referring to Andy Stern. Then he was referring to Obama -- but didn't mean it literally.

Got it? You might need to use Beck's trademark chalkboard to keep track.

Continue reading »

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When you watch Roger Ailes on TV, you can really see why Fox News is what it is: a compulsively mendacious propaganda operation. Because nearly every word out of Ailes' mouth is a lie, distortion or prevarication of some kind.

The most egregious yesterday on This Week, as John already noted, was in defense of Glenn Beck, after Arianna Huffington -- who has already made an issue out of Beck's rhetoric recklessness -- called Ailes out on it:

HUFFINGTON: Well, Roger, it's not a question of picking a fight. And aren't you concerned about the language that Glenn Beck is using, which is, after all, inciting the American people? There is a lot of suffering out there, as you know, and when he talks about people being slaughtered, about who is going to be the next in the killing spree...

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: Well, he was talking about Hitler and Stalin slaughtering people. So I think he was probably accurate. Also, I'm a little....

HUFFINGTON: No, no, he was talking about this administration.

AILES: I don't -- I think he speaks English. I don't know, but I mean, I don't misinterpret any of his words. He did say one unfortunate thing, which he apologized for, but that happens in live television.

Well, as John pointed out, this is flatly false. Just a couple of months ago, Beck was telling his audience that "progressives" like President Obama and SEIU chief Andy Stern were taking the country down the path to genocide:

Beck: I told you yesterday, buckle up your seatbelt, America. Find the exit -- there's one here, here, and here. Find the exit closest to you and prepare for a crash landing. Because this plane is coming down, because the pilot is intentionally steering it into the trees!

Most likely, it'll happen sometime after Christmas. You're gonna see this economy come up -- we're already seeing it, and now it's gonna start coming back down again. And when you see the effects of what they're doing to the economy, remember these words: We will survive. No -- we'll do better than survive, we will thrive. As long as these people are not in control. They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered!

Moreover, as Arianna pointed out, he talked last October about the Obama administration embarking on a "killing spree," inspired by Mao:

Spread the wealth -- hello, Mao -- that is what this is all about. And anybody not on board, look out because you too could be the next victim of the killing spree.

More to the point, the point of Beck's most recent big project, his fake "documentary" touting Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" thesis, is that the progressive movement -- represented by Hitler, Mao, and Stalin -- is responsible for all of the genocides of the previous century.

It's nothing new, in fact. Beck has been telling his audiences for some time that Obama and "the progressives" are planning all kinds of evil and nefarious activity in pursuit of the destruction of America -- including rounding people up into concentration camps, and marching us toward a "new" kind of fascism.

We've put together a compendium of these various moments.

So, who do you believe? Roger Ailes, or your lying eyes?

As Simon Maloy at Media Matters points out, Ailes also lied about Beck supposedly apologizing for an "unfortunate remark." Moreover, in spite of his endless deluge of misinformation and lies, Beck has not once apologized for a single thing he has said on Fox. On the few occasions when he has corrected a falsehood, he has decidedly not apologized; instead, he has used those occasions instead to launch fresh rhetorical assaults on the persons about whom he's already lied.

Seems a perfect fit for Ailes, really, considering just who Roger Ailes is and what he's done for years. Fox is just the final outcome of a lifetime stoking the politics of resentment -- a politics stoked by hate, fear, and above all, lies.

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Roger Ailes was a guest on ABC's THIS WEEK and after watching the entire round table discussion I understand why FOX News say what they do. Roger made it crystal clear by reinforcing every radical notion that is said about the president and his agenda on FOX and then uses nonsense to defend Glenn Beck's bizarre rantings. I'll have more on Ailes later, but Arianna called him out over FNC's behavior as soon as the topic turned toward the administration's relationship to FOX News.

HUFFINGTON: Well, Roger, it's not a question of picking a fight. And aren't you concerned about the language that Glenn Beck is using, which is, after all, inciting the American people? There is a lot of suffering out there, as you know, and when he talks about people being slaughtered, about who is going to be the next in the killing spree...

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: Well, he was talking about Hitler and Stalin slaughtering people. So I think he was probably accurate. Also, I'm a little....

HUFFINGTON: No, no, he was talking about this administration.

AILES: I don't -- I think he speaks English. I don't know, but I mean, I don't misinterpret any of his words. He did say one unfortunate thing, which he apologized for, but that happens in live television. So I don't think it's -- I think if we start going around as the word police in this business, it will be...

HUFFINGTON: It's not about the word police. It's about something deeper. It's about the fact that there is a tradition as the historian Richard Hofstetter said, in American politics, of the paranoid style. And the paranoid style is dangerous when there is real pain out there. I mean, with...

AILES: I agree with you. I read something on your blog that said I looked like J. Edgar Hoover, I had a face like a fist, and I was essentially a malignant tumor...

HUFFINGTON: Well, that's...

AILES: And I thought -- and then it got nasty after that...

HUFFINGTON: ... that was never by anybody that we had...

(CROSSTALK) AILES: Then it really went nasty, and I thought, gee, maybe Arianna ought to cut this out, but..

We now have to question if Roger Ailes does understand the English language. Ailes uses the old method of quoting a single post that attacks him from the Huffington Post as some sort of justification for the behavior of FOX News. Conservatives are always good at deflecting criticisms and trying to equate a small sliver of a blog post to Beck's entire hour long freak show that day after day calls liberals 'parasites' and pictures President Obama as a Nazi wanting to slaughter people. When Arianna calls out Beck for his violent language, Roger says we can't be the word police and then says he understands him. You see, Beck only meant to be outlandish against Stalin. Ailes is lying of course.

MMTV:

But now, last night, I get there and I see, I get on the website, and I see that Obama wants to legalize the illegal aliens, you know, when unemployment is 8.5 percent and underemployment rate is 15.6 percent. You know, you're having a hard time finding a job, you know, without having to be forced -- do you have any matches -- forced to complete, you know, compete with a whole new crop of workers.

So what does Obama do, he says, boy, I'm not -- I'm just out of stuff to do. What else could I possibly do to the American people?

President Obama, why don't you just set us on fire? For the love of Pete, what are you doing? Do you not hear -- do you not hear the cries of people who are saying stop? We would like some sanity in our country for a second!

We didn't vote to lose the republic. We didn't vote for any of this stuff. We voted for change.

When Glenn Beck poured gasoline over a lady and said Obama wanted to see Americans burn, that wasn't about Stalin, Roger. Do you think that might be incendiary?

UPDATE: Here's the post when Beck talked about being "Slaughter"

Beck: Black Obama fans were 'taught to be slaves,' while progressives like Stern are 'taking you to a place to be slaughtered'

It came, incidentally, at the end of an equally incendiary attack on the SEIU's Andy Stern -- the day before, Beck told his audience that Stern was "really running our country" -- which he wrapped up with a truly vicious attack on both the Obama White House and on progressives in general:

Beck: I told you yesterday, buckle up your seatbelt, America. Find the exit -- there's one here, here, and here. Find the exit closest to you and prepare for a crash landing. Because this plane is coming down, because the pilot is intentionally steering it into the trees!

Most likely, it'll happen sometime after Christmas. You're gonna see this economy come up -- we're already seeing it, and now it's gonna start coming back down again. And when you see the effects of what they're doing to the economy, remember these words: We will survive. No -- we'll do better than survive, we will thrive. As long as these people are not in control. They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered!

Evidence doesn't enter in the equation for Roger Ailes.

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Liberal Values: God and Science

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ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: NYT Co. bleeds union members...Corporate media is bad for your health... The appalling coverage of Sotomayor...Pressure grows on MSNBC to accept two-state solution...How to shrink a newspaper...Take a bow?...Anatomy of a column...The illusion of diverse opinion...CNN fades in prime time...America's Political/Media Kabuki...Project Expose MSM...MSM loves 'em some Newt...Can't hack defamation...Oh, The Irony...Mexican, Puerto Rican, Asian, what's the dif?...Now you see it, now you don't...I'm shocked!...