Fox News’ maven Roger Ailes blunt comments on political figures are going boffo on the Internet, cable news and blogosophere. He’s the Fox News bigwig, so his attitudes (the theory goes) reveal the assumptions behind Fox News analysis and attitudes. The source for the golden quotes: a Vanity Fair piece that offers a special adaptation of the upcoming book Roger Ailes: Off Camera, by Zev Chafets.
Here are a few of the meatier sections. I’ve boldfaced the quote that’ll create the buzz:
One day during the 2012 primary season, Newt Gingrich complained that Fox News’s support for Mitt Romney was responsible for Gingrich’s poor showing. Rick Santorum had made a similar claim when he dropped out of the race. Gingrich and Santorum had been Fox commentators before getting into the race, and Ailes found their complaints self-serving and disloyal. Brian Lewis, his spokesman, asked Ailes for guidance on how to respond to Newt. “Brush him back,” Ailes said. “He’s a sore loser and if he had won he would have been a sore winner.” Lewis nodded.
AND:
Lewis then read Ailes a summary of the flap over Democratic operative Hilary Rosen’s comment that Ann Romney, mother of five, had never worked a day in her life. Ailes spun it without hesitation. “Obama’s the one who never worked a day in his life. He never earned a penny that wasn’t public money. How many fund-raisers does he attend every week? How often does he play basketball and golf? I wish I had that kind of time. He’s lazy, but the media won’t report that.” He noticed my arched eyebrows and added, “I didn’t come up with that. Obama said that, to Barbara Walters.” (What Obama said was that he feels a laziness in himself that he attributes to his laid-back upbringing in Hawaii.)
AND:
“I like Marco Rubio,” Ailes told a staff meeting of Fox News Latino when talk about the Florida senator being Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick was at fever pitch. “But I don’t know about as a vice-presidential candidate. He’s a nice guy, and that role requires kicking the crap out of your opponents.” He paused, thinking about vice presidents he had known. “I have a soft spot for Joe Biden,” he said. “I like him. But he’s dumb as an ashtray.”
AND:
During the presidential campaign of 2008, candidate Barack Obama was upset by Fox News, which by then was in its sixth year of cable dominance. A sit-down was arranged with Murdoch and Ailes, who recalls that the meeting took place in a private room at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan. (White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to relate the president’s version.) Obama arrived with his aide Robert Gibbs, who seated Ailes directly across from Obama, close enough for Ailes to feel the intention was to intimidate him. He didn’t mind; in fact, he rather appreciated the stagecraft, one political professional to another.
After some pleasantries, Obama got to the point. He was concerned about the way he was being portrayed on Fox, and his real issue wasn’t the news; it was Sean Hannity, who had been battering him every night at nine (and on his radio show, which Fox doesn’t own or control). Ailes didn’t deny that Hannity was anti-Obama. He simply told the candidate not to worry about it. “Nobody who watches Sean’s going to vote for you anyway,” he said.
There’s more. So go to the link and read it all.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.