FOX and Roger Ailes Outed by Petraeus Tape

[buzzman]

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17674-fox-and-roger-ailes-outed-by-petraeus-tape

As revealed by Bob Woodward in The Washington Post and discussed by Rachel Maddow on December 4, FOX is now on record as having become directly involved in trying to recruit a Republican candidate for president.

As Woodward reported:

So in spring 2011, Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed to Afghanistan to pass on his thoughts to Petraeus, who was then the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested.

The Fox News chairman’s message was delivered to Petraeus by Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News national security analyst and former national security and Pentagon aide in three Republican administrations. She did so at the end of a 90-minute, unfiltered conversation with Petraeus that touched on the general’s future, his relationship with the media and his political aspirations — or lack thereof. The Washington Post has obtained a digital recording from the meeting, which took place in Petraeus’s office in Kabul.

McFarland also said that Ailes — who had a decades-long career as a Republican political consultant, advising Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — might resign as head of Fox to run a Petraeus presidential campaign. At one point, McFarland and Petraeus spoke about the possibility that Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., which owns Fox News, would “bankroll” the campaign.

“Rupert’s after me as well,” Petraeus told McFarland.

Not long after the conversation between the FOX news emissary/analyst, Petraeus accepted the position of director of the CIA because he apparently thought that the role had become as important as the being named head of the Joints Chiefs of Staff.