Fox News Chief Roger Ailes Thinks Sarah Palin Is 'Stupid': New York Magazine

[Octafish]

Can't say I blame him.

Fox News Chief Roger Ailes Thinks Sarah Palin Is 'Stupid': New York Magazine (UPDATE)

NEW YORK -- Fox News still dominates the cable news ratings, but chairman Roger Ailes wants something more: to help elect the next president.

That's the takeaway from Gabriel Sherman's New York magazine cover story hitting newsstands Monday. Sherman, who's currently writing a book on Fox News for Random House, looks at how Ailes -- who built up a stable of possible presidential contenders after the 2008 election, including Sarah Palin -- isn't so pleased with their chances at beating President Barack Obama in 2012.

Ailes doesn't speak on the record in the article, but several Republicans close to the Fox News chief describe his concerns going into an election year.

"He thinks things are going in a bad direction," another Republican close to Ailes told . "Roger is worried about the future of the country. He thinks the election of Obama is a disaster. He thinks Palin is an idiot. He thinks she's stupid. He helped boost her up. People like Sarah Palin haven't elevated the conservative movement."

Ailes, a television titan, has schooled past presidential candidates on how to handle the media. Before helping Rupert Murdoch launch Fox News in 1996, Ailes worked as a strategist for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush (whom he still talks to regularly).

CONTINUED w/LINKS...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/22/roger-ailes-palin-stupid-fox-news-new-york_n_865117.html

Well, on one thing I agree with Roger Ailes.

[JuniperLea]

1. The end really is near!

I agree with Roger Ailes!

[Octafish]

8. It's the strangest thing.

The guy told the truth. For once.

Excellent reportage on Tricky Dick's Trickmeister from Rolling Stone: How Roger Ailes Built the Fox Propaganda Machine

[JuniperLea]

10. Oooooooooh!

Thanks for the link!! Killer stuff!

[Vincardog]

2. I disagree. She is so stupid that she has millions in the bank. I wish I were so stupid

[provis99]

3. "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich"?

I used to hate that line, mainly because being rich had nothing to do with being smart.

[Vincardog]

4. Because I have ethics

[provis99]

6. and there's the essential problem.

It helps to be crooked to be rich in America.

[Vincardog]

7. Or slide out of the correct vagina

[fascisthunter]

5. Being DIshonest in Order to make a Living, isn't Smart

actually she's just a sociopath that doesn't have apathy or feelings of guilt. Everything for people like her is justified as a means to their goals.

Nothing about inteligence there...

[Octafish]

9. You more likely are far richer, Vincardog.

No amount of money can buy integrity.

Sarah Palin's Ethics Adviser

[gratuitous]

11. Well, Roger, as they ask on Tosh.0

What did you think was going to happen?

I don’t have a high estimation of many of the “respected” Republicans like Ailes and Rove and the rest, but I also don’t think they complete morons. They’re egotistical, opportunistic, cynical, grasping and a bunch of other things, but total fools I thought not. Puffing Palin and supporting her stupid candidacy was in some ways to be expected, but they really threw a lot of weight behind her.

Now she’s thinking that she’s a real, live viable candidate, and that has to be attributed to the short-sighted heavy hitters who thumped the tub for her in 2008. They obviously didn’t consider what might happen should this train wreck of a word salad tosser go Skynet on them and become self aware. They were having too much fun watching decent people have apoplexy over the prospect of Sarah Palin actually ascending to the Vice Presidency.

And now it's like a frat prank gone horribly, gut-wrenchingly wrong. Instead of the intended targets of the prank suffering, Ailes and his fellow puppeteers are having to deal with the fallout of a dumbed down constituency thinking that a nincompoop like Sarah Palin can be a serious candidate. Whatever they were hoping would happen by propping her up clearly didn’t happen, and now they have an engaged, energized segment of the Republican constituency frothing at the mouth for their ersatz favorite daughter, and Ailes recognizes at long last that things are going in a bad direction.

What did you think was going to happen, Roger?

[Octafish]

12. The doctor thought he could control the monster.

What's truly horrible, Dr. Rogerstein controls the monster-making process. So, even though a few run amok, they all work for get their power from him. There is hope on the horizon. It's not a mob with torches and pitchforks. It's a BMW sedan filled with pimply teenagers and their lawyer. It turns out the doctor doesn't own the castle, he rents.

The Fox-Murdoch Feud

by Lloyd Grove Info
The Daily Beast
Jan. 9, 2010

Wendi Murdoch encouraged Rupert’s son-in-law to fire a rocket at Fox News boss Roger Ailes—the first salvo in an escalating war between Murdoch’s heirs and the company brass for the future of one of media’s hottest enterprises.

The long-simmering feud between Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch’s adult children has finally erupted into full-scale war—a death struggle over the future of News Corporation, the financially beleaguered media and entertainment conglomerate that the 78-year-old Murdoch continues to control as chairman and chief executive.

The first shot—really a nuclear device—was fired today on The New York Times’ Web site by British public-relations executive Matthew Freud, Murdoch’s son-in-law. Freud’s on-the-record quote, for a front-page profile of the 69-year-old Ailes, who launched and runs News Corp.’s most profitable division, is stunning in its condemnation—a frontal attack on Ailes and an apparent attempt to force News Corp.’s founder to choose between blood and money, between his progeny and his most-prized executive.

“I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’ horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to,” Freud told the Times. A News Corp. spokesperson fired back: “Matthew Freud's opinions are his own and in no way reflect the views of Rupert Murdoch, who is proud of Roger Ailes and Fox News.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-09/the-fox-murdoch-feud/#

These are interesting times, gratuitous. Monstrously.