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.
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"
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.
