Fox News "Realism"

Tuesday, 2nd March 2010

Roger Ailes redefines realism:

I see myself between the Hudson River and the Sierra Madres. I do not see myself at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel or Le Cirque here in New York. Those are people who aspire to different things. They’re the chattering class. They’re the people who think Ahmadinejad wants to have a chat with us and that we haven’t been reaching out to him enough. No, actually, Ahmadinejad wants to cut our heads off and blow us up with nuclear weapons. He’s made that clear. There is something about those people that makes them think, “Oh, he’s just kidding.” No, he’s not kidding. He wants to kill us.

I tend to be a realist about things.

Emphasis added. The Iranian regime is many things, most of them severely unpleasant, but it hardly poses an existential threat to the United States. The principle beneficiaries of any pretence that it does are actually Ahmadinejad and his cronies who are flattered by a frothing sillyness that is almost hysterically unrealistic.

Filed under: Hackery (218 more articles) , Iran (144 more articles)

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THX1138

March 2nd, 2010 3:31pm Report this comment

Ailes is over Matthew Freud (married to Elisabeth Murdoch) recently said I'm

“ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’s horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to”.

No way did a slick PR operator like Freud say something like that without his father-in-law's tacit or direct approval, whatever the half hearted defense of Ailes from News Corp suits but not pointedly from Rupert.

Sir Graphus

March 2nd, 2010 4:03pm Report this comment

I’m not sure Ahmedaadaa-whatever really wants to blow us up. Clearly, though, he postures about blowing us all up as a means of shoring up support at home. However, developing proper nuclear weapons is part of that posturing, and when he gets them, he’ll effectively call his own bluff. I’d rather he were prevented from getting to that point.

Vern

March 2nd, 2010 4:35pm Report this comment

GRRR! Bad Fox News! Nasty Fox News! boo! Hiss!

Cutting edge blog post, my man. Awesome.

Beefeater

March 2nd, 2010 6:27pm Report this comment

Recognizing that Ahmedinejad wants to destroy America is not to concede that he can.

How would you characterize Ahmedinejad?
As a "realist", or not? Either way, game theory sophistry purporting to read what Ahmedinejad wants America to think and to do is possible only if all players know that Iran is really making a nuclear bomb.

KB

March 3rd, 2010 1:38am Report this comment

Do grow up. Ailes never said Iran posed an existential threat to America, he they want to "kill us." Simple question: what is the object of Iran's supplying Shia militias in Iraq with funds and advanced IED technology?

And let me join the dots for THX99. Ailes brings in $700 million a year. How much do the Murdoch kids bring in. Rupert is 79. Succession, anyone?

THX1138

March 3rd, 2010 10:34am Report this comment

KB the successor is James Murdoch. Ailes is toast, According to Murdoch biographer & News Corp watcher Michael Wolff, Ailes is out bt the end of the year. I repeat no way did Freud say those words on the record without Rupert's say so..

Kennybhoy

March 3rd, 2010 8:24pm Report this comment

Massie and THX,

What is it about Fox that bothers you so much....?

KB

March 3rd, 2010 11:03pm Report this comment

THX, you may well be right re the succession, but to think that Freud, a PR hack, got upset over Fox's commitment to the truth, is laughable. Nah, the Murdoch kids are getting jumpy.

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