So Many Republican Hypocrites, So Little Time

April 18, 2008 | SEND TO A FRIEND | GET EARLY NOTICE OF THE HOTW

Roger Ailes

Welcome back to the Buzzflash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

When we recently reviewed our list of Republican Hypos -- dating back to our commencement of the honors in September 2003 -- we felt remiss in our duties. Somehow we had never recognized the highly dubious achievements of Roger Ailes, who set up FOX News and still runs it.

After all, what could be more hypocritical than setting up a "news network" that is a propaganda machine for the GOP and then giving it the slogan, "fair and balanced"? Certainly, at any given moment when it covers politics -- and it's not blaring the latest sensationalistic crime -- it's the epitome of bias, misinformation, and calculated hit jobs on Democrats.

Ailes got his start as producer for the Mike Douglas Show in the '60s, which explains a lot. In the beginning of a great love affair between Ailes and the Republican "wedge issue" party, it was on the Douglas show that Ailes met one Richard Nixon. It was a meeting of the behinds.

Ailes went on to use television and advertising to roll out the "New Nixon." Later he assisted Reagan's mythmaking in '84, and is credited with creating the infamous Willie Horton ad -- working in conjunction with Lee Atwater -- to sweep Poppy Bush into the White House in '88.

Oh, did we mention that Ailes is responsible for beginning the syndication of Rush Limbaugh on radio stations?

There is so much more to the Roger Ailes story of using the media to press the red-hot emotional buttons of division rather than offering up substantive news.

Television is the medium above all that frames the bookends of the political debate in America today. That is just a reality.

Ailes has harnessed his knowledge of producing entertainment shows and combined that skill with a flair for building up "brand name on-air talent." Then he added Republican message points and called it -- with the blessing of Rupert Murdoch -- a "news network."

For claiming to offer a "fair and balanced" perspective, when his network only provides a megaphone for slanted, selective misinformation and biases that favor the Republican Party and its goals, Roger Ailes finally gets his due: he is the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

Remember our motto: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.

Catch up with you soon.