Fox News Paying A Lot Of Attention To Palin Tell-All Book
Reported by Ellen - May 25, 2011 -
When was the last time Fox News paid attention to a scathing book about one of its own? I don't remember Alexander Zaitchik getting any Fox News air or ink when he came out with his book about Glenn Beck - though granted, it wasn't written by someone formerly close to him. In the wake of very troubling revelations about Fox News VP Bill Sammon's bias, Fox mostly stonewalled. So it's hard to see Fox News' coverage of former Palin-aide Frank Bailey's tell-all about Sarah Palin as anything but another attempt by Fox News to throw her under the bus.
Bailey appeared on the Hannity show last night where he was excoriated, as you'd expect, by Sean Hannity (sorry, I don't have video). But Bailey also appeared on Alan Colmes' radio show. Colmes, of course, had a completely different take. Video of Bailey's appearance with the sympathetic Colmes, not the contentious one with Hannity, made it to FoxNews.com. They gave it the friendly description, "Former Sarah Palin aide Frank Bailey joins Alan to reveal what it was like to work for the former Alaskan governor." The video is below.
There's also a Fox Nation post about it. That one is called, Team Palinâs Preemptive War on Tell-All Book. It's generally supportive of Palin but opens with this rather damning paragraph: A former member of Sarah Palin's inner circle has written a scathing tell-all, saying Palin was ready to quit as governor months before she actually resigned and was eager to leave office when more lucrative opportunities came around.
Fox Nation now has a more positive post about Palin at the top of its page, called Sarah Palin's Secret Weapon. But it, too, opens with some damning subtext:
Shortly after Republicans swept last November to a historic victory in which Sarah Palin was credited with playing a central role, the former Alaska governor pulled aside her close aide, Rebecca Mansour, to discuss a hush-hush assignment: Reach out to conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon with a request. Ask him if he would make a series of videos extolling Palin's governorship and laying to rest lingering questions about her controversial decision to resign from office with a year-and-a-half left in her first term. It was this abdication, Palin knew, that had made her damaged goods in the eyes of some Republicans who once were eager to get behind her potential 2012 presidential campaign.
If you know Fox, you know these are just the kinds of "questions" that get raised about people they oppose. Couple that with the report (since denied) that Roger Ailes called Sarah Palin "an idiot" and it's hard to believe Palin will be around Fox News much longer.
