While controversy swirls about Fox News' Republican primary debate last week, Donald Trump's pal, Roger Ailes, is runing from the heat, saying, "What? Who, me?"
From a Los Angeles Times article that was mostly about debate moderator Bret Baier:
Baier even anticipated that some Republican Party faithful would agree with Trump that they were too tough and he was right. Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the lower polling presidential candidates in the afternoon debate, called the evening session "an inquisition."
The reaction didn't surprise Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes. "Most of the criticism I get is from the right because they assume I'm going to do a certain thing and I don't necessarily do what anybody assumes," Ailes said in an interview Friday. "This is an example of that."
But Ailes limited his input on the broadcast to how it looked on screen and offering encouragement to his on-air team to be tough and fair. Counter to reports that he's involved in all things Republican, he said he had no hand in coming up with the challenging questions. He was confident in his on-air moderating team, which he described as "the best we've seen in television history."
It would have been nice if The Times had tried to verify that. I think it's just about as believable as Ailes' claim that Fox didn't take Jon Stewart seriously or Fox's "fair and balanced" credo. Or Ailes' assertion, "I don’t tell anybody what to think. They can think what they want and say what they want." As Fox News mole Joe Muto said about the network, "Theoretically, each show could talk about whatever they wanted to talk about, and take any angle they wanted to take, and book any guest they wanted to have on. Realistically, there was tremendous pressure to hew closely to the company line."
TheWrap reported that "a Fox News insider" said, “There’s very few moments occurring on the network that Ailes doesn’t have a hand in–times that by 100 for a GOP presidential debate.”
Does anybody really believe this would not be the case with Fox's biggest show ever?
Roger Ailes graphic by DonkeyHotey.
You’re repeating yourself. Are you a William Blanke sockpuppet?
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