We've written before about how Fox News has become something of a detriment to its own cause. But in a great new column, Media Matters' Eric Boehlert nails it when he points to Roger Ailes' Nixonian-era posturing as the major culprit. As the electoral wing of the Republican party searches its soul about re-branding its message and reaching out to new and more diverse voters, the unofficial communications arm of the GOP over at Fox News continues with the same old, same old red meat for its old, white viewers.

Calling Ailes the "elephant in the elephant's room," Boehlert writes:

...(A)ll week long there's been a running conversation among Republicans about their messaging, yet there's been virtually no public discussion about Ailes and Fox News, which own the GOP's messaging.

There's been little public acknowledgement that there can be no effective rebranding of the Republican Party if Ailes doesn't sign off. Meaning, the GOP can turn itself inside out if it wants, but if Fox News, the self-appointed face and voice the GOP, doesn't change, none of it matters because Fox will still be pounding home every negative stereotype that party leaders now want to erase. (i.e. Antagonistic, paranoid, narrow minded.)

That's the only approach Ailes knows: the phony Outrage Machine approach. (Obama did what?!) But it's growing stale. In January, Fox logged its worst ratings since August 2001. (Ratings rebounded somewhat in February.) Even some conservative pundits have grown bored of the Fox News model. It's the decade-old model that features the same tired voices making the same tired claims.

I'm sure Fox News execs will laugh heartily at us lefties offering Republicans advice - and they can correctly remind everyone that Fox still dominates in the ratings. But the signs of trouble are there for everyone to see, even if Ailes and his acolytes want to ignore them. As I wrote over at Crooks and Liars,  a new Pew report found Fox's prime time viewership was "basically flat" in 2012, even though it was an election year.

Things are even worse for the electoral arm of the GOP, of course. As Boehlert summed up, "The permanent state of victimhood that Fox markets on behalf of the GOP might keep a loyal audience of Obama haters happy on cable television. But all it's produced for the party is two landslide Obama victories."

So go ahead and laugh, Foxies (and we know you read News Hounds). But laughing probably won't win you any new viewers or voters, either.