Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

Ailes would run the network, set its rightwing tone, guide its right-wing programming,
choose its rightwing stars.
And, most importantly, pick its slogan: "fair and balanced."
And its tag line: "We report, you decide."
Tucker Carlson, the conservative co-host of CNN's Crossfire, has explained that the
reason the Fox News Channel calls itself "fair and balanced" is "to drive liberals crazy."
There are others who suggest that Ailes really believes that FNC is fair and balanced, but
only looks right wing because the rest of the media is so far to the left.
This would be a plausible argument ... if the rest of the media actually had a liberal
bias. Or if Fox wasn't so obviously slanted to the right. Or if Ailes weren't a cynical Republican
ideologue with no regard for fairness or balance. Any of those things would add a lot to
that argument.
When Murdoch installed him at Fox, one of Ailes's first acts of "balance" was to clean
house. Joe Peyronnin, then president of Fox News, told me the story.
"I had about forty people working for me," Joe told me, "and he asked some of them
if they were liberal or not. There was a litmus test. He was going to figure out who was liberal
or conservative when he came in, and try to get rid of the liberals."
Did Joe think this was appropriate? "I told him I didn't think it was appropriate."
Did Joe stay at his job? "I resigned."
So disgusted was Joe that he left English-language journalism altogether and is now
executive vice president of news and information programming at Telemundo. Adios, Joe.
Adios, fairness. Hola, Senor Ailes.
House clean, Ailes went to work hiring his team. For managing editor, he chose veteran
journalist Brit Hume, a contributor to the ultraconservative Weekly Standard and the ultra-ultraconservative
American Spectator. For Washington bureau chief, Ailes chose Brit's
wife Kim, who was determined to change the tone of television journalism. Mainstream stories,
she complained in 1997, are "all mushy, like AIDS, or all silly like Head Start."
Hubby also anchors the nightly news show, Special Report with Brit Hume, which
concludes with Brit moderating a three-person panel of pundits. The most frequent panelist is
prominent conservative Fred Barnes, editor of the Weekly Standard. Most often with Barnes
are Mort Kondracke, centrist editor of Roll Call (a fiercely nonpartisan newspaper that re-