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God Bless You, Fox News

Vitriolic network so valuable, DNC ought to be paying for it

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Nov 12, 2008 8:24 AM CST

(Newser) – Thank you, Roger Ailes. Sure, your Fox News Channel still specializes in misinformation, distortion, and right-wing fairy tales, but “I’m no longer sure this is a bad thing,” writes Harold Meyerson in the Washington Post. The GOP needs to move in a new direction and cast off its pet obsessions, and thanks to Fox, it can’t do either—pet obsessions are Fox’s bread-and-butter.

The slightest shift to the center is heresy to Hannity’s faithful. It’s Nixon’s Southern Strategy backfiring—the GOP has lost ground everywhere except the rural South, the least educated, least diverse part of the nation. “You guys at Fox serve chiefly to reinforce their fears,” Meyerson writes. “You ensure the ongoing Palinization and marginalization of the Republican Party.” Best of all? "You're doing all this not on the Democratic National Committee's dime but on Rupert Murdoch's," concludes Meyerson.

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (2)]

This video image provided by the Fox News Channel shows Sean Hannity interviewing Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Fox News Channel)

In this video image released by Fox News, Rupert Murdoch is interviewed, Tuesday, May 1, 2007. (AP Photo/FOX NEWS)

In this Jan. 18, 2007 file photo, Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly appears on the Fox News show, "The O'Reilly Factor," in New York. (AP Photo/Jeff Christensen, file)

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Rather than present these voters with a picture of a complex, changing world, you guys at Fox serve chiefly to reinforce their fears, to paint people who hold different viewpoints as alien and threatening. - Harold Meyerson

The way your flock sees it, the modifications Republicans need to make to become competitive again in American politics amount to nothing less than heresy. - Harold Meyerson

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God Bless You, Fox News