Ailes: Obama Has Different 'Belief System'
Howard Kurtz at The Daily Beast reports:
In the media world, as in politics, having a high-profile target can be a very good thing.
The age of Obama has provided a ratings boost for Fox News as its loudest personalities have relished the opportunity to play offense. Critics, of course, view Fox as an unabashed cheerleader for the Republican Party, an evil media empire spewing propaganda and misinformation at a gullible audience.
But Roger Ailes says his network is just reflecting reality when it comes to the White House.
“The president has not been very successful,” the Fox News chairman says in a lengthy interview. “He just got kicked from Mumbai to South Korea, and he came home and attacked Republicans for it. He had to be told by the French and the Germans that his socialism was too far left for them to deal with.”
The 70-year-old Ailes, dressed in a lavender shirt and tie, goes on in this vein, saying the network isn’t singling out Obama for criticism but that its style “tends to be more direct” in challenging presidents. Then he offers this observation about Obama:
“He just has a different belief system than most Americans.”
That seems a rather loaded phrase—different belief system—even if you strongly disagree with most of Obama’s policies. It fits the view of those who are trying to paint the president as being outside the mainstream. But from the big second-floor office at Fox’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters, it’s the rest of the media that are using a distorted lens.
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