Please, try to get control. You forgave Rush Limbaugh for shaking down his maid for OxyContin. Surely you can forgive a needy businessman for taking money from a donor to the survivors of suicide bombers. Is there no compassion among you? Murdoch is merely fighting to keep control of the very company that created Fox News just for you. Without Prince bin Talal’s voting shares, your patron might lose control of the company that created America’s Most Trusted News Network. Murdoch losing control would be like Al Gore taking over Springfield’s nuclear plant and kicking Mr. Burns to the curb. Imagine a cable “liberal” like John Malone running News Corp.
On the other side, for angry liberals who latched on to the column as proof that Murdoch is in some kind of conspiracy with Osama bin Laden, let me set you straight: It’s all the same to Murdoch – Doocy, Osama, birthers, whatever blonde pretty male/female anchor, Chinese dictators, Saudi creeps. It is just about making money. Murdoch is P.T. Barnum, not the conscience of conservatism. Fox News makes money. Murdoch sucks in the Ned Flanders crowd because he shares the late H.L. Mencken’s vision of how easy it is to shape public opinion: “Public opinion, in its raw state, gushes out in the immemorial form of the mob’s fear. It is piped into central factories, and there it is flavored and colored and put into cans.”
Murdoch bought a movie studio precisely because running one requires no soul. For Murdoch, that is the beauty of showbiz. Avatar is making billions of dollars. Who cares about Prius-driving, latte-drinking Hollywood liberals. Murdoch is, at heart, as Australian as a great white shark. He devours whatever gets in his way. Gordon Gekko thought lunch was for wimps. Murdoch thinks souls are for wimps.
Should Murdoch finally die, the Devil will be waiting in fear because he knows Rupert will make good on his threat to take control of all of the Devil’s souls. My guess is Murdoch will descend to hell on judgment day only long enough to sign the papers.
Rupert Murdoch’s political views have nothing to do with Roger Ailes tormenting liberals with that menagerie at Fox that upsets them so. Liberals need to get over Fox. After all, crazy relatives, who don’t like facts, have to have something to do, and Murdoch cashes in by providing them with an ignorance-affirming comfort zone where life is really, really simple.
Besides, liberals finally have to learn to give and take punches. Earlier this year, Ailes appeared on ABC’s “This Week” with Paul Krugman and Arianna Huffington. He actually mopped the floor with the two liberal media stars. It was like watching Fox’s “When Animals Attack;” only those animals put up real fights. Ailes wins because he does not play fair and understands that prejudice and fear are the perfect ingredients for building a large and successful demographic. Ailes is perfect as Murdoch’s Joseph Goebbels. In the 1930s, Goebbels, a political operative, showed Chancellor Adolph Hitler that if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth – especially among the resentful and fearful. (Am I sounding too Glenn Beckish?)
Figuring out Murdoch is not complicated. All one has to do is follow the money. Murdoch has always been that kind of guy. For those who don’t remember, his newspaper in Australia played a major role in getting rid of Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1975 because Whitlam had the nerve to suggest that the CIA live up to a treaty on a CIA satellite tracking station in Pine Gap, Australia. The U.S. government got very angry and pressed the Governor General, appointed by the Queen of England, to sack the PM. It helped that the CIA had a big file on the Governor General. Murdoch’s newspaper ran stories. Whitlam wasn’t good for business in Australia, so he had to go. Murdoch does what is good for business.
The fact that Murdoch is a complete hypocrite for doing business with governments that are repressive and support terrorism to him simply shows that as a businessman, he is independent from the political tyranny of Fox News. After all, Halliburton does business with Iran.
There are other stories I could tell you about the old man, but the bottom line is Murdoch is the bottom line. Now Murdoch has taken his relationship with Prince bin Talal a step further.
Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported: “News Corp. plants flag in Saudi Arabia. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., as expected, has made a $70-million investment for almost 10% of Rotana, a Saudi Arabian media company. Rotana is owned by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.”
Do you think they will let Sean Hannity do the call to prayers as a guest imam or Bill O’Reilly interview Osama bin Laden in the no spin zone?
Think I am kidding?
This week Fox Business, a network with an MSNBC-sized audience, is promoting sending a reporter to Middle East countries to tell us about the delightful business climate in places like Syria that is run by a government that blew up the prime minister of Lebanon. Want to do business with Syria? Hire them as repo men. When the Syrian army was forced out of Lebanon, they literally took with them the windows, toilets and everything nailed down from the scores of high rise buildings in Beirut.
“24,” the hit Fox television show, proved to us that torture really works. “24’s” super patriot producer finally has a moral dilemma worthy of Jack Bauer for the 2011 season. Does he let Bauer finally catch Osama bin Laden and blow up News Corp’s deal with the Saudis or will Brian Hastings come to the rescue by ordering CTU to stand down on bin Laden and go after the real terrorist. I can see the script now:
Bauer
Chloe find out where John Malone was on 9/11.
Chloe
Yes, Jack.
P.S. Inside Fox News Gossip
Bill O’Reilly hates Sean Hannity. He thinks he is stupid and is trying to take over the top spot. Hannity is afraid of Glen Beck. That is why Beck appears on O’Reilly and not Hannity. That is why O’Reilly and Beck are a team. They are not out to get “progressives;” they are out to get Hannity.
