Remember in 2008 when America elected a lying, racist Muslim socialist to the highest office in the land? Amid the gutting of our patriotic ideals and corporate systems, one cable news network managed to speak the truth — from God’s lips to Glenn Beck’s ears to your aunt’s TV — and they even made some money: Fox News saw its ratings go up 8 percent overall during the nation’s Obama-made nadir in 2009, and earned $900 million in 2010. Even now, our country somehow still on the map, Fox’s mission seems to be ridding us of Obama before he causes any more irrevocable damage, and so they harp on things like the bankruptcy of Solyndra and the futile contempt vote against Eric Holder.
But don’t let them fool you — Fox News wouldn’t mind another Obama win.
And while many of its commentators and on-air guests may be rooting for a Mitt Romney victory, privately Fox executives say that a second Obama term could be the best thing that ever happened to their network.
That’s the New York Times today, in an article about President Obama’s Fox News jokes on the campaign trail. Americans’ fictional “Uncle Jim” is “a little stubborn and been watching Fox News,” he says, barely claws-out at all. In a bar once, he suggested someone should change the channel.
Publicly, of course, Fox is scandalized. “I think it lowers the office,” said the network’s executive VP of news Michael Clemente. “For it to come up as regularly as it does — and it’s not every day but every other week, I’d say — it’s just unusual. Especially given the issues out there, like the lack of new jobs and Syria.”
But behind closed doors? Rogers Ailes’ so-called “course correction” aside, nothing is better for the channel than the trumped-up threat of end times. Rupert Murdoch is far from in love with Mitt Romney. It’s not that they’re not true conservatives, it’s just that they love money. And what’s four more years of fire and brimstone anyway?