Part of Roger Ailes' master plan at Fox News and grand design for American politics is to get as many potential Republican candidates for president as he can on his payroll. Hence, Sarah Palin signed on yesterday as a Fox contributor.
Ailes has several operations going here. He wants to be a kingmaker--actually, he believes he is a kingmaker. He believes that conservative candidates are successful when they take up the Fox line (not vice versa)--and that they will be more successful if they follow his advice. He has, on several occasions, gotten in journalism-ethics trouble for seeming to advise conservative politicians. He solves that problem if they are his employees. He can be their personal political tutor; he's the director. Indeed, he's the boss. It should not be underestimated how good he is at this job. He can shape an incredible performance. And, finally, he wants to be paid for this. The tragedy of the political consultant, which Ailes once was, working for Nixon and Reagan, is that consultants can never fully monetize their success. Ailes has solved that problem: He's turned conservative politics into a paying show.
All this comprises an astounding development in American politics.
But the even larger development is that Ailes was fired on Sunday. Matthew Freud--the son-in-law of News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch--claiming to representing the controlling shareholders of News Corp., which owns Fox News, said Ailes' is, in essence, a contemptible grotesque whose association soiled the company.
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