I have to admit to you something: this topic wasn't my original diary for tonight. But, as I was combing around the Internet and reading my usual news outlets, I picked up on this news. Now this might have been announced. Or you already probably know. But since I try to go out of my way not to watch FOX news, this tidbit popped into my lap today. It proceeded to shock (if not repulse) me ever since.
Yes. If you haven't already heard, Mr. Rove has a new job. Oh no. Not that job with Senator John McCain. That's moonlighting work. The other job: as a "consultant" on FOX News.
Yes, you heard right. There's no wax in your ears.
Mr. Rove is there to give his undivided, "fair", and "balanced" (now you know I say this in jest) opinions about the news of the day.
Media Matters has succinctly summed up some of the conflicts of interest that have come up as Mr. Rove settles into this new position:
Appearing on the March 10 editions of Fox News' America's Election HQ and Hannity & Colmes, Republican strategist and Fox News contributor Karl Rove discussed the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns, but neither America's Election HQ host Bill Hemmer nor Hannity & Colmes co-hosts Sean Hannity or Alan Colmes asked Rove whether he was "informally advising the campaign" of Sen. John McCain, as a March 8 Politico article reported, citing "[a] top McCain adviser." Further, neither Hemmer nor Hannity or Colmes pointed out that Rove has reportedly confirmed making a financial contribution to McCain's campaign. On America's Election HQ, Hemmer introduced Rove as "Fox News contributor and former White House chief strategist Karl Rove." On Hannity & Colmes, Hannity introduced him by saying,[emphasis mine] "Fox News contributor -- we call him 'the Architect' -- Karl Rove is back."
What is more, Howard Kurtz, commenting on Mr. Rove's new venture into media, says in the Washington Post that he"has mellowed"":
Karl Rove, who has spent his career denigrating Democrats, was on the Fox News set last Monday when he was asked a point-blank question: Should Eliot Spitzer resign?
Pronouncing the situation "very sad," Rove said he wasn't in the business of telling the New York governor what to do. He deflected a question about whether Republicans are held to a different standard than Democrats in sex scandals, saying Spitzer's problem was that he "made his reputation as a prosecutor" whose targets included prostitution rings.
No one would accuse the newly minted pundit of being balanced, but to the surprise of some critics, he has been generally fair-minded in his commentary. The man long derided by the left as "Bush's brain" is trying to move beyond his attack-dog reputation.
Are you kidding me, Mr. Kurtz? Karl Rove, fair-minded and mellow? Is he looking through those same "Bush Colored Glasses"? Say it isn't so.
I don't really know if pigs are flying in the sky or that it is because it is leap year. But, with this news, FOX hiring Rove just lowered the Fourth Estate by cutting it off by the knees.
How I miss Walter Cronkite and the rest of the crusty old guard who told it like it was and did their jobs with such an incredible decorum.
I have a feeling that Mr. Rove's hire signals the harbinger that the media has lost its scruples.
--politicalceci