Liz Smith wraps up her item on genius Fox News chief Roger Ailes with a truly great line:
The hottest inside story of network news - or any kind of news - is the latest scuttlebutt concerning the dynamic Roger Ailes. He is the king and kingmaker of the Fox News network and the scourge of his competition, of which, he seems to have very little.
On the morning that the American F-16 jets dropped their bombs on al-Zarqawi, the story goes that the man running Fox News had ordered his minions to be at work early - at 5:30 in the morning. This seems an ungodly time to come to the office, but on that particular day, it happened. Thus, the entire crew was on hand to handle this big breaking story.
So, of course, even Mr. Ailes' famous world-traveling boss, Rupert Murdoch, called in wondering if Roger had perhaps been tipped off by pals or informants inside the Bush White House or elsewhere.
Mr. Ailes just laughs and laughs at this. "We periodically have these early staff get-togethers to stay sharp. I learned about al-Zarqawi's death as I was driving in to work at 4 in the morning. I was in my car. But nobody is leaking to me!"
So Mr. Ailes remains omniscient, perceptive, superstitiously at the ready and coincidentally lucky. In any case, if al-Zarqawi had met Roger Ailes face to face, he'd have been dead anyway.
