Those were the words of Roger Ailes, telling CNN's hometown paper how the world had changed in the last 10 years. Ailes told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jill Vejnoska and the rest of the crowd at the FNC anniversary party about the days back in 1996, when "There was only one news channel, and they had no competition." Pause. "Now, there's only one news channel, and we have no competition!"
Vejnoska ably capures the festive spirit of the occasion:
"About the only thing missing, it seemed, were Bill Clinton and Chris Wallace re-enacting their much ballyhooed and eyeballed verbal smackdown on a recent edition of 'Fox News Sunday.'
"But the door is always open to the former president.
"'It kept us in the news every day for a week,' Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes chortled a few hours before the Wednesday night bash. In fact, he said he'd 'entertain' the notion of offering Clinton his own show --- but only on the weekends. That way, it wouldn't displace 'Hannity & Colmes' or any of Fox's other top-rated prime-time programming.
"'I would've paid him a hundred grand as a marketing fee to [perform like that, with Wallace]. He did it for nothing. We appreciated it. And we'd like to have him back next week.'"
Lamentably, the article is not online, which is too bad, because Vejnoska is always entertaining.
(And thanks to Jossip and photographer Matthew Krautheim for the photo! The whole set from the FNC party is to be found on that most excellent website.
