In all modesty, I've got some HOT STUFF here:
Roger Ailes on Alan Greenspan, and how the former Federal Reserve honcho plans to sell lots of books, through the cheap tactic of clobbering the man who reappointed him, Greenspan, to his job: George W. Bush.
*Ailes on the Democratic Party, and its association with Moveon.org, and on the Republican Party, and its need to rejuvenate itself.
*Ailes on how to succeed in business--by really trying. And by avoiding the NYC social circuit!
*Ailes on his own future, and what the future might hold for him, post-Fox.
*Ailes on the sovereignty issue, which is the topic that's even bigger than immigration, looming out there as the sleeper issue of the 21st century.
*And also, most personally and movingly, Ailes talks about his late friend and mentor, Chet Collier--and the huge impact that Chet had on Roger, from 1962 all the way to 2007.
Earlier today, The Cable Game published what she thought was a pretty interesting interview in The Wall Street Journal with FNC/FBN chieftain Ailes.
I didn't know the half of it--literally. The Journal interview, conducted perfectly ably by Rebecca Dana, was around 3500 words. That's a healthy-sized piece, but what The Cable Gamer has discovered only this afternoon is that the actual full transcript is more than two-and-a-half times as long, and TCG has the whole thing in her hot little--make that dainty!--hand. And, aside from the fact that the whole interview, more than 8700 words long, reads like Ailes talks, TCG has, in addition, been able to verify its authenticity.
TCG isn't mad at the WSJ, The WSJwasn't being deceptive; the transcript in the paper was clearly listed as "portions."
But in TCG's humble opinion, some of the best stuff was left out.
Such as Ailes on how Greenspan has taken the easy path to garnering a big advance and guaranteeing good reviewss:
WSJ: What do you think of Alan Greenspan's recent criticisms of President Bush?
MR. AILES: You can't sell a book in America if you don't dump on Bush. That's the cheapest shot in the world. You cannot get an advance, and you can't sell a book because the publishers are all people who hate Bush and hate Republicans. The quickest way to get an advance and to get a lot of money. Once he did it -- I know Alan. Here's a guy who's worked for Republicans all his life, but he couldn't get a book deal, so he said, "Hey, Bush'll understand. I'm gonna make several million dollars here; I gotta get the dough." Alan understands money, and therefore, I don't, you know, look -- everybody's gotta do their thing. For the next 50 years, anybody who dumps on Bush will get a higher advance.
Take that, Alan, you snaky ingrate!
Ailes on the Democrats:
WSJ: What do you think about the state of the Democratic Party right now?
MR. AILES: I don't have a view of politics. The only thing I would say is that we've had the Whig Party and the Know-Nothing Party and a lot of different parties in America, and you've got to be very careful or you could turn into the moveon.org party. If you're going to take orders from them, that's who you will become.
Ailes on the Republicans:
WSJ: What do you think of the state of the Republican Party?
MR. AILES: I don't think they have any chance of losing their name or their compass. As you know, politics is split on both sides: economic, socials, that kind of stuff. Any time you come to the end of two terms of any party, there's a certain period of running out of gas and revival and so on, and those are cyclical changes that in my judgment are good for the country because they strengthen the two-party system. It gives everybody a chance to strengthen their ideas and move on themselves.
As an observer, you know, I think we're in another cyclical pattern. We've had seven years of a pretty good economy. It wouldn't surprise people if we had a little dip.
WSJ: There was a front-page story in the Journal recently about how the Republicans are losing their identity as the party of business. Is that a perspective that informs the Fox Business Network at all?
MR. AILES: Well, if I look at the political fundraising, it seems to be very high on the Democrat side, so there are obviously a whole lot of rich Democrats somewhere that never get any press coverage. The truth is the Democrats do very well, but rich gets sort of listed with Republicans. I remember Katie Couric asked me why there are so many rich Republicans. I said, "I love rich people. Any time I needed a job, I went to a rich person. I like poor people, but they never had a job for me." So I really can't get involved in class warfare because I've known people who needed charity and they went to rich people. I don't resent rich Democrats or rich Republicans. I think everybody wants their kid to grow up and have a piece of the action.
TCG comment on Ailes' comments: If Republicans remember who they are, and what they stand for--the party that helps people get ahead--then the GOP will do fine. And of course, if the Democrats shake their association with lefty billionaires and bloggers, then they, too, could do fine. Free advice to one or both parties, from a man who has been at or near the center of the political action for 40 years, since he helped guide Richard Nixon to the White House in 1968.
Now as to what might come next, showing his characteristic self-deprecating humor:
WSJ: Do you think you'll ever retire or move on to do something else?
MR. AILES: Probably. Probably I'll get thrown out someday. I have other priorities in my life, my family, people have asked me to write a book. Actually, three books. I'm considering that. I can't do anything while I'm doing these jobs. I am worried about the future of the country. If I suddenly saw a way to affect that, I might. There's nothing on the table. I'm not going to retire. I don't want to sit around and go fishing.
OK, no life of idleness for Ailes, ever.
Almost as an aside, Ailes talks, colorfully and pungently, about how he was successful in the media biz:
People say, "How can you? You didn't go to Columbia Journalism School, how can you run a news organization? I say, "I have two qualifications: One, I didn't go to Columbia Journalism School, so there's a chance I'll be fair, and, two, I never want to go to a party in this town, so there's nobody's ass I have to kiss. Those are very important qualifications for people who run news organizations."
OK, take that, Columbia Journalism School! Take that Fifth Avenue smart set!
So what real issues does he worry about most?
MR. AILES: I just think -- Americans have got to come together. Almost every issue we're discussing in the world today can be settled between the 40-yard lines.
WSJ: Do you mean going back into politics in some capacity?
MR. AILES: No, maybe a think tank or maybe writing or doing something else. I'm not thinking about going into politics. I'm not really as partisan as people have tried to make me out to be over the last few years. I'm really about -- as I say, every issue can be negotiated between the 40-yard lines. In the end, the government has no money. The only money it has it takes out of the pockets of the citizens. And to the extent the citizens tolerate the government taking money of their pockets, they go along with it, and at some point they say, "That's enough money out of my pocket!" Then they change and fire somebody and do something else. The one issue that's not between the 40-yard lines is the sovereignty and security of the United States of America. If America goes down, the world goes down. Both parties are going to have to get on board with that pretty soon and understand that we have a right to be a sovereign nation because we have fed more and freed more people than any country ever throughout the history of mankind, and that will go away if the United States goes away. So, we've got to stop piling on every time somebody wants to be anti-American and start piling on us. There's only one number they carry around with them, and that's the number of the White House of the United States because if they get in trouble, guess who they're going to call? Americans.
Ailes is saying something pretty important here, when he talks about SOVEREIGNTY--how the United States of America will have to struggle to keep its identity and independence in a world full of globalists and one-worlders, pushing agendas on behalf of the Kyoto Treaty, The United Nations, The European Union, The North American Union, and whatever globalopolistic scheme the likes of George Soros, Bill & Hillary Clinton, and Kofi Annan can agree upon as they are sitting around in Davos--or The White House.
Ailes is echoing what Ronald Reagan always said about the good ol' US of A--that America "is the last best hope for mankind." We're worth arguing for, even fighting for! No wonder Ailes is so active and outspoken, even now that he is in his mid-60s. Too bad that the WSJ left this passage out!
Finally, Roger talking about Chet Collier:
WSJ: Your best friend and longtime colleague, Chet Collier, died recently. What are some of the things you learned from Chet -- either about the television business or about business in general?
MR. AILES: I learned a lot about what I know about talent. He said two things: "One, your job is to protect the talent and make them look good, and nobody ever tuned in to see you, if you're an executive or a producer, they tune in to see the talent; so, remember that. And, No. 2., the talent will never let you down; they will always look out for themselves." The reason is they're out there being exposed. They get the criticism. So you have to understand, it's a very complex relationship. So, I love talent, and I protect talent, but I have to negotiate with talent, which is difficult. I learned a lot about the talent business from him. The other thing I learned was, if you have a choice between qualifications and personal qualities when it comes to hiring people, go with personal qualities. You can teach them the job; you can get them the qualifications; you can't teach them the qualities they're going to need. You can't teach integrity, a drive for excellence, refusal to quit under pressure. It's too late to build that into people you're going to hire. He taught me to look for the personal qualities. Those are the two things. Chet and I were in and out of each other's lives for 42 years. He gave me my first job, and I did his memorial service two weeks ago … Chet was a Boston liberal, but he was my friend. And we argued for 45 years about everything, but in the end we stuck together … He affected so many lives in television: Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, Steve Allen …
WSJ: Did you ever talk to him about Fox Business?
MR. AILES: As a matter of fact, I did. About a week before he died, he said, "Send all the tapes to me, I'll help you pick the talent. Some of those dumb bastards don't know what they're doing." So, he was looking at tapes. He was watching Fox News every day in Florida. He was hooked up to dialysis but he would watch it 10, 12 hours a day … I got fired twice, and he saved me twice. It was a good relationship. It was about the product. And no excuses. That's the school I went to, so I probably, that's a bit of my management style today. A lot of it I learned from him. Some of it, I guess, is just instinct, life experience. I've been in entertainment, politics, business, business coaching, public affairs, documentaries, programming, news, theater. So, there aren't many things I see that I haven't seen something like that before. Requires the same kind of judgment to come to a decision. I worry about the kids who come out of journalism schools. Not only do they not have life experience, but they don't see past their professors. Most of their professors have fairly limited views and ... the other thing you always have to remember is, you look at people and they might look like a failure but there's often a narrow thing they do very well.
That's a sweet signoff to Chet Collier, who was never well known outside of the industry, but was held in uniform high regard by Cable Gamers. One is reminded of St. Paul's injunction to the Romans, in the New Testament: "Be kindly affectioned one to another, with brotherly love, in honour preferring one another."
I think it's great that Ailes chose to honor his late friend so strongly.
And it's not just TCG that likes Ailes. As TCG was going to press--OK, make that, as I was about to hit the "publish post" button, I noticed that Gawker.com had picked up on the WSJ interview, with the opening line, "It's hard not to love Roger Ailes..."
