Thinking about the Tea Parties last week, including the one hosted by Glenn Beckin San Antonio, The Cable Gamer was reminded of a March 6 LA Times article reporting on Beck's phenomenal rise of at Fox, to the point where he is vying with Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity for ratings dominance.
Last month, the LAT's Matea Gold--a great Cable Gamer, by the way--provided some background,reporting that before he signed on with Fox, Glenn "sat down with Roger Ailes, the network's chief executive, to make sure they were on the same page."
As Beck remembers it, "I wanted to meet with Roger and tell him, 'You may not want to put me on the air. I believe we are in dire trouble, and I will never shut up.'"
OK, that makes sense. Beck is, after all, an outspoken figure. And yet here's where it gets really interesting, because Ailes beat him to the punch.
But before Beck could say anything, Ailes shared a message of his own: The country faced tough times, he said, and Fox News was one of the only news outlets willing to challenge the new administration.
"I see this as the Alamo," Ailes said, according to Beck. "If I just had somebody who was willing to sit on the other side of the camera until the last shot is fired, we'd be fine."
The Alamo! Now there's an image! No wonder Beck turned up in San Antonio! The Cable Gamer knows that Ailes is from Ohio, but he obviously has the blood of a Texan. And so, with apologies to the great Texas painter Robert Onderdonk, I present this updating of the Alamo, starring, Roger, Glenn, and, just for fun, Alan Colmes and Judge Napolitano.
Yes, I know that Alan is a liberal, but I have never doubted that the author of Red, White, and Liberalloves his country just as much as anyone, and would fight for it if he had to. Fox has plenty of room for liberal voices, but not much room for hate-America lunatic leftists.
The historically minded might point out that the good guys lost at the Alamo--albeit gloriously. But just a year later, the good guys won at San Jacinto, guaranteeing Texas Independence. And so while this historical mashup is of the Alamo, it's San Jacinto that's always on this girl's mind.
