Fox News cleans house

It’s the new shortcut to running for president. Forget about forming an
exploratory committee, begging everybody you know for campaign
contributions, then spending two years on the road, shaking hands and
eating rubber chicken. There’s a far easier, less messy and more
effective approach: Just get a job on Fox News.

Think about it. There’s no sweat involved. You just have to talk. As often as you want to. To a nationwide audience of likeminded conservatives. You don’t even have to know the facts. Nobody expects that from Fox. You just give your opinion, no matter how wacky it is. And you get paid for it!

{mosads}It’s worked for Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Lou Dobbs, John Bolton and Rick Santorum. Why do you think nobody takes Mitt Romney seriously? Because he’s so boring not even Fox would hire him.

For years, the big question in media circles has been: How can Fox get away with it? Every one of the Fox political sextet has made noises about running for president. So why are they still on the air? Pat Buchanan had to leave CNN when he ran for president. J.D. Hayworth had to drop his talk-radio job when he ran for U.S. Senate. Years ago, I was forced to resign my nightly commentator slot on KABC-TV in Los Angeles when I ran for California state insurance commissioner. Why doesn’t the FCC do the same for Palin, Gingrich, Huckabee, Dobbs, and Santorum?

Well, what do you know. Either fearing an intervention by the FCC or attempting to prove that they are, indeed, “fair and balanced,” Fox News has announced it’s beginning its own spring political housecleaning — by suspending Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Because, said Fox host Bret Baier, both have “signaled possible runs for the presidency.”

No kidding! Of course they’re running for president. As early as January 2010, Santorum told his supporters: “I am considering putting my name in for the 2012 presidential race.” And Gingrich, who was rumored to launch his exploratory committee as early as this week, says the only thing left for him to decide about a 2012 race is “whether or not it is practical, which I increasingly think it is.” What took Fox so long to discover what was no big secret?

But the bigger question is: Why dump the two of them only, yet leave Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee on the payroll? They’re at least as serious as Gingrich and Santorum. Palin already has her own PAC, just hired a new political director, and, on 2012, told Fox News last September: “I’d be willing to give it a shot.” And Huckabee’s so far into running for president he’s already trying to lock up the “birther” vote by claiming President Obama was born and raised in Kenya!

So it’s good that Fox News has finally started to clean house. But they have a lot more presidential trash to get rid of before anybody takes seriously their claim to be politically and presidentially pure.

Bill Press is host of the nationally syndicated “Bill Press Show.”