There is a lot of oohing and aahing about comments Fox News honcho Roger Ailes made to an AP interviewer about Sarah Palin:
From the start, Ailes has steadfastly denied any such political bias or agenda on the part of his network. Politics, schmolitics: “I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings,” he declares.
From the get-go, he meant for his network to counteract the sins he saw others committing: “I really believed there was no fairness or balance” elsewhere on the journalism landscape.
Is Roger Ailes stupid? Demonstrably not. Therefore I have to think that he didn’t tell the Associated Press that he hired Sarah Palin because she is sexually attractive. He meant Palin was “hot” the same way Herman Cain and Chris Christie and Lady Gaga and Can Newton and Glee are “hot.” That is, that they are currently popular and frequently the subject of conversations among the public. If he meant he hired Palin because she was eye candy, do you think his interlocutor would have left the matter at that, and chosen not to follow up and/or include more on the matter?