In the second part of his interview with Howard Kurtz, Fox News chief Roger Ailes set his sights on Jon Stewart, attacking him by claiming, "[h]e openly admits he's sort of an atheist and a socialist." Ailes went on to call Stewart “crazy” and claimed he “hates conservatives.”* Ailes believes it is “horseshit” that Stewart's criticism of cable news hinges not on “the ideology of cable channels but the tone of the discourse,” because Stewart supposedly “loves polarization.” He reportedly added, “If Stewart wants to go after cable hosts for the entertainment value, fine, 'but don't give me a social speech on the steps of the Washington Monument. Don't lapse into non-comedy.'”
Is he serious? Jon Stewart hosted his rally after Glenn Beck's “Restoring Honor” self-aggrandizing religious event, but it's Stewart's rally that's the problem?
Does he even realize what Stewart's rally was about? It was filled with Stewart “go[ing] after cable hosts” and the discourse on cable news. As the Washington Post reported, Stewart “argued that the rally's target was the caustic level of discourse in Washington, and its nasty echoes on cable television's 24-hour news cycle. Stewart said that noisy debate obscured a reality that he perceived: that everyone throughout the country had found a way to work together.” If Stewart “loves polarization,” he has a funny way of showing it.
Ailes is an angry man, who has repeatedly proven that he holds one standard for people who think like him and a different one for everybody else. It's really no wonder that Fox News is what it is, with this guy at the helm.
*Edited for clarity.