Palin and Fox News are making me look prophetic.

With the announcement that Palin's joining the FNC team, and with it yet more confirmation that Fox News has transformed itself into a purely political entity, it seems that a prediction I made last year is looking more and more like an emerging reality.

Here's what I wrote last November, following the botched, Tea Party candidacy of Doug Hoffman in Upstate N.Y. [emphasis added]:

Looking forward, it's inevitable that during the 2012 GOP Republican primary season, there will be, for the lack of a better term, a Fox News Candidate in the field. There will be a far-right darling of the Tea Party movement (cough, cough, Sarah Palin) who has both the official (Limbaugh, Beck, Malkin) and unofficial (Fox News) endorsement of the right-wing media.

But will that do any good in the real world? Ask Doug Hoffman.

The right-wing media now run the Republican Party. It will be interesting to watch this novel arrangement play out.

UPDATED: As we we stressed last year, Fox News is now the Opposition Party.