The Widdershins

In 1977 when Hollywood star Joan Crawford died, her life-long rival and arch-nemesis Bette Davis remarked: “You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”

This brings me to Roger Ailes. It may appear in poor taste to say GOOD that Ailes died. Certainly for the sake of his family. But then we read about Ailes 17 year old son Zachary who at his father’s memorial service raved: “I want all the people who betrayed my father to know that I’m coming after them and hell is coming with me!” So there’s an asshole-in-training.

We must also never ever forget what Roger Ailes has done to America, its government and its people by turning Fox News into the juggernaut of right-wing lies, racism, misogyny and every other kind of prejudice. It is impossible to even enumerate all the evil things his network has done, and all the terrifying things their anchors have said, since he became its founding CEO in 1996. All in pursuit of ratings and money, billions of dollars. It is not an exaggeration to say that Ailes broke America. Those who watched his network, which peddled fear of everything except white, heterosexual and male (except for the blonde anchors in short skirts, who toed the line on the air, even as many of them were sexually harassed and assaulted by Ailes), have been radicalized over the past 20 years into Trump supporters. It is Ailes’ greatest “achievement,” the installation of actual white supremacists and neo-Nazis into the White House. They want to talk about radicalized Muslims. But we should really talk about the radicalized white people, radicalized into intolerance, radicalized into violence, radicalized into hate by Fox News.

It is also not an exaggeration to say that political gridlock which has eaten at our government courtesy of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan (and John Boehner before him, and Newt Gingrich before that, and Trent Lott too), is also directly linked to Ailes. Roger Ailes was evil. It is men like him who make me wish there is actually a hell because men like Roger Ailes deserve to burn in it for all eternity.

Even Monica Lewinsky felt compelled to write an op-ed in the NY Times.

Some experts have noted that viewers found Fox for the first time because of the crisis. John Moody, a Fox executive editor, reflected on that period: “The Lewinsky saga put us on the news map.” As he put it in another interview: “Monica was a news channel’s dream come true.”

Their dream was my nightmare. My character, my looks and my life were picked apart mercilessly. Truth and fiction mixed at random in the service of higher ratings. My family and I huddled at home, worried about my going to jail — I was the original target of Kenneth Starr’s investigation, threatened with 27 years for having been accused of signing a false affidavit and other alleged crimes — or worse, me taking my own life. Meantime, Mr. Ailes huddled with his employees at Fox News, dictating a lineup of talking heads to best exploit this personal and national tragedy.

The legacy of Ailes’ Fox News has been on prominent display since his death. One of the last remaining nut-job anchors Ailes inflicted upon the world, Sean Hannity, has been peddling a nasty, obviously fake “news” story about the murder of a DNC staffer in 2016.

The only thing we know to be true is that on July 10, 2016, a 27 year old employee of the DNC, Seth Conrad Rich, was shot and killed by unknown assailants in Washington DC. The police continue to investigate, but so far the conclusion seems to be that it was a failed robbery, with the assailants panicking and shooting Rich after he fought back. For a while now some segments of the internet have peddled the theory that Rich was actually murdered by the DNC and Hillary Clinton. (The day Seth was murdered, he was offered a job on Hillary Clinton’s campaign and was planning to temporarily move to NYC, where her campaign was based.) The conspiracy theory exploded into the mainstream after a Fox affiliate, and then the main Fox News channel, aired allegations from a private investigator (who happens to be a pundit on Fox) falsely claiming that he had been hired by Seth’s parents, and his investigation showed that Rich was the source of the DNC e-mails leaked to WikiLeaks and that his computer that would prove it was missing. The story fell apart almost immediately. The family said they never hired the man, they had their son’s computer, which had already been analyzed by the police and the FBI. It didn’t matter. Screaming headlines on Fox News and the alt-right web-sites were about DNC, Podesta and Clinton ordering the assassination of Seth Rich to punish him for leaking DNC e-mails. A previously known video of Seth’s parents thanking the internet for donating money to their GoFundMe page was now peddled by both Trump supporters and Bernie Sanders supporters as proof that the family agreed with the conspiracy. Sean Hannity, with guests that included Newt Gingrich and Geraldo Rivera, proclaimed for days that the DNC and Clinton murdered Seth Rich. Seth’s family released a statement saying that there was a special place in hell for people who peddled such painful stories. Hannity doesn’t care. The narrative for the conspiracy has been set. Rebuttals from CNN ,which described how even employees of Fox were disturbed by Hannity’s coverage, and many rebuttals from WaPo (both in print and via tweets from several of their reporters), were greeted with scorn from the believers. We are seeing Pizzagate Part 2 come alive before our eyes.

Today Seth Rich’s parents published an op-ed in WaPo asking people to stop politicizing their son’s murder.

[…] conservative news outlets and commentators continue, day after painful day, to peddle discredited conspiracy theories that Seth was killed after having provided WikiLeaks with emails from the DNC. Those theories, which some reporters have since retracted, are baseless, and they are unspeakably cruel.

We know that Seth’s personal email and his personal computer were both inspected by detectives early in the investigation and that the inspection revealed no evidence of any communications with anyone at WikiLeaks or anyone associated with WikiLeaks. Nor did that inspection reveal any evidence that Seth had leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks or to anyone else. Indeed, those who have suggested that Seth’s role as a data analyst at the DNC gave him access to a wide trove of emails are simply incorrect — Seth’s job was to develop analytical models to encourage voters to turn out to vote. He didn’t have access to DNC emails, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee emails, John Podesta’s emails or Hillary Clinton’s emails. That simply wasn’t his job.

Even Julian Assange, who was previously coy when asked if Seth Rich was the source of DNC e-mails, later tweeted that WikiLeaks has never and would never reveal the sources of their leaks, debunking claims that he had previously confirmed the info.

Finally, perhaps after lawyers at Fox intervened, Fox published a retraction to the story, though as media ethicist Kelly McBride writes, their retraction was “woefully inadequate.”

It didn’t include a correction, which would have gone a long way toward showing that the network learned from its mistake and was truly contrite.

Corrections are inevitable in journalism. When done well, they serve a purpose for both the audience and the news organization.

Sean Hannity’s response to Fox’s “retraction” was that he retracts nothing and will continue to “investigate.” He is truly Roger Ailes’ spawn. And I can’t wait for the good day when he, too, is dead.

To change the subject from “good dead” to “bad dead” – I must acknowledge the passing
of Roger Moore at the age of 89. Moore was my first James Bond and for that reason retains a special place in my heart, though perhaps some of the movies he starred in have in some ways aged the worst because the fashion of the 1980s is just embarrassing, there were certainly some great ones Bond films too.  “Live And Let Die,” for example. Remember: it was Roger Moore’s 007 who ran across a row of hungry crocodiles as they snapped their jaws – one of the most iconic of all Bond moments. Moore’s humor and charm on and off screen were unforgettable. Below is a story about Roger Moore published on Facebook by a man named Marc Haynes. It may bring a tear and a smile. Rest in peace, Sir Roger.

As an seven year old in about 1983, in the days before First Class Lounges at airports, I was with my grandad in Nice Airport and saw Roger Moore sitting at the departure gate, reading a paper. I told my granddad I’d just seen James Bond and asked if we could go over so I could get his autograph. My grandad had no idea who James Bond or Roger Moore were, so we walked over and he popped me in front of Roger Moore, with the words “my grandson says you’re famous. Can you sign this?”

As charming as you’d expect, Roger asks my name and duly signs the back of my plane ticket, a fulsome note full of best wishes. I’m ecstatic, but as we head back to our seats, I glance down at the signature. It’s hard to decipher it but it definitely doesn’t say ‘James Bond’. My grandad looks at it, half figures out it says ‘Roger Moore’ – I have absolutely no idea who that is, and my hearts sinks. I tell my grandad he’s signed it wrong, that he’s put someone else’s name – so my grandad heads back to Roger Moore, holding the ticket which he’s only just signed.

I remember staying by our seats and my grandad saying “he says you’ve signed the wrong name. He says your name is James Bond.” Roger Moore’s face crinkled up with realisation and he beckoned me over. When I was by his knee, he leant over, looked from side to side, raised an eyebrow and in a hushed voice said to me, “I have to sign my name as ‘Roger Moore’ because otherwise…Blofeld might find out I was here.” He asked me not to tell anyone that I’d just seen James Bond, and he thanked me for keeping his secret. I went back to our seats, my nerves absolutely jangling with delight. My grandad asked me if he’d signed ‘James Bond.’ No, I said. I’d got it wrong. I was working with James Bond now.

Many, many years later, I was working as a scriptwriter on a recording that involved UNICEF, and Roger Moore was doing a piece to camera as an ambassador. He was completely lovely and while the cameramen were setting up, I told him in passing the story of when I met him in Nice Airport. He was happy to hear it, and he had a chuckle and said “Well, I don’t remember but I’m glad you got to meet James Bond.” So that was lovely.

And then he did something so brilliant. After the filming, he walked past me in the corridor, heading out to his car – but as he got level, he paused, looked both ways, raised an eyebrow and in a hushed voice said, “Of course I remember our meeting in Nice. But I didn’t say anything in there, because those cameramen – any one of them could be working for Blofeld.”

I was as delighted at 30 as I had been at 7. What a man. What a tremendous man.