Karl Rove and Dick Morris are too toxic even for Fox News

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Daily Intel:

According to multiple Fox sources, [Roger] Ailes has issued a new directive to his staff: He wants the faces associated with the election off the air — for now. For Karl Rove and Dick Morris — a pair of pundits perhaps most closely aligned with Fox's anti-Obama campaign — Ailes's orders mean new rules. Ailes's deputy, Fox News programming chief Bill Shine, has sent out orders mandating that producers must get permission before booking  Rove or Morris. Both pundits made several appearances in the days after the election, but their visibility on the network has dropped markedly.

Morris is an embarrassing buffoon, and so it's possible that he'll get significantly less airtime on Fox now that he's been exposed (yet again) as a fraudulent hack.

But don't think for a second that Rove, perhaps the leading Republican strategist and fundraiser, and certainly one of the engines that drives the party establishment, is really on the outs at what is clearly a partisan Republican organization. His election predictions and election-night shenanigans were similarly buffoonish, not least when he found himself at odds with the network's number-crunchers, but he can be excused in Republican circles for thinking that Romney's internal polling was accurate (when it was anything but) and perhaps also that Republican voter suppression efforts would ultimately put Romney over the top (an issue he's trying to deflect by turning the accusation on Obama, which is ridiculous).

Mark my words: Rove will be back sooner than you can fart "Turd Blossom" to the tune of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light."

(photo)