Posted
7:45 AM
by Scoobie Davis
Must ReadMichael Barthel on the phony New Black Panther controversy and the right's attempt to create a new Southern strategy. It's hardly surprising that
Fox News is a major player in this (also
here). Fox News CEO and president Roger Ailes was an integral part of the original Southern strategy of the 1960's. The other day I was reading Rick Perlstein's
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America and came across this gem about Ailes when he was a media consultant for Richard Nixon prior ot the 1968 election. Here was the description of Ailes finding a ringer for a Q & A television program in which people would ask Nixon questions:
Ailes hit upon an idea. . .:"A good, mean, Wallaceite cabdriver. Wouldn't that be great? Some guy to sit there and say, 'Alright, Mac, what about these niggers?'" Nixon would then abhor the uncivility of the words, while endorsing a "moderate" version of the opinion. Ailes walked up and down a nearby taxi stand until he found a cabbie who fit the bill.
UPDATE: Joan Walsh on The Fox News Southern strategy.