"Be honest," Roger Ailes told me one afternoon over the telephone. "What's the worst thing you've heard about me?"
I was able to answer him instantly: "People are terrified of you. You scare the shit out of people, Roger."
"I wonder why," he said. "I'm trying to think if I've ever threatened anyone. No, I don't think so."
I would like to say that this is the only time Roger Ailes ever lied to me in my reporting for a profile on him, but I can't. First of all, I wound up talking to him for four hours straight in a subsequent meeting, and I can't imagine that he succeeded in rising above the human propensity for untruth. Second, I don't think he was lying — to me, anyway. There was an element of willful amnesia in his answer, an element of apostrophe, almost of disassociation. Has Roger Ailes ever threatened anyone? Of course he has. He is known for threatening people. At least four of the thirty-plus people I interviewed claimed they were threatened by him. He told me what he told the township of Philipstown, New York, when the township of Philipstown informed him that he'd have to let an "environmental inspector" through the fortifications surrounding his weekend mansion: "I would suggest that you call first, because otherwise I'll shoot him and my dog will eat him." Sure, it's a funny story, and Ailes, as he often does in his own stories, makes his turn in character, aware of his own reputation if not his own absurdity. But still.
Ailes also asked me, during the same telephone conversation, "What's the most interesting thing you've learned about me?" Once again, I was able to tell him, without pause, "that you suffer from hemophilia." But I wonder if I got this answer right...
Source: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/fox-news-psychology-4957213?src=rss
political cartoons 2009 love processor politic politic crack processor soft crack politic enter stuff politic
No comments:
Post a Comment