"Fox News is too important to the Republican Party"

Too important for what? The author of this piece in the Telegraph, a London competitor to the recently defunct News of the World tabloid, thinks that Fox News is too central to the Republican Party for it to turn against it, apparently no matter what it has done.

What if News Corporation, the parent company, has committed Treason, either in the UK or the United States? Would that be enough to convince Republican Presidential hopefuls not to have programs on Fox? How about conspiring with "corrupt foreign agents" as has been mentioned in the British press? Would that be enough? Or how about tapping the phones of 9/11 victims and their families in an attempt to gather juicy news items? Would that be okay? I mean, sure, sure, it's sort of a crime, but...

And News Corps has another problem. Elliot Spitzer. Elliot Spitzer is the heir to a large New York City real estate fortune. He went on to Princeton and Harvard Law School and spent time in prestigious law firms and in smiting Corporate evil-doers. Then he became Governor of New York, but before he could enjoy himself very much a huge scandal over his patronage of prostitutes so captured the news in New York that he was forced to resign. Recently he had an opinion show on CNN, but that got cancelled a week ago. Spitzer thinks Murdock has probably broken a lot of laws. He doesn't think those laws were minor or unimportant. He also (if one can read between the lines) seems to think that Fox and their New York Post daily paper helped run him out of office. He does not seem to have forgotten, or forgiven, that insult. Now that he has some free time, and is a free agent, he seems to want to return the favor. Spitzer is powerful, wealthy and a bulldog prosecutor. This is a very bad enemy for Rupert Murdock to have made.

But all is not lost in New York State. Former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani thinks we should give Rupert Murdock the benefit of the doubt, apparently since he has been so nice to Rudi.

Giuliani is such a has-been that he is polling in the 1% range of possible Republican candidates for President. It may have something to do with him trying to move his mistress (now wife) into the Mayoral Mansion in New York City. It may have something to do with his support of his former chauffeur, Bernie Kerik, to be head of Homeland Security, before it was discovered that Kerik was on the take and went to prison... for being on the take. No one cares what Giuliani thinks. No one.

And the news from England is not getting any better. It turns out that Scotland Yard has so far only notified 176 of the 4,000 victims of phone tapping that their privacy was invaded. By my count that means there are 3,824 individuals who will be getting an extremely unwelcome message from the Police. As someone in News Corps said in the UK, "There is worse news yet to come out... ". Some have suggested that the true number of those whose phones were hacked is probably closer to 10,000. That is fairly large scale criminal behavior, to say the least. As the story festers, like gangrene, at some point it may come to be seen as infectious for anyone who speaks up in support of Fox, the News of the World and News Corps. At that point News Corps, under the weight of its own actions, may simply collapse. At that point it may seem quite "important" for Republicans to switch sides and distance themselves from Fox News. What an irony, after Fox has courted, coddled, touted and supported Republicans. Rather like rats leaving a sinking ship, one might say...

Arthur