12-11-2020
The right-wing knives are out for Fox News –
and Trump is loving it.
If no less a literary scholar than Donald Trump declares your writing “a must read,” there are a couple things we know about you right off the bat. One is that you don’t write intelligence briefings. The other is that you’ve figured out how to stroke that gigantic orange ego.
Meet Lou Aguilar, Trump’s new favorite author, albeit perhaps his only one.
Aguilar just struck wingnut gold with a December 8 piece at the far-right American Spectator headlined, “Fox News Media Suicide–Like the other networks, they were broken by Trump, who understands the TV business better than any of them.”
The work was bestowed the ultimate erudite honor Thursday night, a place on Trump’s Twitter feed:
Aguilar penned a revealing dispatch from behind the red army lines in the nation’s culture civil war. He went full-Trump-grievance in describing the horror of Fox News having lost its lofty perch as “an oasis for discouraged conservatives.”
And he seized upon the three capital crimes for right-wingers as it pertains to the Dear Leader: unfairness, betrayal and disloyalty.
“All they had to do this year to stay on top was fairly cover the president, unlike the competition, and they couldn’t manage that,” Aguilar complained. He enumerated his daft list of journalistic high crimes and misdemeanors by Fox News:
“Like a million loyal former viewers, I disgustedly watched Fox install disgraced Democrat hack Donna Brazile as their new liberal commentator (to back up the insufferable Juan Williams). Watched them boost the China virus doomsday panic.
Watched fake objective anchor Chris Wallace transform into a rabid Trump-sniping chipmunk. Watched normally staid anchor Melissa Francis block Newt Gingrich from linking George Soros to riot-supportive blue state AGs.
Watched business anchor Neil Cavuto cut off a White House press conference because he disapproved of Kayleigh McEnany’s address.
Watched them call Arizona for Biden on Election Night before anyone else did, with the final count still days away…”
And so on. Critically, Aguilar didn’t miss the kill shot:
“FNC will have to do to three things get us back, but they would probably go bankrupt before doing one.
First apologize for betraying their viewer base and the vision that elevated them, the more grovelingly the better.
Two, initiate a corporate Reign of Terror, firing Brazile, Wallace, Cavuto (whom I like), Fisher, Fox Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt, and other tainted anti-Trumpers.
Third, place at the helm a young Roger Ailes-type who understands the original mission of FNC to be “fair and balanced” and not CNN lite.”
Poor Cavuto. Can you imagine what the Reign of Terror might entail if the guy didn’t like him?
As for Aguilar, a guy with only 633 Twitter followers at this writing, it will be interesting to see if one flattering piece about the Leader of the Cult in the peripheral American Spectator can launch him into stardom, sort of like attorney Jenna Ellis metaphorically hopped from traffic court onto Air Force One as a “constitutional lawyer.”
Aguilar’s in right-wing heaven on earth at the moment, as he tweeted:
“Top of the heap, ma! @RealRLimbaugh spent five minutes of his show today reading my new column and calling out my name. I feel like I’ve been knighted.”
Aguilar’s bio describes him as a “published writer” and “produced screenwriter” (the best kind in each instance). He’s also an “arts culture essayist” at American Spectator, presumably because the vegan food editor gig at Guns & Ammo was already taken.
As for being a screenwriter, Aguilar’s bio does modestly understate his achievements, referencing only three of the films referenced on his IMDB page. Somehow, it omitted the 1997 classic he wrote, “Blood Sisters of Lesbian Sin: Girls Just Want to Have Girls.”
That should at least earn Aguilar
a trip to Mar-a-Lago.
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