Alter, Ailes & Adversaries

Remember Jonathan Alter‘s Newsweek column titled “If Watergate Happened Now?” It took a swipe at FNC chief Roger Ailes, and on the Huffington Post, Alter alleges that Ailes sent his stooges after him.

This is Alter’s depiction of Ailes: “When he’s attacked, he hits back harder, whatever the facts. His m.o. is distraction. He either unloads a barbed soundbite or hides behind his munchkins and assumes his anonymously-sourced counterattack will just fuzz up the issue and make people focus on something other than the fraudulence of his claim to being ‘fair and balanced.’ He assumes his adversaries are patsies who will be easily cowed into silence. This time, he assumed wrong.”

Here’s the full column. Meanwhile, at The Corner, John Podhoretz says Alter is “whining that Roger Ailes didn’t like a column of his and was trying to get Alter in trouble over it.” (Then Tim Graham weighed in.)