Bob Woodward reports in The Washington Post that Roger Ailes, co-founder and chairman of Fox News, had some advice last year for then-Gen. David H. Petraeus. Ailes advised Petraeus to turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested. Ailes might have resigned as head of Fox to run a Petraeus presidential campaign.
In a telephone interview Monday, Ailes said he asked KT McFarland, a Fox News national security analyst and former national security and Pentagon aide to make the pitch to Petraeus, but Ailes says, “It was more of a joke, a wiseass way I have.
I thought the Republican field [in the primaries] needed to be shaken up and Petraeus might be a good candidate,” Ailes says.
Of course, Petraeus took the CIA post — which he’s since resigned from. And Ailes re-signed with Fox News. The WaPo news was worthy of a mention on “CBS This Morning,” but not on Ailes’ “Fox & Friends”