MEDIA BARONS AND POLITCIANS: A LETHAL COMBINATION-- FOR US

Yesterday I asked a friend about what I perceive to be a very unhealthy relationship (for America) between the Clintons and arch-reactionary media baron Rupert Murdoch. He mentioned that Murdoch donated $2,300 to Hillary's campaign and that employees of his vast right-wing conspiracy empire have donated over $50,000 to her so far. The unhealthy relationship goes back a long way. Over a year ago CBS looked into it.

To call them a political odd couple would be a rash understatement.

Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch will host a fundraiser for liberal New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Financial Times reports.

The mating ritual of the unlikely allies has been under way for months. Clinton set political tongues to wagging last month by attending a Washington party celebrating the 10th anniversary of Fox News, the cable news channel owned by Murdoch.

The mating ritual between Murdoch's Fox and Rudy Giuliani is way more advanced. As today's NY Times mentions, "Roger Ailes and Rudolph W. Giuliani have been pulling for each other for nearly two decades."

Mr. Ailes was the media consultant to Mr. Giuliani’s first mayoral campaign in 1989. Mr. Giuliani, as mayor, officiated at Mr. Ailes’s wedding and intervened on his behalf when Mr. Ailes’s company, Fox News Channel, was blocked from securing a cable station in the city.

This year, they were tablemates at the White House correspondents dinner, which Mr. Giuliani attended as a guest of Fox’s parent company, the News Corporation.
Now these allies and friends find themselves on largely uncharted political turf. Mr. Giuliani, 63, is a leading Republican candidate for president. Mr. Ailes, 67, is head of Fox News, the pre-eminent media outlet for likely voters in a Republican primary.

Whether their friendship would ever affect coverage-- Fox insists that it has not and will not-- it is nonetheless the sort of relationship that other campaigns have noted, though none wanted to speak publicly for fear of offending the station.

So far this year, one political journal found, Mr. Giuliani has logged more time on Fox interview programs than any other candidate. Most of the time has been spent with Sean Hannity, an acknowledged admirer of the former mayor...

But his friendship with Ailes, a rightw-ing partisan operative, and his huge media coverage on Fox, is... just a coincidence.