Changing of the Guard

Fox News has announced that the contract for Sarah Palin as a “contributor” to their dendrites will not be renewed. Along with the dismissal of Carl Rove this might represent a changing of the guard at the extremist cable network. Oh, there’s plenty of sub-cortical nuts and blonde-haired bobble-heads left to assure a continuing reign of fear-mongering and misinformation, but the release of two of the G.O.P. standard bearers might indicate less of a change in the networks philosophy than one in the G.O.P.

 Rove may have been released because he poured a lot of the Kool-Aide about Obama losing big – or at least wasted too much of the money of the real corporate sponsors of the G.O.P. to be overlooked. However, Sarah “Barracuda” Palin represents a more nuanced firing. Always well known for her flamboyant, if not vacuous, commentary, she was a spokesperson for the Republican base: a Cougar whose appeal to old, angry white men was more than enough to forgive her many mistakes and misstatements. I suppose she should be sent off with a grudging admiration for stretching her 15 minutes of fame to a half hour and a hearty goodbye.

So with the image of the G.O.P. clearly in transition from the image of old, angry white guys (watch out Hannity and O-Reilly), who will be the next “bella figura” on the Fox Network? My money is on a token Hispanic woman or two, and possibly a young gay male to compliment Ryan and Rubio as the new face of the G.O.P.

Like that will really help.