Eric Boehlert

Next week, Fox News chairman Roger Ailes will return to his alma mater, Ohio University, and give a featured lecture. According to a campus flyer, Ailes' talk will be entitled, "FOX News: Past, Present, Future," and will be given as part of the school's George Washington Forum on American Ideas,...

The publication last week of an excerpt from a forthcoming Barack Obama biography sparked an especially frenzied response from conservative bloggers who view the president's distant personal past with an unhealthy fascination.

The book's new revelation about the identity of a girlfriend Obama had soon after he graduated college...

In the end, the Senate Select Committee investigating the Watergate crimes was never able to compel Richard Nixon to testify before Congress about criminality inside his White House. (Nixon's 1974 resignation made sure that never happened.) But I suspect if Nixon had ever been forced to appear before Congress and...

Writing in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, conservative Shelby Steele announced "Two tragedies are apparent in the Trayvon Martin case." The first was that Martin had been gunned down by a neighborhood watchman. The second calamity, according to Steele, was that the "liberal media" and the "the increasingly redundant...

Fueled by a heady bout of denial as practiced by an egomaniac, and cheered on by a fan base of enablers, Rush Limbaugh's long-running Sandra Fluke saga is still generating national headlines on its 22nd day, an eternity in today's sped-up news climate.

How has the story of...

This week's sudden unraveling of Rush Limbaugh's radio standing as the untouchable king of conservative media strangely mirrors deep difficulties recently faced by Rupert Murdoch and Glenn Beck, two other far-right press titans.

Twelve months ago, all three would have been included on any list that tabulated the most...

It turns out that even in cases of emergency, the GOP Noise Machine has no off switch.

Republicans learned that painful lesson as the Rush Limbaugh "slut" fiasco made headlines for days on end. With the Voice of the Republican Party engulfed in one of the most damaging (and self-inflicted)...

Cultivating a culture of corruption can be expensive. Just ask Rupert Murdoch.

His media behemoth News Corp. has spent nearly $900 million dollars in recent years cleaning up legal messes created by the unethical behavior of his employees. And the legal bills, including out of court settlements, show no signs...

Touching down their private jets at the Palm Springs Airport late last month, and convening at a nearby golf resort in Indian Wells, California, for a secretive retreat, wealthy conservative donors met again under the aegis of David and Charles Koch to plot the best way to pool their fortunes...

Drenched in contempt, Fox News contributor Sandy Rios appeared on Rupert Murdoch's cable channel last Friday to address the controversy surrounding the Susan G. Komen foundation's decision to cut longstanding ties with Planned Parenthood. In the process, Rios perfectly captured two of the conservative media's least redeeming, yet...

Talk about throwing good money after bad.

Last week, cantankerous media watchdog Brent Bozell announced that his group, Media Research Center, was launching the largest initiative in its 25 year history: a $5 million marketing campaign urging the "liberal media" to "tell the truth!" Bozell urged...

Wannabe kingmaker Roger Ailes is facing an open revolt.

More and more despondent conservatives are expressing alarm over the unfolding Republican primary season and what they see as the party's dwindling chances of defeating President Obama in November. Spooked at the general elections prospects facing frontrunners...

The dawning of an election year is certain to bring more attacks on Michelle Obama from the far-right press, which for years has unleashed an unprecedented barrage of name-calling assaults on the First Lady; assaults that in the past would have been deemed unthinkable by even partisan opponents who routinely...

Even for media observers who do Rupert Murdoch a favor by asking the press baron to clear an impossibly low bar of corporate behavior, recent revelations must have some wondering if there are any lows Murdoch and his lieutenants haven't yet stooped to.

During campaign seasons members of the partisan opinion press can provide invaluable services to their side by debunking stories with original reporting, supplying unique analysis, and offering up substantive media critiques in hopes of changing the trajectory of big stories.

But over the last ten days as the Herman Cain...

The announcement yesterday that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will not run for president represents the latest Fox News failure in its attempt to put its stamp on the Republican primary season. Having turned itself into a purely political operation, and one that unapologetically works towards a partisan...

The last-minute Senate deal announced last night to avoid a government shutdown, and to keep FEMA fully funded, ends -- for now -- the latest Congressional stalemate. The usually commonplace practive of providing FEMA with billions of additional funding in the face of epic natural disasters had flared into a...

Does Rupert Murdoch now know the panic Richard Nixon must have felt when the Washington Post broke the story in 1972 that a $25,000 cashier's check earmarked for the Nixon campaign wound up in the bank account of a Watergate burglar. Or when it was revealed that Nixon's Oval Office...

As we proceed deeper into the Obama presidency, we're getting a clearer picture of just how radical some of the president's far-right adversaries are. We're starting to understand the depths to which the partisan extremists in the media will stoop, to the point where many this week seemed incapable of...

The news flashes came just five hours apart last Wednesday, April 6. Both bulletins brought bad news for Fox News stars, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. And both headlines marked the end of a right-wing era of sorts in American media. Indeed, the simultaneous rise and fall of Beck and...