“When you've got Roger Ailes on your side, you do not lose.”-Rush Limbaugh

Roger Ailes is the quintessential man behind the curtain. He more or less invented modern political consulting and helped Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush win their races for the White House. Then he reinvented himself as a master of cable television, first as the head of CNBC and, since 1996, as the creator and leader of Fox News, the most influential news network in the country.

To liberals, Ailes is an evil genius who helped polarize the country by breaking the mainstream media's long monopoly on what constitutes news. To conservatives, he's a champion of free speech and fair reporting whose values and view of America reflect their own. But no one doubts that Ailes has transformed journalism. Barack Obama once called him “the most powerful man in America”- and given that Fox News has changed the way millions understand the world, it may be true.

Yet for all that fame and infamy, very