Ailes: The Selling of Toughness

In The Selling of the President 1968, Joe McGinnis sketched a scene of Richard Nixon backstage at the Mike Douglas Show in 1967. "It's a shame a man has to use gimmicks like this to get elected," Nixon said to Roger Ailes, the program's producer. Ailes, then 28, shot back, "Television is not a gimmick." The following year, Ailes was hired to help create the "new" Nixon. In 1984 he helped prepare Ronald Reagan for his second debate with Walter Mondale, giving him the effective quip "I'm not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience."

Ailes has been coaching Bush since 1985, teaching him to slow his speech and keep his voice from rising to a reedy whine. At Ailes' urging, Bush painfully learned what not to do by watching hours of his awkward TV appearances. Ailes spent a week priming Bush for his announcement speech and was with Bush before the Rather interview, which Ailes had insisted be live, and suggested the cool counterpunch about Rather's walkout. "If a reporter is bullying you, the viewers at home may start to root for you," Ailes advises in his book You Are the Message. "The more inflammatory the journalist, the cooler you should be."