Roger Ailes: I hired Sarah Palin ‘because she was hot’

By David Edwards/Raw Story

Roger Ailes’ latest comments about Sarah Palin will be further proof to many that the Fox News chairman is sexist, but he probably is too rich and too powerful to care.

In an interview celebrating the 15th anniversary of Fox News, Ailes told The Associated Pressthat he hired the former Republican vice presidential candidate “because she was hot and got ratings.”

According to one Republican who is close to the Fox News chairman, Palin certainly wasn’t hired because Ailes respected her intellect.

“He thinks Palin is an idiot,” the insider toldNew York magazine earlier this year. “He thinks she’s stupid. He helped boost her up. People like Sarah Palin haven’t elevated the conservative movement.”

Given Ailes’ history, many may find it difficult to believe the conservative network even if they bother to clarify what he meant.

In a 2008 prologue to his planned book, former Fox News executive Dan Cooper recalled that Ailes liked to “talk macho and compare the anatomies of women in the office.”

“I was too scared to make salacious comments about women in the office,” Cooper wrote. “Like everyone, I had taken classes in workplace behavior. Not Roger. ‘How about those bazookas on that Indian girl, or whatever the hell she is!’ Squirm squirm. ‘Pussy masala on the menu today?’”

Inside Cable News noted that Cooper’s claims were not verifiable — but it’s hard to dispute Ailes’ history of hiring leggy blondes.

In August, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly dodged a question about whether “Fox has cultivated a reputation as a stomping ground for news babes.”

“Roger is very good at finding attractive people who are also interesting and smart,” Kelly told Marie Claire. “But you have to be careful what you’re looking at. Some on-air talent have objected that some websites will Photoshop the skirts and make it seem like the women were wearing something more like a belt than a skirt. Don’t believe it unless you’ve seen it live.”

Limbaugh Condones Sexual Harrassment Of Sports Reporter: She Has ‘Bootylicious’ ‘ASS-ets’

By Tanya Somanader

While waiting for an interview with New York Jets Quarterback Mark Sanchez last Saturday, TV Azteca reporter Ines Sainz was harrassed with “catcalls, whistling, extended stares by the players” and was subjected to “grotesque” locker room antics. While the sexual harassment spurred Jets owner Woody Johnson to offer an immediate “open apology” and the NFL to investigate the charges, Sainz’s situation motivated failed NFL-commentator and hate radio host Rush Limbaugh to launch into a sexist rant today against “bootylicious” Sainz for “doing what she was born knowing to do” to “get access for her job”:

She knows she has ass-ets. (Rush really stretched out that first syllable.) . . . Boob-alicious, booty-licious, whatever you want to call it, she’s got it.”

Referencing celebrating “Love Your Body Day,” he said: “As far as I can tell, Ines celebrates her body daily, not just once a year . . . The team was celebrating her body.”

Trying to connect the dots between Sainz’s interview with Mark Sanchez and the Jets QB’s horrific game last night: “You remember what Delilah did to Sampson.”

Looking ahead: “Now, are we going to force Ines to put on a burka?”

And finally: “We’re looking for an example of a male reporter in a female locker room, and we can’t find one.”

Listen to it:

Like Limbaugh, Glenn Beck “had a tough time containing the giggles” over Sainz’s humiliation, noting he’d “never seen someone wear a shirt that ‘covered less.’” Both Limbaugh and Beck revel in sexist contempt for women in the public eye, with Limbaugh dubbing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as”sex-retary” and Beck calling former Secretary of State Madeleline Albright “a turkey” that “burns your eyes out.” It appears that Limbaugh may need another women’s summit to learn “what it is [he's] done that has caused the gender gap” in his listening audience.

It didn’t take long for Rush Limbaugh to start making sexist attacks against Elena Kagan.

By Matt Corley

When President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court last year, hate radio talker Rush Limbaugh led the conservative opposition to her, often making gender-based attacks such as calling her “an angry woman” who needs to “get over it.” Once again, Limbaugh is leading the opposition to Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, calling her “a pure academic elitist radical.” True to form, Limbaugh couldn’t help criticizing Kagan in sexist terms, saying that “we don’t need to go too deep in analyzing the babe” and “I guess she can change her mind. She’s a woman“:

LIMBAUGH:I know Obama said during the campaign that he didn’t believe marriage, same-sex marriage, it was between a man and a woman. He said it during the campaign. I guess she can change her mind. She’s a woman.

Listen here: