On his radio show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh described his experience at the White House Christmas party the night before, which he called “a thrilling evening.” Limbaugh recounted “a funny little story” about waiting in the President’s receiving line with Fox News chairman Roger Ailes where Bush joked about “conspiring” with Ailes:
Ailes walks up to the president and Mrs. Bush, and the president opens his arm, “Well, look who’s here,” and they start chatting and talking and so forth, and after a while I finally shouted, “Hey, can we move this line on, please?” And Bush turned around and had a smile on his face and said, “Quiet, Limbaugh, Ailes and I are conspiring.”
Listen here:
Though Bush was clearly joking at the party, Ailes has attempted to “conspire” with the President before. Soon after 9/11, according to Bob Woodward, Ailes sent a “back-channel message” to President Bush, suggesting that he needed to take “the harshest measures possible” in retaliation for the terrorist attacks. He added that “support” for war “would dissipate if the public did not see Bush acting harshly.”
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