Fox News Prez Orders Staff: Tone It Down

Fox News President Roger Ailes has warned his staff to tone down right-wing rhetoric as America debates whether political vitriol played a role in the violent attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. "I told all of our guys, 'Shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually. You don’t have to do it with bombast,'" Ailes said in an interview with Global Grind. "I hope the other side does that as well," he added. That's not to say Ailes is buying the argument that harsh political attacks or Sarah Palin's crosshairs map had anything to do with the deadly attack by Jared Lee Loughner.

"That's bull----," Ailes said. "He was a flag burner. He just was not attached to the Tea Party. It's just a bull---- way to use the death of a little girl to get Fox News in an argument." Loughner was apparently able to follow his plan despite being tagged as trouble by his college and police, Ailes noted. "The police department picked him up five times and let him go and nobody screened him for getting a weapon," he said.
(More Jared Lee Loughner stories.)