Time's Up

Yes, I admit it: Once the race was called for Barack Obama last night, I immediately suggested to the people I was hanging out with that we switch the channel over to Fox News. I expected it to be interesting. I didn't expect it to be as interesting as it was. Watching the entire operation publicly deflate -- with Karl Rove refusing to accept reality and Megyn Kelly actually getting up and walking over to the "decision desk" to demand answers -- was honestly one of the damndest things I've witnessed in a very long time.

But Bill O'Reilly's bitter, crestfallen soliloquy on how America isn't really America anymore was the most memorable moment. Memorable because of how disconcertingly comfortable O'Reilly is with his own racism and xenophobia and also because he simultaneously acknowledged what some of us have been warning for a while -- namely that the Republican party in its current form simply can't survive and will soon be demographically pushed into extinction -- while making it clear that Fox News likely intends to now double down on the extremist rhetoric aimed at the dwindling resentful-old-white-guy crowd.

O'Reilly's sullen little rant is the statement of a man who's just had it finally made clear to him that he's not in charge anymore.