An interesting interview on the Broadcasting & Cable site with Roger Ailes. The interviewer seems to be nervous as a cat about the fact that Fox News Channel still displays an American flag on the screen. The answers and the repeated questions are priceless:

The American flag is still onscreen. That a permanent fixture on your air now? Does the flag really have a place on a news network?

I was at an event at the Museum of Television and Radio, and I was the only journalist in the room who happened to have an American-flag pin on. A bunch of other guys started kidding me and said, "Oh, he's from Fox; he makes everybody wear the flag." I said, "No, I'm just not like ABC; I don't insist they not wear it. You all disagree with my wearing it, and nobody here is defending my right to wear it." Morley Safer said, "Anybody who wears it on the air is pandering to the audience. Would you let a guy wear a peace symbol?" I said, "Yeah, it's not my business."

There are things I'm a little iffy on: taking babies' lives. But I'm really pro-choice on flag pins. I'm pro-choice on Haagen-Dazs ice cream. I'm pro-choice on steaks. I said, "I'm pro-choice on a lot of stuff." I said, "I thought maybe you guys could understand this better if I just gave it to you as pro-choice. I want to wear a damn flag pin, here or on the air, tough luck. And if you don't, it's none of my business." It got real quiet after that.

But the flag graphic is there all the time. Viewers don't get a choice on that.

They've got a choice. They've got a hundred channels to watch. It's a big choice. If it offends you, turn it off. I'm offended by people picking up dead rats. You know what I do? I turn it off.

So why is The New York Times an advocacy organization and Fox News' literal flag-waving is not?

And there's something wrong with flag waving? What is it? Is it immoral? Is it wrong? It's a graphic. It happened to be a graphic that most people love and are not offended by. You would feel that it was perfectly fine if somebody would wear a T-shirt with a flag on it to a rock concert, wouldn't you? It would just be the flag. It would be on a shirt. I'm not offended by a flag any time. The government is not the flag.

But do you think the public understands the difference between patriotism and citizenship?

The American people are very, very smart. The journalists are narrow-minded, think they're avant-garde, think they're on some holy quest that they're not. The American people know that. If they're offended by the flag, they're watching somebody else. It's okay. We're not going around to homes, putting guns on people, making them watch Fox News. That's where CNN will end up, if they don't start getting better ratings.

But do you think the public understands the difference between patriotism and citizenship?!!! Where did that come from? What does it mean? I guess I don't understand the difference the questioner had in mind, because I can't see what is bothering him/her about a waving flag. Does he/she really think that citizenship and patriotic are mutually exclusive?

Astounding! But then I guess it just underlines what Ailes was saying about journalists.