When I heard that FOX’s E.D. Hill had asked whether a fist bump between Barack and Michelle Obama might have been a “terrorist fist jab”, I was amazed, but not really surprised. After all, stuff like this is what FOX has done since their inception to achieve their goal of scaring their predominantly old, conservative, white, prejudiced audience into voting Republican. In addition, FOX has had no problem “reporting” that Obama is a Marxist, a socialist, Hitler, a communist, a “sleeper agent”, a secret muslim, a "domestic insurgent", a dangerous radical, a madrassa student, etc. etc. with virtually no repercussions and rarely even an apology. It's the home of serial liars and hysterical exaggerators like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. Hill's comment was outrageous, stupid and wrong, but not a whole lot more outrageous, stupid and wrong than what comes out of the mouths of O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, Limbaugh, and Savage on a daily basis.

FOX’s elderly audience probably has never seen a fist bump and tends not to question what FOX and the Republicans tell them (even if that means believing that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were partners or that WMDs were found in Iraq), so FOX might be able to put one over on them. I was amazed at this new example of FOX being so deceitful, biased, divisive and/or out of touch with reality, but I wasn’t surprised.

But what did surprise me is that Hill promptly (sort of) apologized, and FOX promptly announced that it is canceling Hill’s show, America’s Pulse, though Hill will remain on FOX in some other capacity.

This seems like an uncommonly responsible and oddly fast thing for FOX to do — in the past, adlibbed insults, snide comments, or wild accusations (as long as they were in the form of a question) were encouraged, as long as they were attacking democrats. Hill has been with FOX since it started, so she probably knows as well as anyone what the FOX producers consider to be acceptable. She didn’t think she was doing anything wrong.

So what is going on at FOX? That’s something I’ve been asking myself for a few weeks now, since something appears to be happening over there.

First, I’m guessing that the decision to cancel Hill’s show was actually made a while ago. FOX has been trying to move to a younger roster of hosts, unceremoniously retiring creepy bleached has-been John Gibson and filling his slot with the younger and much more attractive duo of Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly. In addition to wearing the shortest skirts permissible in a professional setting, the women on FOX tend to be young, blonde, and attractive. While Hill is still blonde and still looks good, at the age of 46, FOX probably sees her as seconds away from fossilization. By canceling her show after her “terrorist fist jab” comment, FOX can pretend that they’re being responsible when they were probably ready to dump her anyway.

Another theory is that Rupert Murdoch is slowly trying to extricate FOX from the death grip of conservatism. Bush is leaving that wing of the party in tatters, and with young people abandoning the Republican party en masse, there isn’t much hope for a future with the conservatives — or at least for future viewers in the key 25-54 demographic. Murdoch is a mercenary above all else and will follow where the money goes — his alleged conservatism hasn’t kept him from filling FOX network, FOX News, and FX with some of the most salacious, violent and objectionable content on TV. With the Republican party clearly in disarray and with a feeble lineup of candidates, Murdoch embraced Hillary Clinton when she was the frontrunner and recently endorsed Obama’s candidacy, saying, “He is a rock star. It’s fantastic”. And what did he have to say about John McCain? At a recent conference, Murdoch said:

[McCain] is unpredictable. Doesn't seem to know much about the economy. He has been in Congress a long time, and you have to make a lot of compromises. So what's he really stand for? I think he has a lot of problems."

Ouch. If that’s what the owner of the Republican propaganda network has to say about their candidate, all is definitely not well. If Murdoch thinks that the Republicans will probably need years to revive their party, that means the money is with the Democrats — this is already being seen with the rise of MSNBC and Keith Olbermann, who recently beat the O’Reilly Factor in their primetime duel. With the ridiculous, embarrassing endorsements of Hillary Clinton and Terry McAuliffe, who applauded FOX’s coverage of the Clinton campaign (ignoring the fact that FOX was only rooting for her because they wanted her to lose to McCain in the general election), FOX has “proof” that they are not as conservative as everyone thinks. That could be extremely valuable if they are trying to publicly distance themselves from the Republicans.

Murdoch has surely realized that the side he was backing lost. There isn’t much money to be made defending or celebrating the most unpopular president in history and a party that followed him into a hole, dragging the rest of the world with them. In light of that, making quick work of Hill makes complete sense. Her comment confirms FOX’s reputation and everyone’s worst fears about what FOX truly is — a Republican propaganda machine for old, white racists that will sink to any depth to smear Democrats. But with the Republicans losing support and a new post-racial, pro-gay, pro-environment, post-partisan generation potentially coming to the fore, being the mouthpiece for discredited dinosaurs may not be the most sound business plan.

Will FOX ever be an actual legitimate news organization? I doubt it, simply because it’s not what they were made to do. It would be like expecting Access Hollywood or TMZ to investigate the conditions at Guantanamo Bay. FOX will never be able to abandon their Republican bias, but you may see it coming out more through lies than through ridiculous, indefensible claims like Hill’s, which essentially discredit themselves and make FOX look like the joke that it is.

FOX may be taking its propaganda operation underground in an effort to trick and win over a new generation of viewers. There might be more lies of omission, blatant lies that go unrefuted, or lying guests who keep being invited back, but if FOX hosts don’t engage in the most reckless lies themselves, the network can claim its hands are clean. Their lies will take more work to uncover.

But, of course, this is just a theory based on what I’ve been seeing. If any of you, dear readers, have any thoughts or theories about what’s going on at FOX, please let me know. And if you know anyone who works at FOX who could share some insight on this, that would be even better.