No profit lies for Mr. Murdoch in being on the losing side. He may well need federal approval for his next merger/takeover/monopoly, so buttering up the new administration will have a high priority.

"What profit it a man if he gain the whole world . . . oh never mind, what do we have left in the slush fund?"

Maybe Murdoch is playing both ends against the middle, knowing that Fox News is not in the American tradition and fearing that someone is going to come after him or his empire one of these days.

I just had a vision of him buying MSNBC or CNN and tweaking it to be the ultimate "anti-Fox News", as a way to both hedge his bets and stoke the fires even hotter, encourage those show host rivalries to become death matches (he could dangle a big bonus to the ratings champ).

I'm kind of surprised he hasn't already done this.

One would imagine that MSNBC would not need much tweaking. Perhaps the purchase of a gold-plated toilet seat for Olbermans private bathroom>?

Right, not much ideological tweaking required, but there would be no problems with running the competition's clips ("hey Mr. Station Lawyer...is this Fox clip too long to constitute 'fair use'?") and engaging them more directly by name (both brands would constantly reinforce each other!).

I suppose the cynical public could grow weary of it, but I'm surprised people can stomach what's already on the air as it is.

Blue State Blues:

One would imagine that MSNBC would not need much tweaking. Perhaps the purchase of a gold-plated toilet seat for Olbermans private bathroom>?

Well, he could move Scarborough over to Fox and then give Colmes the job of cleaning Olberman's gold-plated toilet seat.

Surely Murdoch consideres all these things, but I'm sure he contributed to both campaigns significantly. As far as his papers' coverage goes, he's in the business of selling them and I'm sure that was the prime motivator behind this move -people want(ed) to hear good things about Obama because everything else seemed so damned depressing.

On a side note- ever read Ayn Rands' fountainhead? There's a media tycoon character who could have been molded from Murdoch (until near the end) if the book hadn't been written decades ago.