This morning on Fox & Friends, Fox News aired a straight-up, unadulterated four-minute attack ad mocking Obama's "Hope and Change" message and cataloguing the purported failures of his administration, complete with ominous music, depressing charts, and voiceover audio of Mitt Romney attacking him. Not someone else's ad, mind you—this was actually an in-house production of Fox News, involving weeks of work by a Fox staffer.

"Hats off to Chris White, one of the producers on our team," said Steve Doocy after the ad wrapped up. "He's been in a small editing room for the past few weeks."

What do you call it when you pay someone to spend weeks producing a slick advertisement relentlessly attacking your political opponent? Journalism.

This is the culmination of lifelong Republican political hack Roger Ailes' 30-year plan, hatched in the Nixon White House, to build a GOP messaging operation in the guise of a news channel. Only the guise has been dropped. It's more efficient this way.