Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and one of the conservative columnists at The Washington Post, wasn't a big fan of President Trump during the presidential campaign. But on Monday night, he published an op-ed in The Post that took aim at even riskier subjects for a conservative pundit: Fox News, its top star, and its anti-feminist culture. "Reading the accumulated sexual harassment accusations against Fox News host Bill O'Reilly and former network executive Roger Ailes is like a quick dip in a sewage treatment pond," he writes. "After even a brief exposure, the stench stays with you for days."
The dozens of accusations against O'Reilly and Ailes "could be a grand, elaborate calumny," Gerson acknowledges, though "it is hard to dismiss the women, as the accused have done, as unbalanced, dishonest, or disgruntled." He had praise for some Fox News personalities — Bret Baier, Chris Wallace, and Dana Perino — and the network's history as "an alternative to leftward-slanting media, and a place where the worst sorts of political correctness have been exposed." But he also hit Fox News where it hurts:
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