The Sad Faces of Fox News on Election Night

The early election returns and exit polls had little good news for Mitt Romney, and you could see it on the Fox News election team's faces.

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The early election returns and exit polls had little good news for Mitt Romney, and you could see it on the Fox News election team's faces. The reporters and pundits were not uniformly dejected, with Megyn Kelly sounding mostly like a regular reporter -- explaining how some states can be called so early with so few results in -- and Bill O'Reilly mourning the end of "the white establishment."

Let's start with Bill O'Reilly's grappling with a possible Republican loss after four years of Barack Obama. One reason Obama might win? People care more about his response to Hurricane Sandy than to the attacks on our consulate in Benghazi, because "there were pictures."

Then things got less nice. Half the country wants free stuff, O'Reilly said. What is that half like? First he hinted: Latinos, blacks, and maybe women would vote for Obama. Then he got reeeal explicit: "Obama wins because it's not a traditional America anymore. The white establishment is the minority. People want things."

Megyn Kelly held it together:

Karl Rove put on a happy face while calculating returns in Florida and Ohio counties.

But when he quit speaking, his microexpressions gave him away.

Laura Ingraham still thinks Romney could win.

Doesn't she?

Liz Cheney:

Brit Hume:

Sarah Palin says she's hoping Romney can still pull it out:

"It's a long sort of night... it's a funny thing," Peggy Noonan says. Is she surprised by the strength of Obama tonight? "Yes I am surprised. It's going to take some real thinking about what happened here if what appears to be happening is so."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.
Elspeth Reeve is the former politics editor for The Wire.