The cable network describes Ellis as a "number cruncher." But that bland description doesn't exactly fit the Republican attack-dog columns Ellis penned during most of the '90s for the Boston Globe, and more recently for the New York Press.

To Ellis, President Clinton is an "amoral" "sexual predator" who occupies "a morally berserk universe." Under Clinton's depraved leadership, Ellis wrote, America faces a grim fate: "It will get worse before it gets better, because the truth is, it will never get better until Bill Clinton is gone."

There wasn't a flimsy Clinton-hating conspiracy that Ellis didn't sign onto -- Chinese spying, Whitewater, Vince Foster, hush money. Watch here as Ellis goes 0-for-6 in just one Clinton-bashing paragraph: "He lied about Whitewater. He lied about Castle Grande. He lied about the firing of the White House travel office personnel. He lied about his staff's mishandling of FBI files. He lied about the circumstances surrounding the suicide of White House counsel Vince Foster. He lied about a vast White House effort to hush up former assistant attorney general and convicted felon Webster Hubbell."

As the Monica Lewinsky story began to break, Ellis was positively breathless in that Matt Drudge kind of way: "The end could come with astonishing speed. Senior Democratic Party officials were already beginning to speak of how they might execute the president's departure. It's over. Clinton is finished. The rest is endgame."

One week later, more of Ellis' keen prognostication was on display: "There are reports all over Washington that Clinton is planning to fire Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. More shoes are expected to drop in the various Clinton investigations."

Ellis wasn't above using his columns to flak for his cousin, either. Marveling at Bush's reelection win in Texas, Ellis (who usually informed readers about his family connection), wrote, "The scope of Bush's victory left seasoned professionals in awe." It certainly seemed to leave Ellis in awe, as evidenced by the following heart-drenched effusion: "Bush loves his life. He loves his wife and daughters. He loves his family and friends. He loves his job. He loves his home. He loves Texas, a state that is a nation unto itself. When he wakes up in the morning, he can hardly wait to get to work."

Fox News execs say they didn't hire Ellis because of his "bloodline." They must not have hired him for his political foresight, either, because his crystal-ball record is abysmal.

On the eve of the '98 congressional elections, Ellis, like every other GOP true believer, was confident that "Clinton is to the Democratic Party what the Titanic was to its passengers. He's taking everybody down with him." Wrong. Fed up with the impeachment hearings, voters dealt the GOP a humiliating blow.

Hillary's Senate campaign in New York? "She will not win because her candidacy isn't about New York, or the people who live here, or what she might do for them. It's about her. The moment New Yorkers collectively understand this -- that they're being used -- will be the moment that her candidacy curdles. What might have been 'you go girl' will become 'just go away.'"

Imagine how Ellis felt working the Fox News Decision Desk when it had to call the New York Senate race as a lopsided win for the first lady.

As for Gore, Ellis wrote this summer that he was a "goner," that his advisors would never allow the vice president to select a Jewish running mate, and that, barring a dramatic shift, there was "no Electoral College math that works" for him.

So let's get this straight. Fox hired a partisan Bush cousin -- who thinks Gore's campaign practiced "stupid politics," that Hillary Clinton is "immoral" and her husband "loathsome" -- to run a crucial part of its election coverage. He spent Election Night on the phone with the Republican candidate and his closest advisors reportedly swapping embargoed voting data. And he was able, through his flawed call of Florida, to create the false impression that Bush had won the election.

Who needs a vast right-wing conspiracy when you've got a vast right-wing network?

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