The release of a secretly recorded conversation between Gen. David Petraeus and a Fox News operative has erased all plausible deniability about the fact that Fox News is nothing other than a media and communications vehicle for the Republican Party. In the recording, which was apparently made by Petraeus, Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News “security analyst,” is heard asking Petraeus to run for president, an invitation she says she is delivering on behalf Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, and Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Newscorp, the parent company of Fox. The recording was made in Afghanistan in the spring of 2011 a few weeks before Pres. Obama appointed Petreaus as head of the CIA — and more than a year before Petreaus resigned from the CIA in disgrace after revealing he was engaged in an ongoing affair with one of his fans.

In the recording, which was obtained by Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, McFarland assures Petraeus that, were he to take them up on their invitation, Murdoch would provide funding and Ailes and the Fox News propaganda machine would promote the campaign on the 24/7 cable network and online.

“Okay, the big boss [Murdoch] is bankrolling it,” McFarland is heard telling Petraeus. “Roger’s going to run it. And the rest of us are going to be your in-house.”

Both McFarland and Ailes worked in the Nixon administration, for which the hallmark was political skullduggery. Bob Woodward, along with Carl Bernstein, triggered Pres. Richard Nixon’s downfall with their expose of Nixon officials’ criminal pursuits, including burglarizing the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington’s Watergate complex. Nixon resigned from the presidency in August 1974, after his complicity in Watergate and other crimes was brought to light.

It was the Nixon administration that popularized the concept of “plausible deniability” in politics — a mode in which politicians and political operatives take action in such a way that their activities and motives are open to interpretation. Reacting to the secret Petraeus recording, Roger Ailes, who was Nixon’s media consultant, characterized McFarland’s as a joke, according to Woodward:

“It was more of a joke, a wiseass way I have,” [Ailes said to Woodward.] “I thought the Republican field [in the primaries] needed to be shaken up and Petraeus might be a good candidate.”

Ailes added, “It sounds like she thought she was on a secret mission in the Reagan administration. .?.?. She was way out of line. .?.?. It’s someone’s fantasy to make me a kingmaker. It’s not my job.” He said that McFarland was not an employee of Fox but a contributor paid less than $75,000 a year.

See how that works? Ailes reduces the invitation to nothing more than a joke characterizes the messenger as flunky who is only paid $75,000 a year.

At one point in the conversation, Petraeus says jokingly that he could never run for president because his wife would divorce him. Now, in light of his revelation about his extramarital affair, that obstacle would appear to be out of the way.

Partial Transcript follows.