Fox News national Election results

When Fox News called the election for Barack Obama just before 11:30 p.m., it was the culmination of a night-long sigh by the right-wing network, capped off with a climactic hissy fit steeped in denial, courtesy of Karl Rove. The polls didn't look good going into the day, but the channel's well-manicured hosts put on a happy face and crossed their fingers, as they have for weeks now, kicking off Election Night with similar refrains of hope and favorable Internal polling from the Romney campaign, plus predictable mentions of unemployment, Libya, and paths to a win without Ohio. But the excuses started early and then things got weird.

"The white establishment is now the minority, " said a resigned-sounding Bill O'Reilly, long before any swing state had been decided. "And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff."

"The demographics are changing, " he added. "It's not a traditional America anymore."

O'Reilly also cited Hurricane Sandy as a reason Romney might possibly, maybe lose the election. "If Obama wins, Sandy will have something to do with it, " he predicted. "He got more currency from Sandy than he got negative currency from Libya. That to me is amazing." But O'Reilly did verbalize the elephant in the room: "If Mitt Romney loses Ohio, the president is reelected, " he dropped with a thud.

Later, plugging the religious vote, Mike Huckabee wasn't so sure. "Chick-fil-A day was dress rehearsal for today, " he said. "I still think Mitt Romney wins when it's all over."

But as the states started to fall — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota — Romney's path to a win was described as a "tightrope, " and the mood soured noticeably. Outright predictions gave way to minute dissections of specific counties as anchors Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier seemed to brace for the inevitable.