Bret Baier Profile…

Politico’s Erika Lovley profiles FNC’s Bret Baier…

When Fox News executives went looking to replace Brit Hume last year, they had to find someone to take over for their franchise newsman, the staid and steady Washington hand whose arrival in 1996 had conferred instant legitimacy on the upstart network.

But the network turned not to another Hume, not a traditional anchor-desk presence or deep-voiced TV vet, but to Bret Baier — sunny, serious, self-deprecating and approachable. Eight years ago, he was holding down the network’s bureau in Atlanta. Today, he steps before the camera every weekday to anchor Fox News’s “Special Report” one-hour news program.

Count Hume a fan. “My attitude is: I’d like to be Bret Baier,” Hume told POLITICO. “He’s an incredibly attractive, exceedingly able, totally honorable guy.”