It’s a few days before the first presidential debate of 2012, and Fox News is playing out its role as Mitt Romney’s debate coach.

With broadcasts that openly display their preference for Romney, Fox News has dispatched their anchors, correspondents and contributors on a mission of shoring up Romney’s fading electoral hopes. Their television segments have headlines like “What Does Romney Need to Do to Win Next Week’s Debate?” And “Romney’s Debate Challenge: Can He Change the Campaign Narrative?”

Funny…Fox has never had a segment on what Obama needs to do to win, or how Obama can sustain his lead. All of these segments were aimed at providing advice for Romney on how to beat Obama in the debates and prevail in November.

Much of the discussion on Fox is hilariously incoherent and contradictory. They spend a great deal of time trying to lower expectations for Romney so that if he manages to avoid drooling spittle down his chin he can claim victory. At the same time they brag about his ability to present a clear vision that will demolish the President. Likewise, they are building up Obama’s debating skills to something on par with Churchill. But this is the same guy that they ridicule for being unable to string two sentences together without a TelePrompter.

The contradictions are also apparent in the advice Romney is getting. One faction says that all he needs to do is avoid mistakes and that just appearing on the stage with Obama raises the public perception of him. Others say that he needs to be aggressive and go for a knockout punch. Actually, both courses are likely to fail. Romney definitely needs a game changing moment to turn back the tide that is engulfing him, which suggests that the knockout is the way to go. But he’s not the sort of candidate that can pull that off and he risks looking mean-spirited and aloof. And if he tries to just muddle through without stumbling it won’t be a dynamic enough event to change the present course of the campaign.

In short, Romney’s only hope is that Obama screws up badly. That’s not impossible, but it’s also not much to bet on. This leaves Romney with pretty thin prospects for altering the political landscape. And that’s why Fox News is expanding their role and attempting to shape a path to victory for their candidate. Ironically, as highlighted on the image above, they will also continue to allege wholesale bias on the part of the mainstream media while hoping people will forget that there is no bigger or more biased media corporation in the world than Fox News.