Dana Perino looked straight into the camera on The Five last week and said five words that immediately split the entire country in two — “I’m for unleashing the billionaires.” She went further — asking out loud whether it was time for billionaires to finally punch back —

and the silence that followed in that studio said everything about how unexpected those words were coming from the woman who spent years as the most composed voice in American television news. Some people called it the most honest thing anyone on cable news has said in years. Others called it the most dangerous. Either way nobody could turn the channel — and that has always been exactly what makes Dana Perino impossible to dismiss.