I think the reason for that is that third place is at the bottom of the barrel. Fox was even reporting earlier that the Dem candidate who places third (Edwards was the likely one) might as well pack it up and go home.
Not at all. Never mind that third is hardly last, at the time they were talking, Thompson was still a point or two above McCain, and they were talking like a fourth place finish was somehow awesome for McCain. Thompson did much better than they were predicting and they couldn’t bring themselves to acknowledge it.
Fox is still much better than the alternatives but they are really like the rest in that they don’t just report the facts, it’s all about punditry. It was also shameful how they promoted the rumor about him dropping out.