Tucker Carlson did it again

[Joe Bauer]

TC has done so much deep national polarizing and Trump enabling damage in his career that these fleeting thoughts of some still unsure shame now regards Trump's Brown Shirts pummeling Trump's detractors is meaningless imo.

Far too little...and far too late to start giving him remorse credit empathy.

Carlson's cynical divisive legacy is fixed.

It may not be even possible for Fox News itself to ever rid itself of the nasal burning false news reporting for profit scandal stink they have been rightfully saddled with  due to their own unethical doings.

 

[Matt Allison]

2 hours ago, John Cotter said:

Do you think Nobel laureate William Faulkner should be "cancelled" because he commented on how black men fought?

William Faulkner got cancelled 60+ years ago; he's been dead since 1962.

Carlson's comment was too blatantly racist even for Fox and was the reason for his firing.

[John Cotter]

4 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

William Faulkner got cancelled 60+ years ago; he's been dead since 1962.

Carlson's comment was too blatantly racist even for Fox and was the reason for his firing.

Being dead hasn’t prevented people who died long before Faulkner from being cancelled.

Could you please reply to the questions @Paul Brancato addressed to you?

In other words, could you please explain exactly how Carlson was “blatantly racist” (or even “offensive” as @Mark Ulrik put it) and why that warranted his getting fired?

One of the most important principles of ethics and law is that the burden of proof always lies with the accuser.

[Matt Allison]

11 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

could you please explain exactly how Carlson was “blatantly racist” (or even “offensive”

Are you ******* serious? 

WTF

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Are you ******* serious? 

WTF

I’d be interested in you laying out the details too, Matt. I don’t know the case. 

[John Cotter]

14 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:

I’d be interested in you laying out the details too, Matt. I don’t know the case. 

It doesn’t look like Matt is capable of providing those details, Chris.

It looks like Matt has been baselessly pillorying Tucker Carlson, simply because Carlson is a default bogeyman for the tribal mainstream Democratic Party supporters.

[Paul Brancato]

FOX fires Tucker Carlson, presumably because he crossed a line, making him too offensive for - FOX. Really? What about the rest of the network? Why Carlson? Sean Hannity is no picnic. Maria Bartiromo is hugely offensive. And on and on. Why Carlson? Was he the only one not reading the script, and the others sticking to it? There is something really foul about this, and I think we are being directed to look over here, not over there. I wish some of you would be more skeptical of the news. Most of us can agree on the offensive history of Carlson and the rest of them too. White Replacement Theory? Really offensive. I haven’t watched him over the years, but I’m sure others here could fill in the blanks. But there is something deeper going on at FOX, and that should not come as a surprise. Why the constant news cycle trying to explain his banishment? Again, I’m no fan, but my gut is screaming foul. 

[Guest]

36 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

FOX fires Tucker Carlson, presumably because he crossed a line, making him too offensive for - FOX. Really? What about the rest of the network? Why Carlson? Sean Hannity is no picnic. Maria Bartiromo is hugely offensive. And on and on. Why Carlson? Was he the only one not reading the script, and the others sticking to it? There is something really foul about this, and I think we are being directed to look over here, not over there. I wish some of you would be more skeptical of the news. Most of us can agree on the offensive history of Carlson and the rest of them too. White Replacement Theory? Really offensive. I haven’t watched him over the years, but I’m sure others here could fill in the blanks. But there is something deeper going on at FOX, and that should not come as a surprise. Why the constant news cycle trying to explain his banishment? Again, I’m no fan, but my gut is screaming foul. 

Correct 

 

I have listened to Ex-Fox people claim It is ‘editorial’, ie Tucker isn’t willing to play along and has his own free will. 
 

A careful analysis may show that Tucker has started, off his own volition, addressing topics which we might call ‘leading conspiracy theories’, and he won’t leave them alone. From a psychology point of view, his ego is huge, it was inevitable that he would outgrow any employment situation, he is an unbroken horse. 
 

My own view is that he is being sincere when he humbly admits he was conned over Iraq, that he was the cheerleader of a corrupt agenda. He felt betrayed. He was consumed by a system and I think he is asking what more there is to life other than wealth, which is has in abundance. This last 6 months he has become increasingly critical of the state. Attacking the institutions that he vehemently defended and protected in days gone by. 
 

It would be very easy for him to say he has gone to god, changed his ways etc. Some say Christianity is his motivation. If we flip it around, lets ask what he has to gain by becoming ‘persona non grata’, leaving his perch as the most watched newscaster on TV? He doesn’t need the money. He can live comfortably and insulate himself from whatever disasters there are in the world. He chooses a different path. I am open to two probable options. 
 

1) He feels guilt and like he has been betrayed and he is trying to make amends for that.

2) He is pretending its option 1, and his ego is now so large that he can’t be accommodated anywhere. 
 

The other theories suggested seem improbable to me. 

[Matt Allison]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that racism has to be explained to those that think Putin bombing children on playgrounds is ok.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Matt Allison said:

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that racism has to be explained to those that think Putin bombing children on playgrounds is ok.

Just stop obfuscating, Matt. Explain your position, without the irreverent nonsense or ad hominem. 
 

If you can’t, John and I will accept and understand that. 

[Matthew Koch]

57 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that racism has to be explained to those that think Putin bombing children on playgrounds is ok.

That's quite the non sequitur.. 

Matt Walsh's answer was good enough for me. 

 

[Paul Brancato]

On 4/29/2023 at 5:39 PM, Douglas Caddy said:

David Talbot wrote on Facebook today:

The Fall of Tucker Carlson -- I want to share with you a group email from someone for whom I have great respect. (I'm not naming him because he didn't give me permission to use his name.) Like him, I've long been dismissive of Tucker Carlson -- even before his Fox News gig -- because of his racism, sexism, anti-immigrant views and preppie conservatism. But, unlike AOC, who just called for his banning from TV, I thought there was a story behind his sudden expulsion as the top-rated host at Fox News.

I suspect that Carlson was not jettisoned by the Murdochs because of a few offensive emails. What bigwig at Fox News is innocent of that charge? (Rupert and Lachlan would have to let go most of the company, starting with themselves.) I think the real reason that Carlson was fired was because he was evolving into a more independent voice on everything from the dominance of the war state -- which goes unchallenged by our media and political elites - to the assassination of President Kennedy. Carlson believes that the CIA was involved in the assassination, the reason that the spy agency has repeatedly flouted the 1992 JFK Records Act and blocked the full release of Kennedy-related documents.

Recently, I was approached by another Fox News host, who declared himself an avid fan of my book "The Devil's Chessboard" -- a dark history of the Cold War-era CIA, including the JFK assassination. Let's see if I'm still invited on the network now that Carlson has been unceremoniously dumped.

Anyway, as my learned friend points out in his email, many left-wing pundits have come to similar conclusions about Carlson's firing. Here's what he wrote:

Lest the following confuse you, I detest Tucker.

Nevertheless ...

Jacob Hornberger (Future of Freedom Foundation) offers the possibility it was Tucker's JFK stuff that was behind his ouster:

"Let me weigh in on another possibility (re Carlson's firing) — that the Pentagon and the CIA may have been the ones who put the quietus on Tucker and possibly signaled to Fox executives that he had to go...

"Last December, Carlson broadcast a program on the assassination of President Kennedy in which he accused the CIA of having participated in the assassination. In doing so, Carlson violated a taboo that has existed within the mainstream media since November 22, 1963, the day that Kennedy was assassinated ... ." https://www.fff.org/.../did-the-cia-and-the-pentagon-put.../

Jonathan Cook at consortiumnews.com offers other possibilities that may have played a role in Tucker's ouster. Inter alia, Cook notes that:

Here is just a taste of some of the highlights of his time with Fox News:

While the rest of the U.S. media ignored a major investigation by the legendary journalist Seymour Hersh, or deflected attention to a crazed, semi-official conspiracy theory involving a rogue crew on a yacht, Carlson dared present evidence that the U.S. blew up the Nord Stream pipelines — an act of unprecedented industrial and environmental terrorism...

Uniquely among corporate journalists, Carlson gave airtime to the testimony of whistleblowers from the OPCW, the U.N. body monitoring chemical weapons. The testimony confirmed that, under U.S. pressure, the OPCW rigged an investigation into a gas attack in Douma, Syria, to blame Syrian President Bashar Assad and retrospectively provide the pretext for illegal U.S., U.K. and French air strikes...

Carlson recently broke with the corporate media consensus by highlighting the substance of the Pentagon leaks, not least that U.S. soldiers are covertly fighting in Ukraine. He went further, berating fellow journalists for colluding with the White House in helping to track down the leaker and cover up the most significant revelations:

As (Jimmy) Dore (a hard left agitator) tweeted after Carlson’s sacking: “No one else in all of corporate news ever brings on anti-war voices, [and] the one that did just got axed. Doesn’t matter that he’s the most watched show in all of news – much like when MSNBC fired Phil Donohue for his anti-Iraq War coverage when he had #1 show on network.”

Cook follows with:

"But if Carlson’s firing by Murdoch suggests anything, it is that the corporate media had grown increasingly fearful of the extent to which Carlson was becoming a loose cannon and that the kind of independent journalism he hosted and amplified was gaining traction.

"Through a rapid rise in his ratings, Carlson proved that there is an appetite, a big one, for stories that question the consensual narrative imposed by the rest of the corporate media, for stories that actually hold the powerful to account — rather simply claiming to — and for stories that refuse to assume Western meddling around the globe is necessarily a good thing.

"If it was only white fearmongering that drew audiences and propelled network news hosts to the top slot, then Sean Hannity would surely be king of the ratings, not Carlson.

"The reality, the one Carlson confirms, is that there is an audience ready to listen to critical, independent journalism — when it can be found. The job of the corporate media is precisely to stop viewers hearing dissident views, a rule that Carlson played fast and loose with for too long. Now, it seems, he has paid the price."

Let me suggest you click the link to Cook's piece and watch the videos he links to. They're sooo far from what is elsewhere "allowed," it's enormously instructive.

Given Carlson did ask important questions no one else in the MSM asked, and that he featured radical journalists the "legacy" media abjured, it's a tragedy he was a borderline Christofascist-racist.

 

 

 

 

All reactions:

45Bob Leposki, Dr. Gregg Wager and 43 others

 

I missed this post first time around. Talbot is so articulate here. I haven’t searched all the way through the Tucker Carlson threads, but I have yet to see Larry Schnapf weigh in. Has he? 

[Matthew Koch]

We are so back!! 

 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Matthew Koch said:

We are so back!! 

 

He was never going to pipe down. It’ll be interesting to see which issues he goes at first.