In case you haven't heard, Tucker Carlson's latest is that in 1999 Barack Obama had a night of coke-fueled sex with a guy named Larry Sinclair, a serial con artist with a very long rap sheet and a slew of aliases. Seriously.
I say "latest," but only because it's new for Tucker. For the rest of us it's just ancient conspiracy theory twaddle. Sinclair wrote a whole book about it back in 2008 and it was as laughable then as it is now. He even dramatically agreed to take a lie detector test—and failed it. In true Trumpian style, he then insisted that one of Obama's aides had bribed the polygraph folks to rig the test.
So why do I care about this? I don't. But it goes to show something unexpected: apparently Fox News really did keep a lid on Tucker while he worked there. It often seemed as if his ranting could hardly get worse, but it's now obvious that it could—and has. No wonder they fired him. He must have been even more of a loose cannon than we imagined.
Alas, poor Tucker. The new Geraldo Rivera.
With really bad hair. Oh, and he's way nuttier than Rivera ever was.
Yah. Geraldo was a shameless attention whore, but he was never a bigot nor an extremist nor a liar.
“Get a fuckin' haircut. Looks like your mother fucked a monkey.”
— Al Swearengen, Deadwood, Season 1: Mister Wu
Gone? Always was.
Getting a little desperate for attention, perhaps? Missing the glory days? Too bad 4 U.
Every accusation is a confession with these people.
You mean lower than trying to get his viewers to spend what, $100's if not $1000's, to buy a heat lamp for their balls? That's a pretty high (or is it low) bar to meet.
Meanwhile here's a great photo of John Eastman in college,
https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0915912/mediaviewer/rm3056740097/
When allegations against Anthony Cuomo were in the news, some Republican in-laws asked if I agreed that he ought to resign. This was a "ha ha gotcha" moment for them, since this time it was a Dem who was the alleged perpetrator. It all seemed rather rich coming from Trump supporters. My suggestion: Why not investigate first? Then see what action was needed (resignation, legal charges, etc.). I added that the accusations against Cuomo, though serious, seemed like a mere molehill compared to the mountain of evidence of far more serious allegations against Trump. Wouldn't they agree? Of course not.
The idea that Trump should ever be held accountable was a foreign concept. Accountability should only apply to Democrats, but in fact, Democrats are the ones who usually get away with it. You see, when Dems are in the crosshairs, they're guilty, and otherwise don't have to put up with the same liberal media-driven smear campaigns like Trump. The guy who got away with everything was Bill Clinton. Then, for the next thirty minutes, the conversation moved from room to room while I was chased around the house by an in-law ranting about Bill Clinton's love child. How come I wasn't upset about that? It was based on a rumor debunked while Clinton was still in office, but I had to listen to every excruciating detail.
The lesson: Don't bother with any talk of politics (or politicians) in mixed company, and if you suggest that Trump was no choirboy, you get an earful that will make you sorry you brought it up.
So I see a lot of people talking on this fine Thursday about Sinclair and Obama. Is it true? How do you know?
Another way to look at it: What are people not talking about on this fine Thursday (at least not so much, in what I've seen)? Trump was just found liable -- again! -- in the second Jean Carroll lawsuit.
My guess is that voters will remember more about the total fabrication about Obama, crazy as it is, than the actual finding in court against Trump.
That's the way it works.
The way it works?
An ounce of titillation is worth a pound of white collar crime. It's always been, and it always will be.
@Joseph Harbin
Anthony is a lesser-known figure in the Cuomo clan and was last seen booking steerage for a trip back to Sicily, hoping to escape the indignity of his brothers.
Andrew Cuomo was the governor of New York who resigned in disgrace.
He is desperately trying to stay relevant, and the only way to do that without the megaphone is to go ever more extreme. It just shows that the problem has always been and will always be Murdoch run Fox. It has never mattered who the mouthpiece of the day is. Tucker will slowly fade like Megyn Kelly, Bill O'Reilly, and Glen Beck.
+1
Once you figure out how to work the attention economy, it's just a matter of constantly one-upping whatever thing got you attention last time. Fox didn't invent this stuff, reality TV did and eventually it produced the Kardashians and Trump.
Tucker is just looking for any attention grabbing headline that allows him to vent his deep hatred of the left to anyone who will listen.
"the problem has always been and will always be Murdoch run Fox."
No. Imagine that the entire Murdoch family dies when their yacht sinks without a trace, and then the executors of the estate sell FNC to a responsible journalistic outfit. Will that solve the problem?
Not at all. Because FNC has already proven to the world that semi-reliable content designed to incite fear and anger among elderly whites can be obscenely profitable. If FNC stops doing it then 10 other networks will all converge on that market. There's gold in them thar hills!
"There's gold in them thar hills"
Literally. Gold ads basically fund the network.
See also Vivek Ramaswamy's ludicrous claims as a way to stay in the spotlight. The real Trump University was teaching everyone else how to do this.
That list makes me think that Fox will always get a huckster and ride with it, but at a certain point of prominence (that threatens management?), is let go.
"apparently Fox News really did keep a lid on Tucker while he worked there. It often seemed as if his ranting could hardly get worse, but it's now obvious that it could—and has. No wonder they fired him. He must have been even more of a loose cannon than we imagined."
Indeed, he can spout off whenever and whatever he wants to talk about on Twitter but that doesn't mean people will watch and or listen, especially on a platform which has lost plenty of subscribers over the past year and half. With Fox's prime time ratings starting to creep back up to where they were when he was fired, we're all finding out once again that it's the network which makes the stars and the talent, not the other way around. Those who have been booted off have found out the hard way. Not that doesn't mean Tucker's going away, anymore than Glen Beck has, but without Fox, you don't have to think about Beck or Carlson or O'Reilly as much as when they were on a cable TV behemoth. It's nice to know.
I wonder what the straw was...
How many straws can you buy with $787 million?
It boggles the mind (mine, at least) that Carlson is married and has produced offspring. But then again, so was Karl Rove.
Twitter, 2 days ago
Julian Sanchez @normative
This would seem to establish that, implausible as it may sound, Carlson was being held to some ultra-minimal level of journalistic standards at Fox and will somehow sink even lower from here on out.
https://twitter.com/normative/status/1699217088185827595
Sorry if I repeat myself.
Can we all just agree
1. Carlson is an outlier (crazy or opportunist or mentally ill or Republican) and
2. we really don't need to hear or care about the nonsense he pushes
I don't give a shit what Tucker says. Don't pay attention to the idjit howling at the moon. Maybe he'll go away.
No, Carlson is not an outlier.
I would agree.
There is no more evidence for Obama having had sex with Larry Sinclair than that Trump cavorted with Russian prostitutes and had them piss on a bed in his hotel suite.
Both stories deserve the same amount of coverage in the media and the same amount of deference by talking heads.