From Newsgroup: rec.sport.tennis
After decades of spreading false narratives about immigrants, depicting
Black people as violent criminals and feminists as the root of all evil
and helping to lay the ideological bedrock for this current
administration, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson wants you to forgive
him.
On his podcast, Carlson and his brother, Buckley, a former speechwriter
for Trump in 2015, criticized the war in Iran. Buckley called Trump rCLout
of control, megalomaniacal, destructive president.rCY And a subdued Tucker said he will be rCLtormentedrCY by his support for Trump for a rCLlong time,rCY
apologizing to listeners for rCLmisleadingrCY them about the president.
But CarlsonrCOs apology feels false after decades of profiting off racist, sexist and violent rhetoric. If he was truly sorry, he should say
specifically what herCOs sorry for. ThererCOs plenty of material to work
from. As the tide of public opinion shifts against Trump and his
ill-conceived war, CarlsonrCOs attempt at contrition isnrCOt really remorse. ItrCOs just more of what Carlson has always done so well, carpetbagging
the American flop era.
Carlson knows the effect of his words. HerCOs just never cared who they
could hurt rCo not when he could make so much money.
In 2018, I profiled Carlson for the Columbia Journalism Review. At the
time, I talked to more than 20 of his friends and colleagues rCo former colleagues from when he was a print journalist, when he was at CNN and
then later at MSNBC, people who knew him from D.C. dinner parties, whose
kids knew his kids from the expensive private schools rCo and they all
assured me, Carlson was just doing a bit. He was playing the boorish
demagogue because it was good for ratings. After all, he had previously
hosted two shows on CNN and MSNBC. And at Fox News, herCOd only gotten the coveted rCLOrCOReilly FactorrCY spot after Bill OrCOReilly had been fired amid sexual misconduct allegations in 2017.
So, Carson leaned in hard to the incendiary bit, these insiders assured
me. As if that was supposed to make me feel better. As if performing a
bit was more forgivable than being a true believer. ItrCOs the opposite. Knowing better and still doing the bad thing just to cash in on the
violence of American political rhetoric is cravenly opportunistic.
In the years since Carlson took over that prime-time spot, he promoted
false and violent rhetoric about immigrants and Black people. There was
a pandemic and an insurrection, and CarlsonrCOs prime-time rants about
Covid undoubtedly spread misinformation, exacerbating the effects of the virus. And a former senior staffer on the House Select Committee
investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack wrote an op-ed for
Politico, outlining how Carlson manipulated security camera footage to
mislead his audience about the reality of the insurrection.
Carlson was fired from Fox News in 2023 due to internal political
tensions. Carlson had alienated the network, sent violent and erratic
texts and promoted false information about Dominion voting machines,
while that company was already suing Fox News for defamation. His career
at Fox News is over, but its damage remains: journalists he has led mobs against; a Covid toll needlessly worsened by disinformation; an
insurrection fueled by election conspiracies Carlson helped to spread,
even while knowing they were false.
Carlson is not the most reliable narrator for his own actions. But even
taking his words at face value, Americans still do not owe this man forgiveness. He made his fortune stoking the fires of American hate, and
now that it has burned the country down, he canrCOt say sorry as we poke
the smoking ash with a stick.
If Carlson truly meant what he said in his apology, he should give some
of his millions that he made from his show to a nonprofit. Perhaps one
that helps incarcerated Black people or a fund for immigrants who are
being targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, just for starters.
https://www.ms.now/opinion/tucker-carlson-apology-trump
That Tucker has credibility somewhere, anywhere, is one of those things
that has never computed. And never will.
--
"And off they went, from here to there,
The bear, the bear, and the maiden fair"
-- Traditional
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