#LyingTucker Carlson suggests he was fired for telling important truths. Or trying to do so.
CARLSON: One of the first things you realize when you step outside the noise for a few days is how many genuinely nice people there are in this country. Kind and decent people, people who really care about what's true and a bunch of hilarious people. Also a lot of those. It's got to be the majority of the population, even now. So that's heartening.
I hope Tuckums isn’t counting himself among that group because Carlson is nothing if not vicious and a liar. He has deliberately endangered people and his lies were some of the most shocking revelations from the Dominion defamation case. We learned about Carlson saying in private messages how much he hates Donald Trump (only to be followed up by pretending he didn’t mean it, followed up by groveling to Trump). We also learned that Carlson tried to get a reporter fired for telling the truth about Dominion voting machines. Ironically, that reporter, Jacqui Heinrich still has her job while Carlson is the one who got fired. I'll bet there's been some extra pep in Heinrich's step this week.
Carlson – the guy who spent time on his show attacking M&Ms - went on to whine about how important topics are ignored on television. Never mind that last year he crowed about how much freedom he had at Fox News. “Some of the stuff that we've produced has not been popular with, like, NBC and CNN,” Carlson said in April, 2022, “but Fox has stood behind us completely. … It’s a little weird to wake up at 52 and realize you work for the last stronghold of free speech in all mass media.”
Apparently, he has changed his mind:
CARLSON: The other thing you notice when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are. They're completely irrelevant. They mean nothing. In five years, we won't even remember that we have them. Trust me, as someone who's participated. And yet, at the same time, and this is the amazing thing, the undeniably big topics, the ones that will define our future, get virtually no discussion at all. War, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power, natural resources.
When was the last time you heard a legitimate debate about any of those issues? It's been a long time. Debates like that are not permitted in American media. Both political parties and their donors have reached consensus on what benefits them, and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it.
Poor Carlson! I’m sure he suffered every day for his multi-million-dollar salary. And yet, Poor Tuckums was reportedly amid negotiations for renewing his contract when he was ousted. But the clear suggestion is that the big, bad terrible media (that he planned to stay with) had squelched his yearning for deep and profound discussion.
Then the lying, already-loaded-before-Fox elitist went on to pretend he’s some kind man-of-the-people truth teller, albeit one who seems hellbent on destroying the America we know and most of us love. Or to put it another way, Tucker plans to keep fighting his war on America while he continues to pose as a regular guy.
CARLSON: Suddenly, the United States looks very much like a one-party state. That's a depressing realization, but it's not permanent. Our current orthodoxies won't last. They're brain dead. Nobody actually believes them. Hardly anyone's life is improved by them. This moment is too inherently ridiculous to continue, and so it won't.
The people in charge know this. That's why they're hysterical and aggressive. They're afraid. They've given up persuasion. They're resorting to force. But it won't work. When honest people say what's true, calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars who've been trying to silence them shrink, and they become weaker. That’s the iron law of the universe: true things prevail. Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left, but there are some, and that's enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon.
Sadly, that last sentence is probably the one bit of truth in Carlson's spiel.
My theory is that Carlson was fired over January 6 lies that could cost the network but I'll have more on that another time.
Meanwhile, you can watch #LyingTuckerCarlson lie again below, via an April 26, 2023 tweet time-stamped 8:01 PM (ET), which is just when his old Fox News show would have begun. Underneath is the hilarious Lincoln Project video that sums up the real guy.
Good evening pic.twitter.com/SPrsYKWKCE
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 27, 2023
So many lies, so little time. In memoriam of Tucker Carlson & Fox News, 2009-2023. pic.twitter.com/7CCXFCVbRt
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) April 24, 2023
Don Lemon was fired, basically, for being a misogynistic a-hole. I suggest Googling “Don Lemon fired” and you’ll see the whole saga.
CNN decided it wanted to be more centrist and “balanced” a while ago, when Chris Licht, formerly of MSNBC’s Morning Joe and CBS’ Stephen Colbert show (I find both of those shows unwatchable), took over. A bunch of people have left CNN and they’ve hired some right wingers.
My guess is the plan was not to take over from Fox but to chip away at it and aim for the non-MAGA conservatives, but I don’t know. Again, I recommend Googling for the details on what is known.
Don is the second journalist I know to have been fired by CNN, the other being Brian Stelter of Reliable Sources. Is it possible that the new owners might be focusing on the opportunity for filling the void that will be left by Fox if they are sued into the ground?
However, the very idea that Carlson may have been fired for his misogynist statements – if only because those statements are likely to cost his employer a lot of money – is actually enheartening to me. Through most of my life that sort of behaviour would have been laughed off as “locker-room talk”. I’m delighted to see that that’s apparently no longer the case. Women have come a long way and it’s time for us to stop the likes of Carlson from pushing us backwards.
I’m not saying they didn’t find something shockingly objectionable in Tucker’s texts or comments but I’m skeptical that’s the real reason he was fired.
This frankly sounds like a repeat of the previous firings of Bill O’Reilly, Eric Bolling and Ed Henry, not to mention Roger Ailes himself. It was the Murdochs distancing themselves from a person who was now costing them a LOT of money, and I include the massive settlement Fox is almost guaranteed to be forced to pay Smartmatic in the next year.
I have to be honest and note that I did not watch Carlson’s show. I’ve barely seen any programming on Fox in some time, as their propaganda has only grown more toxic since the 2020 Election. I anticipate that Carlson will start up his own little podcast like Megyn Kelly – I doubt that Newsmax or anyone else will take him, despite their noises right now. Particularly since both Newsmax and OAN are being sued by Dominion and may be decimated by the settlement payments they will be forced to hand over to avoid losing in court and paying even higher amounts in damages.
I expect that Fox will replace Carlson with someone like Jesse Watters, or perhaps one of their female personalities, given that one of the issues cited with Carlson’s show was the rampant misogyny. And in a few months, nobody will remember the current crocodile tears about Carlson – just as nobody remembers the gnashing of teeth about O’Reilly.
