It was back in 2004 that Tucker Carlson worked at the Cable News Network, known to its friends as "CNN." Way back then, Tucker was the conservative half of the tag team called Crossfire. Paul Begala, who now shows up from time to time on that network for Cable News in his role as "liberal pundit." Back then they were the Hannity and Colmes of CNN. They were doing their point/counterpoint schtick for years before Jon Stewart showed up, and they managed to put together another year of back and forth after, but it was Mister Stewart's appearance that essentially rang down the curtain on Crossfire. Jon had been brought on the show to "be funny," but instead he launched into a critique of his hosts: "It’s not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it." After a moment of huffing and puffing about how this criticism wasn't fair, Tucker left himself open to this: "You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you? … You know, the interesting thing … is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably."
And somewhere in there he called Tucker a dick.
Not in a good way.
How was Tucker rewarded for this failure? He was given his own show on Fox "News." And just like Sean Hannity was eventually relieved of that lefty Alan Colmes, the friendly folks at Fox let Tuck spew his thoughts with no Paul Begala to interrupt his right-wing diatribe. Here are a few of the gems that have been delivered via The Tuckster's mouth hole:
"To be a feminist, you could cut your hair really short. You have to be really angry about something."
He called Senator Tammy Duckworth "a fraud" and "a coward" recently. It should be noted that back in 2004 while young Tucker was getting a tongue lashing from Jon Stewart, Senator Duckworth was receiving a Purple Heart while fighting for her country in Iraq, losing both legs in the process.
And then just this past week he compared climate change to "systemic racism in the sky." Specifically, "Climate change, they said, caused these fires. They didn't explain how exactly that happened. How did climate change do that?" Carlson asked. "In the hands of Democratic politicians, climate change is like systemic racism in the sky. You can't see it, but rest assured it's everywhere and it's deadly."
Tucker Carlson still has a job, and perhaps not so ironically, has Bill O'Reilly's old time slot. Which might be easy enough to ignore, until you read articles that suggest that little Tuck is being groomed for a run the White House in 2024. And as ridiculous as this might sound, remember that in 2014 our current "president" was hosting a game show.
It's probably time to bring Jon Stewart back on Tucker's show. By force if necessary.
Oh gosh, I was hoping from the headline you'd have some breaking news about the Tuck. Like he'd finally become overwhelmed by hemorrhoids.
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