All Tuckered Out
The other week, I noted that Fox “News” personality Tucker Carlson has earned a new nickname among intelligence experts and areas of the Internet – “Tuckyo Rose,” for his heavy-handed propaganda on behalf of Vladimir Putin and Russia. And his efforts have only grown in the weeks since, most notably in his now-infamous soliloquy asking why he was supposed to hate Putin who has done nothing to hurt him personally. In fact, it’s so pro-Putin that Russian television has aired some of his material.
And now it’s official.
David Corn who writes for Mother Jones had an article on Sunday about how official it’s become. It concerns a leaked memo from the Kremlin and begins --
“On March 3, as Russian military forces bombed Ukrainian cities as part of Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of his neighbor, the Kremlin sent out talking points to state-friendly media outlets with a request: Use more Tucker Carlson.”
Yes, the Kremlin is officially asking Russian media to use as much Tucker Carlson as they can. The translation of the passage in question reads:
“It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally”.
Mother Jones even includes copies of several portions of the memo. (The whole document isn’t used, they say, to protect the source of the material. Given that it’s in Russian, we’ll have to go by their translation – but the words “FOX news” are clear, and it’s followed by two words both capitalized, one beginning with “T” and the other “K,” which I assume is the Cyrillic alphabet equivalent of “C.”
Though nothing was especially necessary to show Tucker Carlson’s support of Putin and Russian more clearly than he has himself, it’s still always nice to have official confirmation of his “Tuckyo Rose” credentials from the Kremlin itself.
And if he was bothered by it, when Russia uses his material for support of their invasion of the democratic Ukraine, he could always have spoken up and expressed his outrage. But of course, not a peep from the guy.
And Fox “News” seems just fine with it all.
As we’d except, given Trump’s continued Putin love and weird, sick, autocratic support of the Russian invasion. Not just him calling Putin a “genius,” and avoiding answering a question about where the invasion is heading (going off, instead, on a demented rant about windmills), but over the weekend, Trump went further, even explaining on the radio to Jeanine Piro (what a shock…) that the invasion away as an act of love.
No, really.
After downplaying Russia’s threat of using nuclear arms because, hey, we have nukes in the U.S., too – and then bizarrely (this is Trump, after all) taking weird credit unasked for supposedly building up our nuclear arsenal – Trump went on to describe Putin’s actions in a manner so sweet that you’d expect Hallmark to put out a greeting card with the sentiments.
“They wanted to rebuild the Soviet Union. That’s what this is all about to a large extent. And then you say, what’s the purpose of this? They had a country. You could see it was a country where there was a lot of love and we’re doing it because, you know, somebody wants to make his country larger or he wants to put it back the way it was when actually it didn’t work very well.”
I don’t think this is what The Beatles meant when they sang, “All You Need is Love.”
By the way, not to leave others from Fox “News” out of this, but on Fox & Friends Sunday morning, host Maria Bartiromo made a claim so incomprehensibly nuts that it can’t be explained in any way other than the Fox “News” standard of making garbage up and pulling it out of their collective butts. She actually claimed that President Biden was virtually a partner with Vladimir Putin.
“Some people have told me over the weekend that they feel that at the end of the day this administration does not see Putin as the enemy; they see him as a partner on many issues,” she said.
I would like to think that even all Fox “News” viewers know that this is insane, but I can’t do that and remain credible, when the base of their viewers believes things like Anderson Cooper eats babies and John F. Kennedy is coming back to life to run with Trump leading the ticket.
Oh, and how does Ms. Bartiromo know this? Because…”some people have told” her. Ace journalism there. Not even “high-placed government sources.” Or “intelligence experts with sources deep inside the Kremlin.” No, it was “some people” who told her. Most likely one of those people who think that when Trump told people to get a booster vaccine, it was really a body double – and that the body double was the formerly-dead JFK. (Really, this was a true QAnon theory.) Either that, or it was Tucker Carlson.
What’s additionally weird that that Fox “News” seems caught between Trump and Mike Pompeo and Tucker Carlson praising Putin as a Good Thing – and thinking maybe they should finally join the rest of the world in demonizing Putin as a hateful, deadly autocratic who they can try woefully to connect President Biden to.
But that’s today’s Republican Party. And Fox “News.” Not that every Republican or Fox “News” viewer is fascist, autocratic, a supporter of Putin and willing to lie as egregiously as possible – just that they’re willing to unblinkingly support the leaders of these organizations who are.
In the end, though, this was about Tucker Carlson. And about him now being an official correspondent of the Kremlin on Russia media.
All the others – the Trumps, Pompeos, Ron Johnsons, MT Greenes, Boeberts, Cawthorns, Bartiromos, Piros of the world and all the other leading voices on the far right – can only look on in jealousy as Tucker Carlson is able to get the Golden Ticket of official approval by the Kremlin.
And still, Republicans will figure out a way to keep trying to claim that it’s Democrats who are Red-loving socialists.
Comments