I want to start by stating what isn’t always obvious. Tucker Carlson is an employee of Fox News and his program is anything but “independent” of Fox News. Here is a link to his Bio Page on the Fox Website www.foxnews.com/… where it is stated that
“Tucker Carlson currently serves as host of FOX News Channel’s (FNC) flagship primetime cable news program, Tucker Carlson Tonight (weekdays 8PM/ET). He joined the network in 2009 as a contributor.
I worked in radio for years and at times the idea that Rush Limbaugh or for that matter Howard Stern owned their own syndicated programming vehicles made it easier for the parent organization to deflect the behavior “They don’t totally reflect what we are, we just pay for their content because it brings great ratings”. The reality was a lot more gray but also there is some truth to the above. Reprimands and control of content are a lot harder in situations like those.
This is the opposite. Tucker is speaking on Fox, for Fox and as their representative and they have every right and capability to stop him and with that I will state the following:
No Reasonable Person Who is not influenced by Russia and Putin Would present the content that Tucker Carlson Presented last night.
Here is a link to the text of this segment on Fox’s website as well as the video if you can stomach it: "Tucker Carlson: Our attention to Ukraine drives Russia into alliance with the Chinese government"
Last night’s broadcast began by diminishing Ukraine as a country. The irony that Tucker Carlson stated that since Ukraine has the population of California that it’s not a large or important country says many things.
“Ukraine is a pretty small country, really. It's in Eastern Europe. It's 5,000 miles from Washington. It's got a population about the size of the state of California. So hugely significant? Not really. And yet we never seem to stop talking about Ukraine.”
- Tucker Carlson
First of all Ukraine is the 35th most populous country in the world (out of 195) with 41 million people and the 45th largest by landmass. So, Tucker is either unable to do a quick Google (which he isn’t) or he’s off to the races with lies that he knows are false in order to paint a false picture to his geographically challenged audience.
He knows the geographical facts and he’s lying to paint the picture.
And here is the entire point I have made before about the propagandists. They know the lie. They know the facts. They actually do understand it but their audience doesn’t and don’t have the time or interest to look it up and that is where this constant machine of conspiratorial falsehoods arise.
Tucker’s piece is a rambling disaster. I tried to paraphrase it but I couldn’t it’s so disjointed (which is often the case for him). I’m going to try to give a couple of the bullet points:
- He’s still discussing the non-story of Hunter Biden which had absolutely nothing to do with the massive arc of Ukrainian/Russian politics in reality.
- He compares Russia annexing a portion of a sovereign nation to the American southern border and immigration policies (this one is mind blowing in the hoops one needs to jump through even to make believe there is a coherent thought in this.
- I actually have to paste this one in here. It doesn’t matter the context because the context is insane as the statement:
“So if you don't support fighting a war on behalf of all White Ukraine against all White Russia, you my friend are a racist and so on. ”
- Tucker Carlson
I’m going to take a moment to quickly explain what the reality of the situation is.
- Ukraine is a large, sovereign nation and a democracy. It’s important to specify that while they are a struggling democracy, a young-ish democracy and a democracy with it’s share of problems transitioning from being a part of the USSR, it is a country with free and fair elections in which a faaaaar outsider to politics won the Presidency last election. In other words, it’s a real and legitimate democracy.
- Russia is an authoritarian pseudo-democracy. Elections are fraudulent, opposition leaders are dying in jail and candidates were not allowed on the electoral slate in the last “election”.
- Russia is about to invade the geographical area of this democracy.
- The US and our allies have part of our foundation to support democracies large and small.
And let me say it again. Russia is an anti-democracy and anyone, anyone, anyone who can spend 5 minutes on Google and chooses to learn about this topic and speak on it to the extent that Tucker Carlson does knows this.
Tucker goes on with this clear downplaying of Putin as an enemy which, given that it simply empty of any factual reality, is thereby throwing support to Putin. (My bold below to make it clear that Tucker is claiming Democrats as somehow off base in categorizing Putin as our enemy….. which he is).
Vladimir Putin is our most dangerous enemy, they scream. We can't let him hurt Ukraine. So it turns out Russiagate was actually more effective even than we'd realize. The Steele dossier has been debunked. But in Washington, the theme remains in force: Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia is bad. What is this about, exactly?
Tucker Carlson
To make it clear — he is claiming first of all that Vladmir Putin isn’t really that big of an enemy to democracy. This on the edge of him rolling 100,000 troops into the Democracy next door which is at this point a simple fact.
And then the tell. He just can’t shut up about the lie that the Mueller Investigation anything but the deep and compelling examination of a Russian Military Cyber Operation against the United States which additionally showed that the Fox News superstar Donald Trump was the primary objective of the cyber attack. Once again they deflect to the minimally important (if even important at all) aspect of the Steele Dossier)
And here is the fact once again. Tucker know that all of this is false. Tucker (unlike his audience) has a research staff. I keep trying to hammer home — that in order to create falsehoods to the extent that Fox News, Tucker’s writers and the entire organization which creates these well scripted lies — they have to know the truth because the falsehoods are the inverse of it and the evidence is the opposite.
- There is no valid argument that Tucker does not know that the core operating principle of the United States and our allies in Europe is to support and protect democracy.
- There is no valid argument that Tucker doesn’t understand an invasion with 100,000 troops into another country is not something that can be simply ignored (which is at best what he is suggesting)
- There is no valid argument that Tucker doesn’t understand that Vladmir Putin is a threat to global stability through his actions.
These statements and so many more present a clear case that Tucker Carlson is advancing a pro-Putin agenda and because he is part of Fox News, because he is an employee and part of their brand, it is a clear case that Fox News is advancing a pro-Putin agenda.
There is no other way to describe such a position as “pro-Putin”. Once you come to the understanding that this is a pro-Putin broadcast it’s incredibly hard to find any legitimate reason for this broadcast aside from the idea that Fox News is using their reach to explain to their viewers that Russia and Putin aren’t the offenders here and that Ukraine doesn’t represent democracy as the western world does.
I will wrap with that. It’s a small piece in an endless stream of above ground information. The Republican party is in a tacit if not explicit agreement with Vladmir Putin. Tucker’s mess of a segment here is just one more of a constant stream of clear as day activity from back in the day when Rupert Murdoch Owned the largest billboard company in Russia from 2002-2008 with Vladmir Putin’s blessing and approval ("The Dark Side of Murdoch's Russian Billboard Business") up until the present, Fox News promotes Putin’s agenda to a extent that it is impossible to speculate that they are not allied partners with the same goals.
If you are interested in my previous and more detailed explanation of this you can check my diary from last week here — "Are Putin's Moves in Ukraine an Influence Attempt on American Politics? Analysis/Speculation"
I will be writing more about this in the future for sure.