Tucker Carlson’s lies, a continuing series

Welcome to Tucker Carlson’s lies, part of a continuing series.

I can’t help watching Fox News Channel’s highest-rated asset because he is conducting a master’s class in political disinformation, lies and propaganda.

His specialty is white lies, misdirection, and walking the tightrope between legitimate opinion and actionable libel. He is careful to not cross the line.

He has repeatedly said the U.S. is at “war” with Russia. Not a “cold war,” not a “proxy war,” but a “war,” which normally means U.S. military members in active combat with the Russian enemy. None of that has happened, even though the U.S. may have soldiers on the ground who are teaching Ukrainian troops how to use weapons we have shipped them, but they are not in combat, and we are not at “war.”

As to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, he has denied there was a riot, has said police opened the doors to rioters, and that they peacefully strolled through the building taking selfies. I believe it is true that some cops allowed some peaceful protestors through. 

He has shown tape to support that. 

What he has not shown is tape of rioters smashing through doors and windows. In Carlson World, that did not happen. While in one breath, like Monday night, he  accuses the government of suppressing information, he does the very same thing he accuses the government of doing.

The man either has no shame or no brain, or counts on his audience swallowing his tall tales whole.

He opened Monday’s show by suggesting Americans are as poorly informed as Russians. Maybe he meant his Fox News Channel viewers. (Cheap shot, sorry. I couldn’t help myself.)

As an illustration of how Americans are being misled, he played several clips from TV shows with commentators suggesting the Ukrainians are “winning” the war against Russia.

This was true, he said, “on virtually every media outlet in America.” And that is correct.

But Americans must have been shocked, he said, when they read a Washington Post op-ed by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and former Secretary of State Condi Rice, which he suggested were “the two most thoroughly discredited figures in the American foreign policy establishment.”

Dispite their low standing, Tucker inexplicably chose them to make his argument that Ukraine actually is losing the war. “Badly,” he said.

His proof?

By quoting the headline, “Time is not on Ukraine’s side.” That is correct.

But the op-ed did not say Ukraine is losing, and made the impassioned case for the U.S, and its allies, to send more aid to Ukraine so that it could leverage its current success on the battlefield into a final victory.

Carlson — who roots for Russia and says we should pressure Ukraine into peace talks it does not want — was counting on no one checking his version of what the piece said. But I did. And you can too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/07/condoleezza-rice-robert-gates-ukraine-repel-russia

Gates and Rice demand a lot more weapons for Ukraine, and now. They recognize some Americans, like Carlson, think Ukraine’s fight is not ours.

“But the United States has learned the hard way — in 1914, 1941 and 2001 — that unprovoked aggression and attacks on the rule of law and the international order cannot be ignored. Eventually, our security was threatened and we were pulled into conflict,” they write.

The “winning” remarks are justified by Russia’s failure to capture the capital in the early days of the war, and how they are being pushed out of the areas they captured a few months ago.

In his Monday piece Carlson said that Gates and Rice said, “Unless the U.S. continues to prop up Ukraine’s miliary and economy forever, and fight Russia directly, that country will collapse and Putin could invade Malibu.” I added the italics to highlight serious lies.

The last fragment about Malibu was a joke, but what he said prior to Malibu was not said by Gates and Rice. It is a foul lie. 

Don’t take my word for it. Read the op-ed.

And come away feeling disgusted with what Carlson is trying to pull off.