The Irony of Tucker Carlson, Sarah Palin, Mike Tyson, Greta Van Susteren and … Me

Posted on | September 20, 2011 | 70 Comments

“In Ohio, which McGovern eventually lost by a slim 19,000 vote margin, his handlers figure perhaps 10,000 of those were directly attributable to his public association with Warren Beatty, who once told a reporter somewhere that he favored legalizing grass. This was picked up by that worthless a–hole Sen. Henry Jackson (D-Wash.) and turned into a major issue.
“So it fairly boggles the mind to think what Humphrey’s people might do with a photo of McGovern shaking hands with a person who once ran for Sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket, with a platform embracing the use and frequent enjoyment of Mescaline by the Sheriff and all his Deputies at any hour of the day or night that seemed Right.”
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72

Guilt-by-association smears are an ever-present danger in political life, and my carefully cultivated bad reputation probably keeps me from scoring some “exclusives” I might otherwise get. But the upside is that there is no one trying to tempt me through the revolving door that separates journalism from politics.

No Republican, not even Herman Cain, could get away with hiring me as a “media consultant” or “communications strategist” or some other type of glorified P.R. gig, so there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that I’ll ever become Jay Carney, and thank God for that.

Nor is it likely that I’ll be invited onto one of Sean Hannity’s “Great American” panels, because the executives at Fox News understand that their on-air choices are seen as officially symbolic of Conservatism, Inc. Every sin committed by Roger Ailes is somehow blamed on the GOP, and so even if I were as telegenic as Megyn Kelly, they’d never invite me to do the pundit gig on Fox. I’d stand a better chance of becoming a regular contributor on Rachel Maddow’s show.

It is therefore highly ironic — indeed, morbidly amusing — to watch Tucker Carlson getting raked over the coals by Greta Van Susteren:

What Tucker can’t seem to bring himself to admit is that about 10 minutes worth of careful editing would have put Jeff Poor’s article into the safety zone where not even the most zealous Palinista, nor even Sarah Palin herself, would have had any cause to complain:

Mike Tyson Targets Sarah Palin
in Obscene Sexual, Racial Rant

Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson engaged in a lurid and lengthy sexual rant about Sarah Palin during an interview broadcast on a Las Vegas radio station.
Referring to unsubstantiated claims in a new book that the former Alaska governor once dated former professional basketball player Glenn Rice, Tyson fantasized at length about Palin having sex with another former NBA player, Dennis Rodman. Both Rice and Rodman are black, and Tyson made graphic reference to racial stereotypes as he asked KWWV-AM hosts Paul Howard, Mitch Moss and Seat Williams to “imagine Palin with a big old black stallion.”
Tyson, who was convicted in 1992 of raping a teenage beauty pageant contestant, asserted that Palin “needed” to have sex with a black man, an experience he said “every white girl” desires in order to “get that out of their system.”
“Every uppity white middle class [woman says] . . . ‘Gotta get me a black man before I go prosper in this white world,'” Tyson said during the interview, provoking hysterical laughter from the hosts of the “Gridlock” program on the ESPN Radio affiliate station.
Saying he had read Joe McGinniss’s new “unauthorized biography” of the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, Tyson said, “Isn’t that beautiful to hear Palin [had sex with] a black man? . . . Her and her sister were into that stuff.” . . .

An article written that way might have included a sentence to the effect, “A spokesman for Governor Palin did not respond to a request for comment on Tyson’s remark.” And that kind of article could have led to a discussion of harm that results from such stereotypical attitudes.

Instead, we have Tucker Carlson trying to defend the legitimacy of a bad editorial judgment. And there are multiple layers of irony in the fact that I’m the guy pointing this out. Chief among the several ironies is this: When I was on the national desk at The Washington Times, I was always the “loose cannon” in the newsroom testing the boundaries of what could be printed in our “family-friendly” newspaper. Go ask Ken Hanner, Victor Morton or Geoff Etnyre how many times as an assistant editor I got chewed out for sending to the copy desk articles that got flagged as including language that senior editors disapproved.

Given that background, I can empathize with the predicament that Jeff Poor and Tucker Carlson have found themselves in, but cannot for the life of me understand Carlson’s defense. He seems to have the idea that Greta Van Susteren (and Tammy Bruce and Jedadiah Bila and everyone else who objected to the Tyson article) somehow expected the Daily Caller to ignore this incident. Carlson is pretending that the only way to report the story was the way that Jeff Poor reported it.

Allegations that the article represents an anti-Palin attitude — or a “boys club” environment — at the Daily Caller could be dismissed if Carlson would admit that the article, as originally published, was gratuitously offensive.

Of course, I have at times been accused of writing gratuitously offensive things on my blog, but that’s just me. This blog is not a publishing company into which people were invited to invest millions of dollars to create the “conservative answer to the Huffington Post,” which was Tucker Carlson’s original selling point for the Daily Caller. When I responded to Carlson’s boastful May 2009 announcement by saying that his proposed project “better not suck,” I scarcely expected that by September 2011, the Daily Caller would be accused by Greta Van Susteren of inciting sexual violence against women. Nor did I expect I’d be laughing myself to tears over Richard McEnroe’s “Downfall” parody:

And if you feel an urge to hit the tip jar — hey, don’t fight the feeling!

UPDATE: Ace of Spades:

The original article is neutrally written. There is not a suggestion of the writer’s belief that Mike Tyson is out-of-bounds, not a word of criticism for the ESPN radio hosts for taking the interview here. . . .
Sometimes it’s hard to read tone, but the sense I got from the original piece was that the best jokes were being highlighted. . . .
Locker-room sex stuff. And just in case it isn’t already risque enough, Tyson starts throwing in some weird racial stuff, too.

Which is, I think, perhaps unfair to Jeff Poor. I know Jeff Poor, who did good work for Newsbusters, and don’t believe that he quoted Tyson’s remarks with an idea of derogating Palin.

What I actually think is that a lot of younger people, accustomed to watching Comedy Central where this kind of “humor” is commonplace, take it for granted. And in the Internet age, where everything is just one Google search away, it might seem that there is no harm in repeating whatever is already “out there.” Tucker Carlson is 10 years younger than me, and Jeff Poor is also young, and this is probably the reason why they reacted to the criticism the way they did.

After Dan Riehl brought attention to the Daily Caller article, my response was horror at what Tyson said:

The blog-war aspect of this incident rather dwindles into insignficance when measured against the apparent willingness of a Las Vegas radio station to allow Mike Tyson to spew such filthy and derogatory racial stereotypes.

And I still wish that was the focus of discussion: Why did these radio sports-talk guys raise this Palin question with Mike Tyson, then laugh at his response as if it were the funniest thing they’d ever heard? You don’t have to be a prude or a women’s studies major to be stunned by what Ace euphemistically calls the “weird racial stuff” in Tyson’s diatribe. A thorough discussion of that, however, would require mining another layer of irony I’d rather not deal with this afternoon, so I’ll content myself to quote my original reaction:

Now that I think of it, have we heard from Jill Filipovic, Jessica Valenti, Melissa McEwan or any of the other feminists? Because if Sarah Palin weren’t a Republican, I think they’d probably be outraged by this.

But I guess Sandra Bernhard answered that question three years ago, huh?

UPDATE II: Professor William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection:

The damage to The Daily Caller is enormous. . . . This is a disaster compounded by the folks at The Daily Caller digging while in a hole, and digging even harder when people called them out on it, and doubling down on the digging as it went viral.

Like Professor Jacobson, Bob Belvedere at The Camp of the Saints sees this incident as highly damaging to the Daily Caller.

PREVIOUSLY:

Sept. 18: HOLY. FREAKING. CRAP.
Sept. 19: Tucker Carlson, Who Wouldn’t Reply to Greta’s E-Mail, Gives a Quote to Politico

Category: Fox News, R.S. McCain School of Journalism, Racism, Sarah Palin

Comments

70 Responses to “The Irony of Tucker Carlson, Sarah Palin, Mike Tyson, Greta Van Susteren and … Me”

Adjoran
September 20th, 2011 @ 7:58 pm

You could have been Jay Carney, but you probably got your driver’s license. When Jay gets his, he will quit, too, and start cruising for 11th grade chicks – he loves him some older women.

Carlson has made a career of doing a bad impression of George Will’s Gay Love Child.
Anonymous
September 20th, 2011 @ 8:11 pm

George Will’s Gay Love Child

NTTAWWT.
The Underground Conservative
September 20th, 2011 @ 8:22 pm

The original piece at DC did not condemn Tyson’s comments. It let the comments stand without any editorial comment, even with a disgusting headline. The editorial comments were added after being criticized by conservative bloggers.

It’s no secret that the DC is not Palin Country. It’s pure Cocktail Party GOP, and I can visualize everyone connected with the original piece laughing themselves silly at what type of damage this would do to Palin.

This will mark the point in time at which the DC jumped the shark.
Joe
September 20th, 2011 @ 8:33 pm

Hunter got tweeked by Scoop Jackson. Nice.
JeffS
September 20th, 2011 @ 8:33 pm

Allegations that the article represents an anti-Palin attitude — or a
“boys club” environment — at the Daily Caller could be dismissed if
Carlson would admit that the article, as originally published, was
gratuitously offensive.

A “mea culpa” would have satisfied me. No apologies necessary. Instead, we saw immediate defensive tactics, and denials of wrong doing.

Which, as anyone who has ever paid attention to government shenanigans would know, is a warning sign of a cover up. Jay Carney does this nearly every press conference, as Tucker Carlson would know if he was paying attention to anything.
Piney
September 20th, 2011 @ 8:37 pm

I’ve long been hangin-in-there with Greta Van Susteren, save but for a few *nuances* and differences, but this post of hers about Tyson’s insane, ugly comments that she tries to somehow blame Tucker Carlson for is very strange. Very strange to a point of inducing me to wonder if there’s something wrong with Van Susteren. I don’t know how to be delicate with my language here about her, either, because she’s essentially dragged Carlson (and his website) through the mud while he is, in reality, sitting inside behind a desk with neat and clean feet. I just mean, she’s gone to extremes about Carlson in a decidedly destructive fashion that is odd for Van Susteren’s otherwise mostly reasonable mind. It makes me question Van Susteren, this story of hers, not Carlson – because anyone can easily see that the story Carlson published is as to Tyson’s rotten statements, his crazed state of mind, crude statements, and thus why Tucker put the story on his site. Van Susteren is way, way off in space about this.
JeffS
September 20th, 2011 @ 8:42 pm

Given that background, I can empathize with the predicament that Jeff Poor and Tucker Carlson have found themselves in, but cannot for the life of me understand Carlson’s defense.

Well, he might be in full panic mode, and is spinning madly to save his professional skin, lest he take up flipping burgers as a career. That his defense has no staying power is obvious as hell to everyone but him. Please note that this tactic is typical of lefties or RINOs.

But I think it’s more likely that Tucker has a size 13 ego in a size 4 soul, and will never admit to error or failure.
Piney
September 20th, 2011 @ 8:44 pm

And about the “boys club atmosphere,” it exists everywhere, in all media, in all workplaces where men are in a majority (and often even when they are not), it’s simply the reality of our species: men will always fight harder among themselves and with each other and against anyone else (that means, against females who are not among their mates or possibilities of such), and, men will rarely if ever display any deference to a female’s position on issues, and will, instead, go off far more forcefully than is necessary when a female states something more reasonable (or, “right”) than they do. Thus, men clump together to protect that behavior and they do, indeed, exclude and punish females when there’s some indication that a female just may have the right answer that they didn’t invent, create, build or otherwise “occupy and control”.

It’s the basics between our two genders. Some females manage to succeed despite that, some males manage to succeed while doing such, but the point is, men and women fight and manipulate differently while men form the protective pack sooner than females if females ever do, what with the female-competitive issue.

By the way, females compete brutally with one another when there is a male-pack rule — it’s a failed method by females but it’s also one of the methods that “boys club atmosphere” encourages and uses to their benefit (because it diminishes female credibility).
Piney
September 20th, 2011 @ 8:51 pm

I doubt that whoever posted it (Carlson or whomever) initially considered that the article about Tyson would NEED any condemnation, what with the Tyson statements so condemning of themselves. Perhaps it was posted without editorial condemnation initially with more faith in readers, that the article showed a disgusting person engaged in disgusting remarks, “as-is”.

I’ve posted things on my sites and later received hate-mail about it, expressing reader wrong-presumptions about my motives, and then had ot go back and write “editorial condemnation” of points quoted or referred to…while initially trusting that readers would recognize the content posted as disgusting or outrageous and NOT assume it was being promoted by my site/s…and this MAY have been what transpired with Carlson, particularly since the Tyson statements are quite SO awful that I’m shocked any reader would assume Carlson might be promoting or agreeing with them.

It’s a cautionary tale as to website administration, certainly. But I still think Van Susteren is way off base in her attack on Carlson in the extremes she’s done so.
ltw
September 20th, 2011 @ 8:54 pm

Dear Professor McCain, If I were you, I’d be sending this on to the guy who dumped a bunch of money into the Daily Caller Foster Friess….and seeing if he would hit your tip jar for providing a a continuing education course to the boy at DC Caller.
Anonymous
September 20th, 2011 @ 8:56 pm

What surprises me is that The Daily Caller found the vile grunts from a convicted criminal and rapist worth reporting. Is there no such thing as discretion? How was ringing that bell informational or productive other than as an obvious bleg for web traffic because it involved Palin? Tyson is a sex offender. How is reporting his pathology newsworthy? Might as well report that the Titanic hit an iceberg. It’s old and clearly irrelevant because The DC had many months to debate Tyson’s sentiments on the best way to beat women yet chose not to. Until Palin.

The DC, Poor, and Carlson behaved pathetically if not unprofessionally. To give air to a brain dead thug and perpetuate such voluntary Tourette’s is shameful. Is that their editorial benchmark now? If someone says something, anything, it must be published? This had nothing to do with starting a debate on attitudes about violence against women but everything to do with highlighting Palin for web hits; and to do it with such an obscene episode really makes one question their ethics and morality. And, actually, that’s not a puzzling question now. And the after-the-fact editorial disclaimer was the transparent CYA indicating that they had been caught boinking The Chicken.

RSM, I don’t think they could have cleaned that article. It was tabloid blegging. That was a deceit. The editorial judgement was just plain FAIL.
Mortimer Snerd
September 20th, 2011 @ 9:05 pm

Well, I guess Todd will have to administer an “ass whupping” to Mike Tyson as well as McGionnis. A word of advice to him, however: wear earmuffs.
Is This The End Of Tucky? « The Camp Of The Saints
September 20th, 2011 @ 5:24 pm

[…] Stacy McCain has the video of Tucky being taken to task by Greta and comments: What Tucker can’t seem to bring himself to admit is that about 10 minutes worth of careful editing would have put Jeff Poor’s article into the safety zone where not even the most zealous Palinista, nor even Sarah Palin herself, would have had any cause to complain. […]
Bob Belvedere
September 20th, 2011 @ 9:29 pm

George Will’s Gay Love Child

Bloody magnificent.
Bob Belvedere
September 20th, 2011 @ 9:34 pm

Todd Palin is too honorable a man to ever contemplate giving Tucky an ass-whupping, but I would pay to see him walking towards the bow-tied bum-kisser at a reception just to watch the dweeb faint.
Bob Belvedere
September 20th, 2011 @ 9:36 pm

That rewrite is nera-perfect. That’s all the fools had to do. Instead, they acted like snivelling geeks at the high school lunch table.
Anonymous
September 20th, 2011 @ 10:03 pm

That rewrite is near-perfect.

Of course it is, Bob: What do you think I did for 10 years as an assistant editor on the national desk at The Washington Times?

Re-writes were la spécialité de la maison — I could do that kind of work in my sleep.
Anonymous
September 20th, 2011 @ 10:21 pm

Stipulate that if Foster Friess knew anything about journalism, he never would have invested in the Daily Caller. So it’s probably useless trying to persuade Friess, at this late date, that Tucker Carlson doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Besides which, if the Daily Caller goes under, no one will say it’s because Tucker Carlson got himself in over his head. Rather they’ll say that it proves conservatives don’t know how to do “real journalism.” In other words, the effect will be just like the great “Culture 11” implosion — and then: Lather, rinse, repeat, as some other Republican with more money than sense is convinced by another slick hustler that he’s got the Magic Formula for New Media.

It is probably best, all in all, that we hope for the Daily Caller’s improvement than to hope for its failure.

Furthermore: Remember that Carlson promised to create the conservative answer to HuffPo. But of course, HuffPo never turned a profit and was then sold at a ridiculously high price to the floundering AOL. In the current business climate, it is arguably impossible to run a fully staffed online news organization on a for-profit basis. So the willingness of Friess (and perhaps other investors) to lose money on the Daily Caller is something that conservatives should encourage other right-wing philantropists to emulate. The problem, however, is that the Right has a bad tendency to put all their eggs in one basket, so the very existence of Fox News is considered a sufficient investment in promoting conservatism on TV — and throwing $3 million at Tucker Carlson is considered a sufficient investment in online New Media.

Everything that conservatives profess to believe about the benefits of free-market competition goes out the window when they start thinking about media, where they evidently want to be guaranteed a monopoly, or else they won’t invest.
wodiej
September 20th, 2011 @ 10:30 pm

Maybe that’s how they do it at the National Enquirer. But a good journalist would have started the post with a headline like:

“Tyson makes vile comments about Palin”. Then before posting the article stating that it is meant for adult reading only and a statement by the writer such as:

“Mike Tyson made some vulgar, vile comments about Gov. Sarah Palin on a radio show to which we vehemently find offensive. What kind of society do we live in where this kind of filth is not only laughed at but encouraged.” You get the picture. But Carlson didn’t do that. This is the same person several months ago who tweeted “Palin is a MILF”. If you don’t know what that stands for ask someone. It’s a vulgar comment to make about a woman. Carlson posted this as it is because he has no journalistic ethics and no respect for women.
PhilipJames
September 20th, 2011 @ 10:58 pm

Stacy… you get my 1000th comment… a milestone and scary that I can’t shut up.

Anyway, your edit of the story… the way it should have been done… which would have won DC kudos not bricks…. was great.

Dana Loesch has weighed in by pointing out the worst offenders are ESPN for laughing along with Tyson and basically condoning it.

http://bigjournalism.com/dloesch/2011/09/20/did-espn-allow-rapist-to-joke-about-raping-palin-on-its-airwaves/
Bob Belvedere
September 20th, 2011 @ 10:58 pm

The disconnect between their thinking about other businesses and the media is quite striking.

I wonder if it’s partially because they accepted the Leftist myth that it’s unethical for a news organization to be profitable. Call it The Murrow Boys Myth.
htowt
September 20th, 2011 @ 10:58 pm

I think it is important to note this is the first case of individual persecution to hit the world in 2,000 years. If the treatment of Todd’s wife is what American culture (or at least Tucker Carlson) sees as “interesting and newsworthy,” we may all need a closer reading of Golding’s “Lord of the Flies.”
Bob Belvedere
September 20th, 2011 @ 11:05 pm

That comment wasn’t meant for you, Sam Gatlin, but for the benefit of the young folks out there who might not know of your illustrious career at TWT.
http://thecampofthesaints.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/stacy-mccain-reporter-30.jpg
Anonymous
September 20th, 2011 @ 11:09 pm

A “sense of decency” or perhaps a “sense of indecency” should have precluded this fiasco. The inability to foresee any negative reaction by pretending that the DC was merely reporting a story astounds. These guys are supposed to be insightful? Greta said Carlson was a smut peddler and a liar. Broken clock. His defense was in part that she had done fluff piece on Tyson where she asked how long he’d been a Vegan without pointing out that he was a rapist Vegan. One can wonder how why an interview with Tyson was worth doing at all, but claiming that the lack of editorial context was comparable was a really dumb non-defense. Conservatives doing downfall videos about Carlson does not bode well for the DCs future.
Andrew Sullivan
September 20th, 2011 @ 11:11 pm

Homophobes. All of you.

Leave. Tucker. Carlson. Alone.
DaveO
September 20th, 2011 @ 11:30 pm

This goes to the question:

What is an appropriate style guide for conservative journalists? Or, are we undermining the integrity of our arguments for more personal freedom and less oversight by demaning Carlson and DC toe a particular style guide/line?

Could Carlson and Poor have produced an article without the controversy? Or does the controversy equate to site hits equate to happy advertisers?

So which should it be: an overarching style guide for conservatives (one in which sleeze does not sell) a la JournoList, or laissez-faire blogonomics?
rosalie
September 20th, 2011 @ 11:41 pm

I think it comes down to their hatred of Palin. He’s no better than Olbermann.
Anonymous
September 20th, 2011 @ 11:46 pm

I’m for “laissez-faire blogonomics.” With that follows free market economics. Consumers will decide what is worth rewarding.

So, in this case, The DC is free to publish what it wants, how it wants. And I’m free to now skip it… and critique it. The market – and not centralized planning – will mold the most reasonable outcome. There’s no need for a(n) (un)official style guide.

The discretion works both ways: producers must create a viable path and consumers must opt to walk it. Freedom of choice by all will decide where there will be walls. /Confuciouspeak
Anonymous
September 20th, 2011 @ 11:55 pm

To the former, I guess that’s possible. I don’t know about “hate” but clearly, to me, something’s up. Surely they mean at a minimum considerable disrespect.

To the latter, whoa! Olbermann is a nutjob. I don’t see The DC crew that beyond the pale. Now, if they start ordering bathtubs, I reserve the right to amend my comments.
Ltw
September 20th, 2011 @ 11:56 pm

I don’t consider daily caller conservative since Tucker was pretty clear about that in interviews when he set the Daily Caller up. People’s perceptions seem to be that it is. Perceptions are what matter. My top complaint (and I had several) with them over this story was why didn’t they include in text quotes Tyson’s next line after their title quote “met the (xxx)”…after all that would have ended up in a firestorm of people not just the So-called Palinistas going after them and ESPN. If they would have put the next line of the interview in the report…no doubt the reporter would have written this thing up way more carefully.
Anonymous
September 21st, 2011 @ 12:01 am

Conservative readers (and advertisers seeking conservative readers) tend to expect certain things. So if a site doesn’t provide what the readers and advertisers want, the market effect is a loss of readership and revenue.

I didn’t like Erick Erickson’s hit on Jamie Radtke, but I didn’t organize a boycott protest demanding that Erickson be fired. An all-or-nothing approach isn’t helpful in that kind of situation. Criticism along the lines of “Hey, knock it off!” or “Stop doing that crap!” is one thing, trying to destroy somebody is something else.

It may be observed that Charles Johnson ignored many warnings to stop attacking Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, et al. But he thought he was so big and important he could get away with it, so he kept at it until he destroyed himself. A persistent pattern of offensive behavior is usually what is required before people purge you from their RSS feed.
rosalie
September 21st, 2011 @ 12:16 am

What I meant was that in this instance, it was no better than what the liberals do. And I totally agree that Olbermann is a nutjob. I’m sure he has the papers to prove it too.
JeffS
September 21st, 2011 @ 12:35 am

RE, Update II: The Professor has it right, The Daily Caller has shot themselves in the foot.

And Tucker Carlson remains a creep.
Garym
September 21st, 2011 @ 12:47 am

Dan Reihl, as far as I know, was the first to call them out on it. Then the disclaimer on the article went up while they were attacking everyone that responded, while trying, stupidly, to intimidate Reihl.
I think they knew exactly what they were doing when they hit send, to try to get some extra traffic to that site.
JeffS
September 21st, 2011 @ 1:12 am

Yeah, that’s likely the case, Garym. Either that or the entire DC staff make a box of rocks look like Einstein.
Garym
September 21st, 2011 @ 1:20 am

P.S. Do I use too many commas or what?
Adjoran
September 21st, 2011 @ 1:21 am

IF he actually WERE George Will’s Gay Love Child, that would apply. But Tucker is only a Wannabe George Will’s Gay Love Child, and there is sooooo much wrong with that . . .
Garym
September 21st, 2011 @ 1:25 am

Careful there. Your going to get a visit from ……….. well you know who.
Adjoran
September 21st, 2011 @ 1:26 am

Dan Riehl’s not so scary, but how was Tucker going to “intimidate” him, hit him with his ~~purse~~ European messenger bag?
Adjoran
September 21st, 2011 @ 1:28 am

Well, if Friess had been serious about journalism, he would surely have hired Conor Friedersdorf instead.

Sorry, I could not resist that!
Bob Belvedere
September 21st, 2011 @ 1:33 am

Smitty would be proud.
Garym
September 21st, 2011 @ 1:45 am

Reihl had a post up during the initial blow up, which I missed, and Tucker actually called him on the phone about the post. Reihl did take it down and admitts he did. Because he has a moticum of integrity (Reihl that is).
bitterly clinging
September 21st, 2011 @ 1:59 am

Ooooh, I can’t wait to hear Rush bust on Chatsworth Osborne Jr. tomorrow. This should be epic!
Garym
September 21st, 2011 @ 2:30 am

I swear I didn’t read the professor’s post be fore I wrote this.
Anonymous
September 21st, 2011 @ 2:36 am

You sure bend over backwards to be “fair” the Carlson and Jeff Poor, in derogation of the facts. And the facts I’m referring to is the SCORES of other non-articles in the DC, written by Jeff Poor under the direction of Tucker Carlson, doing the EXACT same thing: Plucking out the gutter some vile sexual and/or violent remark directed at Palin, then simply amplifying it and repeating it, outside any kind of news context. It was sheer malicious exploitation, to attract links & ad dollars.

You cannot tell be that because they’re “young” (Carlson is middle-aged, and referred to Palin in the manner I know you remember) they didn’t know what the doing. It was SYSTEMATIC.
JeffS
September 21st, 2011 @ 3:10 am

“ And the facts I’m referring to is the SCORES of other non-articles in
the DC, written by Jeff Poor under the direction of Tucker Carlson,
doing the EXACT same thing…”

This must be asked: Got the links?
t-dahlgren
September 21st, 2011 @ 3:17 am

Exactly. The DC simply could have said ‘oops’ we totally missed that.

But that would have meant Carlson and his paid spin brigade would have had to cease their smirks long enough to feign impartiality.

It was an easily available out, one they patently chose to avoid taking.
CoolChange
September 21st, 2011 @ 3:54 am

Tucker is 42 years old, I am 30 and offended by his garbage.
CoolChange
September 21st, 2011 @ 4:01 am

True. Erickson only marginalizes himself by attacking Jamie Radtke. Erickson is bought off and I know it and you know it. To me boycotting Erickson is pointless, exposing them does more good.
JeffS
September 21st, 2011 @ 4:16 am

Don’t worry about a visit from youknowho. There’s too much gay love in this thread.