Tucker Carlson

Fox Nation Scare Tactics: Armed IRS Agents To Enforce Obamacare

Posted by on March 23, 2010 at 3:53 pm. 16 Comments :

Fox Nation IRS ArmyIn a fit of psychotic bluster, the folks at Fox Nation have posted an article with a headline that was manufactured from whole cloth. There is nothing in their reporting, or the column to which they linked, that remotely implied the message in this headline:

“IRS Hiring Thousands of Armed Tax Agents to Enforce Obamacare.”

The source for the Fox Nationalists is a column in Tucker Carlson’s right-wing Daily Caller. You might expect that Fox could rely on Carlson to support their hallucinatory journalism. After all, Carlson is a Fox News employee. But the article in the Caller, while misleading on it’s own, doesn’t go anywhere near the Fox misinterpretation.

The Caller’s headline was somewhat less dishonest: “IRS looking to hire thousands of tax agents to enforce health care laws.” It does not make a declaration of fact that agents are actually being hired, only that the IRS is looking into it. But more importantly, there is no mention of these agents being armed. In all likelihood, any new hires are going to be accountants with calculators, not mercenaries with machine guns. That, however, didn’t stop the Caller from posting an accompanying photo of heavily armed soldiers in combat gear who have nothing whatsoever to do with the story. And, of course, Fox Nation re-posted the same photo.

The Caller’s article is filled with falsehoods. Anyone who actually bothers to read the article will notice that there is no substantiation of its claim that Democrats are working with the IRS to hire new agents. The only confirmation comes from Republicans supplying their own speculation as to staffing requirements.

It is fair to assume that expanding efforts to collect revenue would require additional personnel. However, the article notes that the new hiring is aimed at collecting taxes unrelated to the health care bill. So are Republicans and the Fox Nationalists taking the position that tax cheats should not be pursued or held accountable? Should law abiding Americans have to shoulder the burden for these deadbeats? Yes, that’s exactly their position. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee even issued a report that criticized the administration for proposing $8 billion to fund tax compliance measures. It seems to me that an $8 billion allocation to recover an estimated $300 billion in delinquent taxes is a pretty good return on investment and an effective way to reduce budget deficits.

The content of the article in the Caller is misleading in many respects, but the Fox Nation version is delusional. It states flatly that the IRS is hiring “armed” tax agents. It states flatly that these new agents will be dispatched to “enforce Obamacare.” Neither of those statements are substantiated and they aren’t even in the linked article. Yet the Fox Nationalists post the photo of soldiers in combat attire, weapons at the ready, deployed in a search and destroy posture.

The obvious intent of Fox is to frighten their congregation of Psycho-chicken Littles into believing that the “revenuers” are advancing on them to take their money and send them to FEMA camps where they will be forced to have abortions and marry gay socialists.

After struggling for fourteen months to derail the President’s agenda, and failing, Fox is upping the ante. They want people to be so afraid that they will fortify their bunkers, stockpile weapons, hoard rations, buy gold (brought to you by Glenn Beck), and prepare for Armageddon. And the way they advance that goal is by disseminating lies like this story from the scare-meisters at Fox Nation.

Boob BombsUpdate: Fox News continues to pour on the fear mongering. They are now reprising a story originally posted at Fox Nation almost two months: Boob Bombs! Terrorists Could Use Explosives in Breast Implants to Crash Planes.

Back in February the story was sourced to the ultra-wingnut WorldNetDaily web site. This time Fox is sourcing it to The Sun, Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloid, but, hilariously, the article quotes “terrorist expert Joseph Farah.” In fact, Farah is no terrorist expert, he is the publisher of WorldNetDaily. The propaganda comes full circle.

It seems that they are just going to repeat this story every few months until either people are sufficiently terrified of titties, or until Al Qaeda decides to give it a try. I maintain my position that this could have a devastating impact on air travel. As I said in February:

We would need to start including Scarlett Johansson in our profiling criteria. And because the same explosive devices could be inserted in the buttocks, Jennifer Lopez would have to be added to the no-fly list.

Update II: All of this is reminiscent of the hysteria Glenn Beck tried to trump up over what he said was a civilian national security force that Obama was supposedly amassing to assault him and his congregation. As it turns out it was just an initiative to expand the peace corps and similar organizations.

[Also…] FactChect.org debunked the claim of IRS hiring thousands of agents.

Stay scared America.

Tucker Carlson Goes Crawling Back To Fox News

Posted by on March 20, 2009 at 1:20 pm. 1 Comments :

There aren’t too many more pitfalls for a guy like Tucker Carlson. He has already failed on PBS, CNN, and MSNBC. He embarrassed himself by appearing on Dancing With the Stars, and compounded the pain by being voted off first (although that may actually have been a blessing). His game show pilot, shot last year, has apparently been shelved. He will forever be remembered as the “dick” from Crossfire, thanks to Jon Stewart. But now he has taken another fall down the rabbit hole of shame.

Tucker Carlson

Carlson is the latest in a long line of Fox News sideshow freaks that includes everyone from Karl Rove and Judith Miller to Joe the Plumber and Ted Nugent. His emergence on Fox’s America’s Newsroom with Bill Hemmer must be particularly humiliating for him considering his history with Fox.

In 2003, Tucker was asked on air for his home phone number. He thought it would be funny (in an infantile sort of way) to give out the number for Fox News instead. Not surprisingly, Fox was besieged by anxious Tucker “fans.” So Fox did what only Fox would do. They posted Tucker’s home number on their website asserting that they were merely correcting Tucker’s poor journalism. In a snit that ignored every trace of irony, Tucker called Fox News:

“…a mean, sick group of people.”

Despite that colorful characterization, Carlson has now been welcomed warmly into the fold. Hemmer greeted him on air with a sly nod to the inevitability of his fate:

Tucker Carlson senior fellow for the Cato institute and a former member of a couple of other news networks that we don’t want to mention here. What’s happening my old friend? […] It’s nice to see you – it’s about time you showed up, frankly.

I guess there was no alternative outcome. Carlson could not withstand the very laws of gravity. Like Glenn Beck before him, he had to succumb to his master – no matter how mean or sick. He is now fully acclimated, and he will serenely conform to Fox’s faux reality. As Hemmer said, “It’s about time.”

Tucker Carlson Gives Jon Stewart Tips On Comedy

Posted by on March 18, 2009 at 10:47 pm. 3 Comments :

Tucker CarlsonIf nothing else, Tucker Carlson’s latest column for the Daily Beast is a fount of unintentional hilarity. The notion that the former bow tie twerp has anything enlightening to say on any subject has long since been debunked. But for him to have the audacity to presume that he can school Jon Stewart on humor is endlessly humorous.

Carlson starts out by asserting that Stewart’s critique of Jim Cramer makes no sense:

Jon Stewart’s recent attack on CNBC’s Jim Cramer was so brilliantly performed, so smoothly produced and cruelly compelling, almost nobody noticed that it didn’t make sense.

Of course, it’s inevitably predictable that it is Carlson who ends up making no sense.

Stewart summed up the significance of what Cramer had said on the tape: “You can draw a straight line from those shenanigans to the stuff that was being pulled at Bear and at AIG, and all this derivative-market stuff,” he said sternly.

Except that you can’t draw any such line. In the video, Cramer hadn’t mentioned derivates [sic] or securitized loans or credit-default swaps, or any of the other exotic financial instruments that caused the fall of AIG and the current recession. There’s no evidence that Jim Cramer had anything to do with any of that, and Stewart didn’t offer any.

If only Carlson could comprehend that the point Stewart was making was simply that the “shenanigans” engaged in by shady Wall Streeters were the cause of our problems, not the specific ones in the clip Stewart showed. It’s called an “example.” Carlson goes on to describe as “even more farther-fetched,” Stewart’s accusation that business media at CNBC and elsewhere were negligent in their coverage in order to retain access to newsmakers. It’s as if Carlson knows absolutely nothing about the industry he is trying desperately to be a part of. What’s more, Carlson accuses Stewart of being “real.” And, yes, he meant that as a criticism.

…nobody as funny and sophisticated as Jon Stewart could possibly be getting that mad on TV over something so abstract. A fair assumption, but wrong. Stewart really was enraged. It was all entirely, strangely real.

At the Carlson school of comedy one must never display an honest emotion. This is beginning to explain why Carlson has never made anyone – ever – laugh.

But wait, it just gets funnier. Because next, Carlson brings up an epic moment in the worlds of comedy and media – Stewart’s appearance on, and subsequent demolition of, CNN’s Crossfire, starring Paul Begala and little Tuck Carlson. Why he would bring up this moment of shame for him, I can’t begin to surmise. But bring it up he did, and he admitted that even now, he doesn’t understand Stewart’s lament that he and Begala were “helping the politicians and the corporations.” So in his confusion, Carlson’s big complaint is that Stewart didn’t leave the building quickly enough after the show:

Unlike most guests after an uncomfortable show, Stewart didn’t flee once it was over, but lingered backstage to press his point. With the cameras off, he dropped the sarcasm and the nastiness, but not the intensity. I can still picture him standing outside the makeup room, gesticulating as the rest of us tried to figure out what he was talking about. It was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen.

First of all, why should Stewart “flee?” The show was not uncomfortable for him, it was Carlson who must have felt ill at ease. Remember, he was correctly identified for posterity, on national television, as a “dick” who needed to go to journalism school. Secondly, I think the weirdest thing for me to have seen would have been Carlson and crew trying to figure out what Stewart was talking about. I can picture them now, scratching their cocked heads, raising an eyebrow, and whimpering softly as they struggle to overcome their innate ignorance.

Much of the rest of the column is an exposition of Carlson’s jealousy and bitterness. Clearly, he has never gotten over the pounding he took from Stewart on Crossfire. His long-winded retort is just an extenuated version of “I know you are but what am I?” On CNN yesterday he even called Stewart a “partisan hack,” which is what Stewart called him on Crossfire lo those many years ago.

Carlson seems to get a little thrill from confusing the roles of news media and comedians. He repeatedly cites instances of Stewart asking his guests less than hardball questions. He admonishes him for not engaging in balanced mockery. And he is livid at the thought that Stewart’s audience appreciates him. What Carlson apparently doesn’t grasp is that Stewart’s job is to entertain first – something Carlson may never understand. Nor is he likely to enjoy an audience who appreciates him.

Carlson’s lessons on laugh-craft is strewn throughout his article. Here are some nuggets of his comedy curriculum:

  • Humor requires ironic detachment.
  • No one this earnest can remain an effective satirist.
  • Sanctimony is the death of humor.

Remember that, young jokemakers. It is the wisdom of a detached, earnest, sanctimonious, dweeb, who knows a thing or two about the death of humor. And who better to take comic tips from than a failed pundit. But Carlson isn’t through informing us. Approaching the end of this diatribe, he asks of us if we can recall the last time Stewart said anything with which we might disagree, because, after all, that is the hallmark of comedy. Then he closes by declaring that it is all over for Stewart, and it is too late to recover from his comedic collapse:

The great comedian is gone, maybe forever. Jon Stewart is stuck in lecture mode.

But one irony worthy of note still remains. At the beginning of his column, Carlson actually lauded Stewart as brilliant, smooth, and compelling. Then he spent the remainder of the piece characterizing him as confused, obsequious, and unfunny. Yet Carlson says it’s Stewart who is not making sense. There is only one thing to do after reading a piece like this from an envious, pathetic, loser, whose career is careening downhill faster than a stock recommended by Jim Cramer — Laugh!

A Tucker Carlson Post Mortem

Posted by on March 25, 2008 at 12:06 pm. NO Comments :

Tucker Carlson - True Washington StoryThe first full week of the post-Tucker era on MSNBC validates the long overdue decision to cancel the perennial loser. David Gregory’s new program, “Race for the White House,” outperformed Tucker by 35% (Gregory’s first week vs. Tucker’s last week). What’s more, on Friday, Gregory was the second highest rated program on MSNBC’s evening schedule (trailing only Countdown and beating Hardball). He also came in second against his competition, surpassing Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room on CNN. Tucker never came close to these achievements.

While Gregory’s show is a conventional affair that doesn’t do much to differentiate itself from the cable news mediocrity, at least it isn’t hosted by an aggressively obnoxious (and obnoxiously aggressive) trust-fund pundit with a grating personality. That was probably worth 15% right off the bat.

Tucker Carlson: A True Washington Story

Posted by on March 10, 2008 at 9:22 am. 7 Comments :

Tucker Carlson True Washington StoryMSNBC is FINALLY taking a needed step, and not a moment too soon. David Gregory will replace Tucker Carlson. Now, instead of suffering through election season with an obnoxious dimwit, we will actually have some informed dialog and insight. I would have preferred Rachel Maddow, but MSNBC is trying to put forth more clout from NBC News, and she will almost certainly be a regular guest on the new program. Also, keep in mind the name of Gregory’s show: “Race for the White House.” What happens to this timeslot after November?

Gregory, as Senior White House Correspondent, knows there will be little happening on that beat for the remainder of the year. So he’s settling in to cover the campaign and he can return to the White House with the new president. Then maybe Maddow or David Shuster will get another shot at a show.

With news of the cancellation of trustfund pundit Tucker Carlson, it seems like a good time to look back on the events that led to this profound conclusion. (See Tucker Carlson Canceled for links to his dismal program performance).

It all started in a little mansion in San Francisco where the spawn of Republican ambassador and public broadcasting chief Richard Warner Carlson, and TV dinner princess Patricia Caroline Swanson, was ingloriously hatched. Thirty-eight years later it all comes screeching to a halt. Well, it actually just sort of peeters out, but that doesn’t sound quite as dramatic.

The writing has long been on the wall.

In October of 2006, Tucker responded angrily when asked about his future at MSNBC and whether he had already been cut:

“It’s bullshit. It’s total bullshit. I talked to Abrams last night. I’ve got another year on my contract. That’s my comment: Bullshit.”

I’m not entirely sure, but I think that Tucker considers this report to be some sort of bullshit. I could be wrong. This would have have placed his contract expiration some time in October of 2007. So in November of 2007 he signed off his show saying:

“That does it for us. Thank you for watching as always, we mean that sincerely to all eight of you.”

Sounds like he knew something. Maybe that’s why he chose to embarrass himself on “Dancing With The Stars” and taped a pilot for a game show called (I kid you not) “Who Do You Trust?” If he didn’t know something was up, he ought to have. After all, his boss, Phil Griffin, bragged to NPR about the network’s personalities saying:

“Keith Olbermann is our brand; Chris Matthews is our brand. These are smart, well-informed people who have a real sense of history and can put things in context.”

But when he was specifically asked whether Tucker Carlson is also their brand, he pauses and says:

“He is right now.”

There’s a real vote of confidence. And, predictably, the effort to Save Tucker fell flat on its face, even after he reportedly took a 50% paycut.

As far back as December, the rumors of Tucker being replaced were circulating. Prominent among them were reports that Rachel Maddow and Bill Wolff had taped a pilot that would fit nicely in the slot that Tucker was wasting.

Now that Tucker has bombed on on PBS, CNN, and MSNBC, some may think that it’s off to Fox News for him. But he has some history there that would need to be smoothed out first. In 2003, Tucker was asked on air for his home phone number. He thought it would be funny (in an infantile sort of way) to give out the number for Fox News instead. Not surprisingly, Fox was besieged by anxious Tucker “fans.” So Fox did what only Fox would do. They posted Tucker’s home number on their website asserting that they were merely correcting Tucker’s poor journalism. In a snit that ignored every trace of irony, Tucker called Fox News:

“…a mean, sick group of people.”

For those who think Tucker provided balance on the network, note that MSNBC already airs, in addition to Tucker, 3 hours of conservative Republican Joe Scarborough, and another two hours of Chris Matthews’ orchestrated hostility for Democrats. That’s five hours of right-wing propaganda against the one hour that Olbermann occupies. Where’s the balance in that?

Congratulations to David Gregory.

Tucker Carlson Canceled!

Posted by on March 9, 2008 at 7:37 pm. 12 Comments :

I finally made it happen! In the post just prior to this one, I asked “Seriously, when is this low-life, ratings loser going to be canceled?” I got my answer.

You can all start thanking me now. I have been making the case for canceling Tucker Carlson’s show for two years. He has consistently had the worst performing program on MSNBC’s schedule. He was a drain on resources as well as the performance of his network colleagues. But it’s all over now.

News Corpse readers know that I have been working tirelessly to get this twit axed. I produced slick presentations, with eye popping graphics describing why this show was bringing down the whole network:

Tucker Carlson: The Biggest Loser
There was also my signature pitch for Tucker’s banishment from TV. This analysis proved unequivocally that there was no business case for carrying this load of broadcast waste.

Tucker Carlson: A Ratings Black Hole

It was a long slog, but now I can say with confidence that it was all worth it.

Look out Glenn Beck – You’re next!


 
 Glenn Beck’s Ratings: Headline Snooze

Glenn Beck poses the same problem at CNN’s Headline news as Tucker did at MSNBC. He is a reliable under-performer and an albatross around the necks of the shows adjacent to him.

The only reason to give Beck a stay of execution would be fealty to the brand of caveman conservatism that he espouses. If CNN doesn’t cancel this stinker they will have settled, once and for all, the speculation as to whether they are a compromised media lapdog with an agenda aimed at placating the powerful and debasing journalism.

Tucker Carlson’s Ethics Education

Posted by on March 9, 2008 at 1:09 pm. NO Comments :

In the thoroughly overblown controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s foreign policy adviser, Samantha Power, there is no shortage of hysterical lunacy.

Power, in a momentary lapse of judgment referred to Hillary Clinton as a “monster.” Clinton’s campaign then proceeded to act like one, calling for Power to be fired. It seems like an oddly inapt sanction for the first truly viable female presidential candidate to banish from the political theater another women who is a Pulitzer prize winning author, historian, lawyer and foreign policy expert. Clinton continues off the deep end by saying…

“I think that it is important to look at what she and his other advisers say behind closed doors…”

Presumably this means that Clinton will shortly release the transcripts of her private meetings and those of her advisers. Obama, for his part, should never have accepted Power’s resignation. It would be shameful to lose the talents of this brilliant woman over a trivial campaign dust-up.

But the supreme idiocy is, as usual, reserved for the media. On Friday, Tucker Carlson interviewed Gerri Peev, the reporter who published the fateful Power story. In the course of the discussion, Carlson inexplicably asserts that reporters have some obligation to grant all requests to take a subjects comments off the record. He then disparages the whole of British media by stating that their standards are “dramatically lower” than those in the U.S. Here’s the clip (and the full interview):

Tucker February 2008Hearing Tucker Carlson elucidate on journalistic ethics is like having Dick Cheney tutor you on honesty and open government. It was, however, nice to hear Peev put Tucker in his place. To cap it off, after Carlson insults Peev for doing her job, he has the gall to chastise her, saying…

“People don’t talk to you when you go out of your way to hurt them…”

You mean like when you declare that they, and all of their nation’s journalists, have low standards? I can’t think of many examples of American journalism’s standards that sink as low as Tucker. Seriously, when is this low-life, ratings loser going to be canceled?

Tucker Carlson: The Biggest Loser

Posted by on March 3, 2008 at 3:06 am. 1 Comments :

Somebody tell me why Tucker Carlson still has a television show. Seriously! Is there anyone at MSNBC who reads News Corpse? I want an answer. I just can’t figure out what’s going through their heads.

Tucker has been the worst performing program on the MSNBC primetime lineup for as long as he’s been on. And he rarely notches anything above last place versus his competition. That record of defeat has predictably repeated itself for February 2008.

Tucker February 2008

What does it take to get canceled by this network. Does Tucker have to insult a women’s basketball team to get the ax? There are many examples of him insulting women, like when he said about Hillary Clinton that, “there’s just something about her that feels castrating, overbearing, and scary.” Then there is the time he said Obama “seems like kind of a wuss,” and “sounds like a pothead.” Now he has taken to inviting the most repugnant guests he can dig up. Last month he hosted Jonah “Liberal Fascism” Goldberg and Roger “C.U.N.T.” Stone.

But the network doesn’t need a scandal to ditch Tucker. They just need a desire to get better ratings and make more money. Isn’t that what they’re in business for? Tucker’s show is an expensive flop and it is bringing down the shows adjacent to it. As I’ve said on many previous occasions, there is simply no business case for keeping this show on the air. And yet it’s still there.

It’s not like MSNBC doesn’t have some recent experience with success on which to draw. Keith Olbermann’s Countdown continues to surge and is the fastest growing program on cable news. Last Thursday it even scored a #1 ranking, beating its nemesis, Bill O’Reilly. But even when it doesn’t come out on top, it’s a more valuable asset. O’Reilly’s audience is not particularly appealing to advertisers. Only 17% of its total viewers are in the coveted 25-54 demographic. Countdown’s audience in the demo is 40%.

So what’s wrong with MSNBC? Why don’t they want to emulate their successes and eject their failures? Since there are no arguments from a business perspective for keeping him, then what are their arguments? There is good cause to suspect that their motivations are not wholly reputable. Either someone is doing someone else a favor, or some political bias is being exerted, or Tucker has photographs of an executive in a compromising situation. It’s worth remembering also, that Tucker is the son of Richard Warner Carlson, a former U.S. ambassador, director of the U.S. Information Agency, and president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. There is plenty of room for salacious speculation, but what there is little supply of is reason.

Any half-way sane television professional would have canceled this loser long ago. I think it’s time the viewers get involved and demand that MSNBC account for themselves. If, as I suspect, they are protecting Tucker due to some unsavory and secret compact, then they are violating a public trust and they need to come clean. Write to MSNBC and ask them to explain why Tucker is still on the air despite his dismal performance. Ask them why they are protecting a program that has never delivered for them. Feel free to cite the data in this article and ask for specific answers. In the pursuit of journalistic ethics and transparency, we have a right to know.

MSNBC Viewer Services

Tucker Carlson’s New Election Analyst: Roger C.U.N.T. Stone

Posted by on February 19, 2008 at 10:12 am. 6 Comments :

Tucker Carlson RatingsIt is well known that Tucker Carlson’s program resides in the lowest lying, scum-ridden depths of TV punditry. He consistently loses to his competition and he is the lowest rated program on his own network (see Tucker Carlson: A Ratings Black Hole).

That may explain the trouble he is having booking guests who are not idiots or purveyors of profane filth, lies, and slander. Yesterday Tucker may have outdone himself by interviewing “Republican Strategist” Roger Stone.

C.U.N.T.Stone is the founder of Citizens United Not Timid, or C.U.N.T. Their stated mission is to “Educate the American public about what Hillary Clinton really is.” Tucker didn’t bother to disclose this affiliation. Apparently he doesn’t think it’s relevant to his viewers that the guests he presents as experts are actually political pornographers.

What’s more, Tucker is providing more evidence for those who already believe that MSNBC is brazenly anti-Clinton. It is mind-boggling that after both Chris Matthews and David Shuster have had to issue public apologies for derogatory remarks directed at Clinton, Tucker would invite this smear-meister to discuss election issues as if he weren’t a repulsive sack of vomit. Ironically, it was Shuster who, alone amongst the punditry, called out Stone for not revealing his part in C.U.N.T. Shuster, who fills in for Tucker on occasion, was unavailable to question Stone because he’s still on suspension for his “pimped-out” gaffe.

I thought Clinton’s reaction to the Shuster affair was overblown and calculated for political effect. But I wouldn’t fault her, or her campaign, for blasting Tucker for granting air time to Stone and the slime and maggots that come out when you turn him over.

Hillary Clinton’s Hypocritical Pimped Out Rage

Posted by on February 8, 2008 at 5:43 pm. 4 Comments :

[Updated with new Clinton response]
First things first. when David Shuster asked, “…doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” he couldn’t have been more wrong. It was inappropriate, demeaning, and unprofessional. In the wake of those remarks, he has apologized on air twice, expressed his regrets personally to the Clintons, and been suspended from broadcasting for an undetermined period of time.

That said, Hillary Clinton’s latest response to NBC News President Steve Capus is rife with hypocrisy and calculated outrage. From the Clinton letter to Mr. Capus:

“Nothing justifies the kind of debasing language that David Shuster used and no temporary suspension or half-hearted apology is sufficient.”

I’m not sure what criteria she used to assess the apology as “half-hearted,” but the ones I heard from NBC, Shuster, and Keith Olbermann all sounded pretty whole-hearted to me. Yet Clinton seems to be leaving open only one option – to fire Shuster. She may have an ulterior motive for this which I will address later. The letter continues…

“I would urge you to look at the pattern of behavior on your network that seems to repeatedly lead to this sort of degrading language […] Surely, you can do your jobs as journalists and commentators and still keep the discourse civil and appropriate.”

What I’d like to know is, how on Earth can Clinton ask that of MSNBC without holding Fox News to the same standard?”

That said, there needs to be some measure of perspective inserted into this affair. The term “pimp,” like many other rhetorical incivilities, has been been recast by contemporary social applications. Nobody thinks that MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” is pejorative in context. Pimping has assumed a colloquial definition of either enhancing or promoting the subject. That’s not to say that the traditional meaning is moot, and that is why Shuster is deserving of criticism.

However, Clinton’s response is wholly out of proportion. To threaten to cancel debates on MSNBC because of these comments raises an obvious question: Why did she happily agree to debates with Fox, despite the fact that they have said far worse for much longer about her and pretty much everyone in her party? If the Clinton campaign was truly concerned about not patronizing networks that disparage them, she would have canceled both network’s debates. Her selective outrage reeks of political chicanery, rather than maternal protectiveness.

For me this is not about the Shuster comment which is universally reviled. It is about the Clinton response that is inconsistent and not applied equally to her detractors at Fox whom she has embraced. And while Shuster deserves and has accepted the consequences of his verbal blunder, Fox stubbornly stands by every slur they’ve ever uttered.

While inartfully executed, Shuster’s point was not far off the mark. Politicians have been been likened to whores on more than a few occasions in the last thousand or so years. They engage in campaigns that are drenched with money from those seeking favors. They sell their votes and influence for cash, endorsements, appointments, and attention. And they are certainly not above exploiting their families.

Tucker Carlson RatingsFinally, no one should ignore the supreme irony of Shuster being suspended for offensive remarks he made while filling in for Tucker Carlson. Carlson is well known for making offensive remarks repeatedly, never apologizing, and yet he has never faced suspension. This is a particularly egregious oversight in light of the fact that his show has no business being on the air in the first place. It is a perennial ratings loser to his competition and is the worst performing program on the network. Yet his offenses have yielded nothing, but Shuster, a reporter with a long history of journalistic integrity and achievement is suspended.

This isn’t the first time Shuster was compelled to issue an apology. On the prior occasion, however, his bosses at MSNBC forced him to apologize for a mistake that, as it turned out, he didn’t make. It also isn’t the first time Shuster has butted heads with the Clintons. At KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas, and later at Fox News, he was assigned to the Whitewater investigation (h/t Chip Ramsey). Could this have something to do with the ferocity of Clinton’s attack on Shuster? It should be noted that when he left Fox for MSNBC he was unusually candid about his experience working for Murdoch and company:

“…there wasn’t a tradition or track record of honoring journalistic integrity. I found some reporters at Fox would cut corners or steal information from other sources or in some cases, just make things up. Management would either look the other way or just wouldn’t care to take a closer look.”

That rare moment of refreshing honesty will now be overshadowed by the drama that Clinton is stirring up, perhaps motivated by revenge. The right-wing media is already pouncing on this to hammer MSNBC as disreputable. But they should take note that at least this network has taken the responsible steps to repair any damage from the affront. When was the last time that Fox behaved responsibly? Yet Fox is being rewarded by Clinton for their irresponsibility. And speaking of double standards, Will Bunch at Attytood has posted what may be the definitive take on it:

…was it the worst thing ever said about Chelsea Clinton in the public arena? Not even close.

“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”
— Sen. John McCain, speaking to a Republican dinner, June 1998.

[…snip…]

Maybe MSNBC should ban John McCain from appearing on the network for a while. And given Hillary Clinton’s strong stance on the matter, I assume she won’t be debating McCain this fall, either?

So one stupid slip by an otherwise outstanding reporter draws threats of a boycott, but years of premeditated character assassination earns a personal appearance on a televised debate that will bring viewers, revenue, and prestige to the offending network. Fox has already started touting the victory of snagging Clinton for the debate, even though there may not be one as Sen. Obama has yet to accept. That didn’t stop Fox’s Chris Wallace from telling A Daily Show’s Jon Stewart that “The dam is broken now that John Edwards is no longer in the contest.” The dam has been broken at Fox for a long time, and here’s a sampling of what has been pouring through:

Note to Hillary: Cancel both debates or SHUT UP!