Posted on 13 July 2020
Amidst the cancel culture fervor, the media has renewed their efforts to force high-rating Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson off the air, using his critical segment calling out Democrats and potential Biden VP pick Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) for "hating America" last week, as their excuse. When the hosts of The View returned Monday, they also attacked Carlson for going after Duckworth specifically, and claimed he was a homophobic racist who sends “dog whistles” to Fox News viewers with his commentary.
Host Whoopi Goldberg crudely summarized the feud between Duckworth and Carlson as simply the FNC host calling Duckworth “a coward” and the senator responding with a “brilliant op-ed” claiming he “doesn’t know what patriotism is.” After encouraging viewers to read the op-ed, and notably, not watch the two Tucker Carlson Tonight segments which preceded it, she invited fellow host Sunny Hostin to tear into Carlson.
Hostin began by gushing that he was “certainly outmatched” by Duckworth. She went on to defend the Democrat for telling CNN she was open to taking down statues of our Founding Fathers, before smearing Carlson’s commentary as racist and homophobic:
Well, he's certainly outmatched, but I think what we should call attention to is that he was reacting to a statement that she made when she said that she welcomed a national dialogue on removing some of the statues of not only the Founding Fathers, but Confederate statues. She welcomed a dialogue, and in his response, he called her a fraud, a coward and someone who hates America, and we are talking about a purple heart recipient who lost both of her legs fighting for the very freedom that Tucker Carlson has, right? The freedom to attack her, and call her not a patriot.
And I think what -- something else that should be noted is that Tucker Carlson, his head writer -- I think his name is Blake Neff, resigned after secretly posting all these racist and sexist, homophobic remarks in an online forum, and while he was fired by Fox News very quickly, and I commend Fox for doing that, in a recent article, he said that he was his head writer and anything that Tucker Carlson was reading off of a teleprompter, the first draft was written by this person, by Blake Neff, and when I watch Tucker Carlson, I know he's one of the most famous cable news hosts and has the highest ratings. I see and I hear all of these types of dog whistles, the racism and the homophobic nature of all of his commentary, and so the fact that he attacked a real patriot tells me that he thinks he has the power to do something like that, and it really is despicable that he has this kind of perch and uses it in that manner. I think there should be real outrage here. Real, real outrage, and I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it.
She hasn’t seen it? How about the outraged segments from CNN’s Brian Stelter and Don Lemon, CNN’s John Avlon, The New York Times, and George Stephanopoulos on your own network yesterday? Those are just a few examples of the media rushing to defend Biden’s potential VP pick from criticism while attacking the Fox News host with cherry-picked clips.
Co-host Joy Behar meanwhile, told Carlson to close “his stupid mouth” before suggesting that she hoped Biden would pick Duckworth as his Vice President. Meghan McCain narrowed her criticism on Carlson calling Duckworth a coward, saying that questioning any veteran’s service was off-limits. Actually, the FNC host was calling out the senator's refusal to appear on his show and debate him, with that "coward" comment. But no matter, Whoopi still demanded Carlson apologize to Duckworth, to end the segment:
“If you’re talking about folks who deserve an apology? That’s a woman who deserves an apology, from you Tucker Carlson...[You] should have never ever have said anything like that about an American vet, in the United States of America, ever,” she scolded.
No host demanded Duckworth apologize for calling George Washington, who was also a veteran, a “dead traitor” and suggesting she agrees with removing statues of America’s Founding Fathers, the incendiary comments which prompted Tucker Carlson’s criticism to begin with. Probably because the majority of the hosts agree with Sunny Hostin who parroted this radical sentiment on their June 22 show.