Last week former Fox News hitman, Tucker Carlson sat down with Russian President, Vladimir Putin for a couple of hours to conduct an, "interview." It really wasn't, but many knew that would be the case before the conversation took place. The entire mind-numbing episode was nothing more than a Putin propaganda speech meant for both internal and external consumption. In truth Carlson didn't even need to be there. There were certainly long periods, especially during Putin's half hour Russian history lecture--Russia According to Vlad, From the 9th Century to the Present--it felt like he wasn't.
Carlson's only contribution to that presentation was to ask, "Where are we now?" Putin told him, "The 13th century," then the lesson resumed.
When we finally arrived at the 20th century we learned, without objection from Tuck, Poland provoked Germany into beginning World War II. According to Vlad, the Polish government left Herr Hitler no choice, but to invade when they wouldn't agree to even his most modest demands. Then, over the course of the chat we learned Mr. Putin seems pretty put out in general by the Poles. It is unclear if an invasion of the NATO country is pending, but Putin, by one count, mentioned the nation 30 times. so it is probably safe to say the Kremlin is at least considering Warsaw as a future destination.
When the subject of present day Ukraine came up Putin was all over the place. One moment Ukraine was a natural part of Russia. The next it wasn't, but it needs to be de-nazified and it must be unaligned militarily. Well, except for the Russian troops who would be based there. When it came to the invasion, Putin revealed the conflict began because of a, to borrow a title from George Lucas, phantom menace. That shadowy figure is former British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. According to the Russian President the Ukrainians were on the verge of caving into Russian demands when Johnson, abetted by other western European leaders, convinced Volodymyr Zelenskyy to put up a fight.
In other words, much like 1939 Poland, in 2022 Ukraine caused the invasion of, that's right, Ukraine.
It shouldn't come as a surprise Carlson didn't make any real effort to challenge this bullshit. After all, this is the same guy who claimed the January 6th rioters running wild in the U.S. capitol building acted as peacefully as tourists. He proved it by airing deftly edited video clips to his audience, carefully deleting all those inconvenient scenes of brute violence and vandalism. In short, the man is a born liar. So much so he told his fans he is the only western journalist to ask for an interview with Putin. That fib was too much even for the Russians. They issued a statement saying he was wrong--all sorts of western media outlets ask for interviews with Putin nearly every day.
While in Moscow Tucker also made an appearance of his own in front of an audience, telling them Joe Biden was senile and incompetent. He went on to rattle off a list of reasons why saying those things about the President of the United States isn't politics per se, just the unvarnished truth. In addition, he claimed American intelligence agencies have spent the last number of years spying on his text messages and preventing him from doing the interview. He told them America just wasn't the same place he grew up thinking it was. Finally, Carlson called his visit to Moscow, "radicalizing," because the city was so much cleaner, safer, and architecturally pleasing than American cities.
For those of us who remember a right wing phrase popular during the 1960s and 70s such statements are dripping with irony.
However, telling Tucker Carlson, "America, love it, or leave it," would be lost on him. The problem isn't that Tucker Carlson hates America. The problem is he wants America to be just like Russia.
That, and there are far too many people out there who are exactly like him.
2-13-24
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