Fox News host Tucker Carlson has a pretty recognizable M.O.: the operative — “journalist” was a stretch before and an almost laughable descriptor now — employs the “just asking questions” shtick and simple declarative statements to spin yarns about various political issues, all in service to cementing an often wildly misleading picture in his viewers’ minds.
This more or less works in part because he talks either about culture war esoterica like the apparel of M&Ms or broad, complex concepts like immigration and American identity. The conceit falls apart a little bit when he’s trying it with a widely seen, videotaped and photographed historical event that has been exhaustively detailed in news coverage and litigation, and which scarred our national character.
That is of course the Jan. 6 insurrection, which despite being carried live by Fox as it happened, Carlson shamefully tried to spin with selective presentation and editing of the CCTV footage that was made exclusively available to him by House Speaker and MAGA sock puppet Kevin McCarthy, who sold his remaining integrity in the quest for the gavel. McCarthy actually touts “transparency.”
