Even though so much of the time, Tucker Carlson is a total jackass, there are times I really like him. This is one of them. Slate has a back and forth between many Republicans about the future of the GOP, and in one of them, Doug Kmiec, an Obama supporter and Republican, suggested that for the most part the GOP should ditch abortion as an issue. This appalled Ross Douthat, who launched a rather snippy response Kmiec’s way, which then led to this sort of whimpering response from Kmiec.
Tucker watched the entire thing unfold, and then offered his contribution:
Hey, Doug. Toughen up. Seriously. I’ve read suicide notes that were less passive-aggressive than this. Let’s review what actually happened: You argued that Obama is not a pro-choice extremist. Ross disagreed. Rather than respond with a counterpoint, you got hysterical, dismissing Ross as a hater, even fretting about the future of his soul.
Come on. Get some perspective. And for God’s sake, stop whining. For a moment there, you reminded me of the McCain campaign, bitching about “sexism” when people started to ask tough questions of Sarah Palin. Republicans didn’t used to talk this way. Let’s stop the trend now, starting with you.
I understand it must have hurt when Ross accused you of shilling for Obama. On the other hand, he’s right. You did shill for Obama. That’s not Ross’ fault. Don’t blame him.
But if you are going to blame him, do it directly, like a man, without all the encounter-group talk and Pope quotes. People often attack the religious right, sometimes with justification. But as you just reminded us, there is nothing in the world more annoying than the religious left.
Now, granted- I think Kmiec is right about the abortion issue, and I do think Douthat was being kind of a dick in his over-the-top response to him, but you gotta love the Carlson reponse.
On the whole, the best piece in the whole series so far is this Kathleen Parker broadside against the Palin wing:
Palin covered her inadequacies with folksy charm and by drumming up a class war, turning her audiences not just against elites but against the party’s own educated members. The movement created by that superelite, but never elitist, William F. Buckley Jr. was handed over to Joe Six-Pack. Know-nothingness was no longer a stigma, but a badge of honor.
The Republican Party’s Baghdad Bobism with regard to Palin, a denial so pernicious that party operatives were willing to let her sit a heartbeat away from the presidency in a time of war and financial collapse, revealed what really ails the party. The “P Factor” isn’t a single person but a sickness that will have to be acknowledged and cured—Republicans will be reciting their newly tailored principles only to themselves.
First, raise the bar.
Can a brother get a “Heh, indeedy?”
Comrade Stuck
I loves me some Hotel Wingnut
They can stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast
Common Sense
I will never get tired of Jon Stewart’s takedown of Carlson/Begala on Crossfire. Carlson may not be passive aggressive, but he’s still hyper aggressive. Or in other words Tucker Carlson is a dick with a bow tie.
Objective Scrutator
"But as you just reminded us, there is nothing in the world more annoying than the religious left."
I’d say. Frederick Clarkson has got to be one of the most gullible, paranoid, and irrelevant people in politics/religion, and he’s a major contributor over at Street Prophets. Every time I read one of his articles, I nearly have to scream at how he thinks the John Birchers and Christian Reconstructionists are everywhere.
Also, brownie points to the Catholics that denied Kmiec Communion for supporting Obama. However, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Kmiec is generally on the side of pro lifers. How ironic.
Delia
Kathleen Parker is continuing her long, strange trip away from Wingerville. The Palin episode really opened her eyes. This column, a reflection on the Election Night speeches, is also very good. Apparently Kathleen’s former fans are still speeding her along her journey.
MikeL
Heh, indeedy!
Anything for you John.
Incertus
That’s really telling coming from Tucker Carlson, who’s one of the most annoying and thin-skinned people ever to have a television show.
And Scrutator, Clarkson may see fundamentalist boogiemen everywhere, but at least there’s proof of their existence–they do tend to announce themselves and their intentions pretty fucking loudly, and if they were able to gain Nehemiah Scudder-like power, then people like me would be disappeared without a second thought. The religious left is too busy trying to make sure poor people have food and shelter to try to regulate who, where, when, and in what manner people are fucking.
ThymeZone
Let me know when they are throwing food. Otherwise, there is no entertainment value to Republicans arguing over why they lost.
They lost because they fucked everything up.
Just Some Fuckhead
Kinda reminds me of the time Bill and Neal got into a tiff on Freaks and Geeks and Sam tried to referee it.
jake 4 that 1
I guess you can’t call terrorism, pushing for institutionalized bigotry, insisting we make children into idiots and rampant hypocrisy "annoying."
Asshole.
And if The War on Christmas isn’t annoying I’d like to know what is.
Xanthippas
I’d get behind this sentiment except for the fact that a) I like Kmiec b) I don’t like Douthat and c) Tucker Carlson is an ass. But yeah, Kmiec could’ve been a little harder on Douthat and a little less evasive.
tde
If Tucker Carlson is helping to plan the future of the republican party, get ready for a lot of democrat presidents
Joe
FWIW, Tucker’s calls to the Bubba the Love Sponge show (I hear them on his Sirius show, not sure if he calls in to his OTA show in Tampa, FL) are fantastic; you can really tell the governor gets taken off that he has to put on for TV…plus the Bubba crew supported Obama through the campaign, so he had no problem calling in to a show not stacked with people completely in agreement with him. Changed my opinion of him quite a bit, in a good way.
milo
Why should anyone like Carlson’s response. He accuses Kmiec of shilling for Obama. That’s not true. Kmiec supported Obama. The difference in the two is why Tucker Carlson is always wrong. Tucker Carlson is a shill. He shouldn’t go around accusing his betters of behaving as poorly as he.
DFD
Tucker telling others to stop "whining" is rather ironic considering his time on the teevee was spent whining about one petty outrage after another. He’s an over privileged douche bag and shall always remain so.
aimai
I don’t get why you like carllson’s reponse. Its all fake machismo–the point seems to be that real men get hysterical about the deaths of imaginary snowflake babies, but are willing to bitch slap anyone who even tentatively raises another perspective? Doug Kmiec is an idiot but not because he "shilled for Obama" (he didn’t, he simply decided Obama’s political stance better suited Kmiec’s beliefs) but because he wastes inordinate amounts of time trying to rationalize and operationalize irrational, mystical, religious views. The root of the problem for Kmiec is that he actually cares about this shit in a deep and deeply sentimental way. Douthat and Carlsson and the other republican true believers don’t give a shit about humanity, life, civility, discourse or discouraging abortions. Abortion and the "pro life" thing, like the entire catholic church hierarchy, are just tools to be used to get to other republican objectives i.e. power for power’s sake. They see a place for doug kmiec in their "movement" as long as his weak sister sentimentality causes him to supinely accept church teachings and vote republican. As soon as he started to think for himself (a manly kind of thing to do) then they really started to hate him and accuse him of being a sissy. Actually, he was just trying to out jesus them, thinking that they had ever given a flying fuck for anyone’s immortal soul.
aimai
tigrismus
Me-ow! He needn’t worry: he’s still got them beat by a country mile.
John Cole
Because it was funny. The passive/aggressive suicide note line is funny. And, if you read Kmiec’s response to Douthat, Carlson’s summary is accurate.
I do tend to agree with the rest of what you wrote, though.
Oliver's Neck
@aimai: aimen.
Punchy
That Slate piece is comedy gold. Just try reading some of the more angry and vicious bloggers’ respomses, then realize they’re coming from some lonely fat fucks in a darkened basement elbow-deep in Cheetos dust.
Tsulagi
That is funny. Elitist! But do you really want to trust these dipshits handling metal objects? And no telling where or what they’d raise that bar up.
I for one welcome the Wingnuttian brigades promoting Palin to flag officer. Stay the Course. Look forward to The Surge in Operation Leper to further distill their ranks to the pure believers in The Virgin Sarah. Don’t let anyone dissuade you from your righteous path, patriots.
J.
I second that "heh, indeedy." Heh, indeedy, indeed.
One good quotable reprimand does not redeem Tucker in my eyes, however. Did you not see him on "Dancing with the Stars"? He let the chick do all the work! At least he stopped wearing those ridiculous bow ties.
Delia
This is OT but way too good to pass up. From digby:
I don’t even know what to say.
Comrade The Other Steve
In all fairness to Sarah Palin. It was GW Bush that took the Republican party firmly down the know-nothing path.
Palin was just mimmicking Bush in trying to appeal to her audience.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Ross Douthat wouldn’t have come across as such a jerk going after Kmiec if he hadn’t just finished off a prior comment in that same roundtable discussion pointing out that the GOP won’t be able to put their coalition back together again so long as each faction insists or more-greater-purity for their own pet issues while blaming all the rest for their electoral defeats.
Talk about a serious lack of self-awareness, as I pointed out yesterday on ObWings in a comment thread similar to this one.
Kmiec’s response to Douthat comes across as really pathetic, but on the other hand IIRC he (Kmiec) has received both annonymous death threats and threats to cut him off from receiving communion as a consequence of his endorsement of Obama, so I think I can forgive him getting a bit theatrical in response to Douthat. In his place I probably would have challenged Douthat to pistols at 10 paces, but then I suppose that’s because I’m not as good of a Christian as Kmiec.
No matter how you chalk it up, the whole thing degenerated into a spectacular pie throwing contest which doesn’t bode well for the conservatives.
Comrade Jake
After the election, Douthat did a bloggingheads where he suggested that the jury is still out on whether or not Palin’s a viable GOP star. He’s not convinced she’s a bimbo.
I think Douthat’s a sharp guy but teh religion does cloud his intellect.
As for Kmiec, he’s always struck me as something of a wimp. Tucker calling him out on it has to be particularly painful though. Tucker’s the guy who was forever stuffed in lockers growing up, and I’m not sure he ever fully recovered.
mellowjohn
i’ve always liked tucker, too (in fact, after the mcsame campaign, you could say he’s my favorite republican named tucker), for the following reason: every time i feel like smacking the smug off someone, tucker carlson’s on my tv.
Tsulagi
@Delia:
Me neither. That’s right up there with his "Bush is a misunderstood genius" post. Hard to snark something that is so black-hole retarded. You just look at it in awe.
Dulcie
@Delia: OMG – I was just getting ready to post this. Hinderocket proves he’s a freaking moron again. You think he’d quit after this one:
DRC
Apparently that’s annoying to Tucker, who still had to find something to whine about in his call for Kmiec to stop whining. What a show…
Melinda
Tucker Carlson is probably more likely than the others to do something not-assy, but he’s still an ass. Who can forget him going out and finding a friend to take into a public washroom to beat up a gay man who came onto him?
During the 2000 campaign was (rightfully) appalled by the way George Bush mocked Karla Faye Tucker, which suggests that there might be some decency buried in there somewhere. But still, most of the time he’s an annoying little putz.
Objective Scrutator
"During the 2000 campaign was (rightfully) appalled by the way George Bush mocked Karla Faye Tucker, which suggests that there might be some decency buried in there somewhere. But still, most of the time he’s an annoying little putz."
So was Pat Robertson. Are you saying that Pat’s got some decency buried in him, too?
At any rate, both of them opposed her death sentence because of her conversion. As a Calvinist, I say that we immediately hand over her fate to God, since conversion to Christianity should not spare one from the death penalty.
"And Scrutator, Clarkson may see fundamentalist boogiemen everywhere, but at least there’s proof of their existence—they do tend to announce themselves and their intentions pretty fucking loudly, and if they were able to gain Nehemiah Scudder-like power, then people like me would be disappeared without a second thought."
Yeah, some of what Clarkson reports may be true. Other times, he addresses a totally insignificant blogger or someone else without political importance, and expects you to piss your pants. And I’m still waiting for proof that Christian Reconstructionism influences the Republican Party. I’ll tell you right now: I am one, and I get persecuted even by the self-described ‘religious right’.
"The religious left is too busy trying to make sure poor people have food and shelter to try to regulate who, where, when, and in what manner people are fucking."
Fornication is one of the greatest moral issues that we must address. If we allow any sex outside of the purpose for procreation, we embolden sexual predators. I have a hunch that many pornographers are actively working to become physical education teachers, for example.
"Abortion and the "pro life" thing, like the entire catholic church hierarchy, are just tools to be used to get to other republican objectives i.e. power for power’s sake."
Yea, the Catholic Church’s influence in pushing El Salvador’s excellent abortion law was negligible.
Seriously, though, while I don’t respect the Catholic Church, due to its embracement of several devious secular ‘science’ doctrines, such as Darwinism, Copernicanism, and the vaccination movement, I do realize that they at least care about the murder of the unborn.
boonagain
Delia,
I have no words for that post. Did we just peep into a parallel Universe?
WTF is that one thinking?
Tsulagi
So you’re saying if the wife becomes pregnant, a good Christian patriot is expected or should be required to go blue balls for nine months? Damn, I imagine some Calvinists really dread seeing the spouse peeing on a stick.
And they wonder why Islam is one of the fastest growing religions.
Quaker in a Basement
Hey!
Comrade Stuck
I’m almost afraid to ask, but can’t help myself. Exactly what does the Vaccination Movement, whatever that is, have to do with devious science?. I mean, not even Sarah Serendipity would say that, at least I’m fairly sure.
Comrade Darkness
Given your belief in unconditional election, he may very well have, but how would you know?
tammanycall
"I do realize that they at least care about the murder of the unborn."
Though not about the wellbeing of the born. Witness their rabid resistance to all forms of taxation — which pays for orphanages, food, education, and health care for children in need. It is not a practical solution. And if by some happenstance Roe were overturned, do you really think abortions would stop? The wealthy will always find a way, and the poor will resort to dangerous backally procedures. Outlawing it will not make it go away.
And their "care" is pointless anyway, as the overwhelming majority of women are pro-choice, and they consistently outnumber men at the polls. If the right wants to build its house on a pro-fetus/ anti-woman foundation, they are welcome to do it. I’m sure many prudish white men will gleefully sign on to shame women for having sex. But conservatives won’t win any elections that way.
boonagain
I’m pretty sure that Sarah knows more about vaccination than almost anyone, as I believe McCain said at one point in the Campaign.I believe it went hand in hand with her mastery of autism
Didn’t McCain champion , at one point, parental choice for vaccination?
Comrade Stuck
@Delia:
The Assrocket has always flown in a shaky vessel, but lately has been in a rapidly decaying orbit around Planet Wingnut.
He’s not the only one, but stands out in the crowd. I posted in a thread several days ago something he wrote as mindless as this post. Though I can’t remember the topic, it was equally a thing of beautiful nonsense.
demimondian
@Objective Scrutator:
I take it that I should, indeed, conclude that you are nothing?
— A nation less annoyed by the religious left
Comrade Darkness
Clearly a spoof troll hacked his blog. The only reasonable explanation.
Fool me once, shame on, shame on… can’t get fooled again.
LiberalTarian
@Tsulagi:
Right. How exactly does K Parker suggest they raise that bar? They dimwits they are hating as ignorant rubes are from the reddest of the red states, i.e. Mississippi, where illiteracy and lack of educational funding go hand in hand. But, wouldn’t want to raise taxes! Wouldn’t want public resources being used for the public either, especially when the GOP in those states have done such a good job of funneling that money into their own pockets.
She doesn’t really want to educate them, because they might start acting in their own self-interest. She wants to go back to the good old days when the ignorant Republican masses voted as they were told to vote and promptly STFU. She just wants the candidates themselves to be closet intellectuals who make fun of the rubes.
Raise that bar indeed.
Josh Hueco
I assume the "Vaccination Movement" is ++ungood to our good Calvinist friend because getting sick and dying a horrible death means you’re not one of the Elect, so good riddance you fucker.
Also, Jesus didn’t mean what he said in Matthew 25 about who will sit on the right hand of God or not when the second coming happens. The only parts of the Bible that Twue Cwishchuns recognize are Genesis, Deuteronomy, Romans and Revelation.
Objective Scrutator
You’ll have to educate me on some of those elitist terms you use. My religion prohibits study of such deviancy.
Suicide bombing makes otherwise pointless and irrelevant people seem like they have a purpose. Since no country with some form of Sharia Law actively discourages that, we have to conclude that the majority of Muslims are quite dangerous.
:)
I’m not an expert on the subject, by any means, but I suggest that you read some essays by Andrew Schlafly or other members of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. (Unfortunately, I can’t find a link to particularly excellent essays. Sorry.)
I know, as Truth, that Pat Robertson has some decency in him. I’m just curious if you concur with that basic assertion.
Private charity is more practical and more efficient than government welfare programs. You also don’t have to waste time debating the implications of such programs, for example.
That’s why you prevent pregnant women from leaving the country, for the former, and have security cameras in every conceivable position, for the latter. Abortion can, and will, go away… IF we’re merciless towards its purveyors.
The pro choice movement doesn’t quite have the grassroots organization that the pro-life movement does, though. If Republicans didn’t think that they could win elections by sticking up for the unborn, they wouldn’t. As for all the pro-choice females, that comes from the abortionist lobby and the inherent moral inferiority in females.
I have no idea what Palin’s official position is, but here is McCain’s. This is the one issue where I agree with McCain more than I do Palin.
For both moral and theological reasons, we should consider ourselves nothing, although this is obviously impossible on a mathematical scale. However, the mathematics are a little bit fuzzy. In short: Human – God = 0; God – Human /=/ 0.
Or maybe God wants to bring the soul to heaven as fast as possible. We may never know, as the Bible is silent on such issues.
boonagain
I hope you’re a spoof or, otherwise, you’re one sick fuck.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Just one question: who’s the better spoof: Screwloose or Ajarofnuts?
tigrismus
The doctrine of Total Depravity says nope.
Church Lady
Douthat unloaded on Kmiec because Kmiec, an Obama supporter and an ardently pro-life/anti-abortion Catholic tried, during the campaign, to argue that Obama conceiveably was better on the abortion question than McCain. Saying that Kmiec’s arguement for his position was disingenuous is a massive understatement (you can like Obama for a lot of reasons, but if you’re pro-life, Obama’s record shows that he does not share your position) and Douthat called him on it – stridently. Kmiec’s feelings got hurt and he offered up some mealymouthed defensive reasoning.
Carlson was right to make fun of him. He deserved it.
Brian J
Tucker Carlson always struck me as a little bit of a whiner when he was on television, but he didn’t strike me as a huge asshole like Hannity. That’s a pretty importance difference.
MBunge
How eaten up with jealousy do you think Tucker is at Rachel Maddow’s success? I mean, he is the one who really gave Maddow her initial exposure on TV, so I’m sure there’s part of him that’s happy for her. But he also spent his entire career on TV trying to do from the right exactly what she’s doing from the left and he massively sucked at it.
Mike
James F. Elliott
I just finished the entire exchange, and I must say, I didn’t find it terribly flattering to conservatives. Doug Kmiec is a whingey little wimp; even I thought he was shilling for Obama in this exchange. Ross Douthat, however, has descended into self-righteous dickery, and Kmiec was right to be offended (if, well, wimpy). Tucker Carlson unintentionally described American conservatism as what it is — an essentially negative enterprise, more about what it opposes than what it actually believes. Christine Todd Whitman was a paragon of tilting at straw men, and Jim Manzi rounded out the game by going all-in with the "No true Scotsman" gambit.
Feh.
Just Some Fuckhead
Ha – a pun!
Xanthippas
You are wrong to accuse Kmiec of being disengenous. I read those links that Douthas provides, that attempt to explain why Kmiec is wrong, but they boil down to this: because Obama is against measures that would either outlaw or make it extremely difficult for a woman to get an abortion, Kmiec is wrong to support him as a pro-life candidate. Fair enough, but Kmiec appears to be trying to make an argument based on pragmatism; that Obama’s policies will result in less abortions because women would be in a better position to keep the unborn babies they are pregnant with.
In other words, Douthat, like many pro-lifers, cares less about pragmatic results and more about simply making it impossible for women to obtain abortions. For all his umbrage at Kmiec, he never quite gets around to explaining why ostensibly pro-life Republican candidates deserve his vote, when they’ve done little to nothing to advance the pro-life cause except pass laws that nibble at the margins or try to stack the Supreme Court. Douthat throws out the term "useful idiot", but he has every reason to be familiar with it, him and his pro-life ilk having served as the same for Republicans for three decades now.
Josh Hueco
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Screwloose. It’s more fun to argue with him.
TheHatOnMyCat
This: When what people like this say can no longer be distinguished from spoof, then the spoofs win.
Which is …. the whole point of spoofing.
In other words, Mission Accomplished.
Church Lady
I actually went and read the various essays by Kmiec outlining his reasons for supporting Obama and his attempts to justify his reasoning given his very strong pro-life commitment and Obama’s stance on and voting record on abortion matters. I’m sorry, I stand by the use of the word "disingenuous".
If Kmiec had been honest, he would have said that all the other reasons he found to support Obama outweighed the question on abortion, even though he has been known for years in conservative circles for his anti-abortion stance. That would have been plausible and justified. His arguements for Obama on right to life issues were not, and he glossed over Obama’s actual stance on the issue. If Congress and the Senate pass the Freedom of Choice Act and Obama signs it in to law, I wonder what Doug Kmiec will have to say about that. Given that Obama has already said that he supports it and will have the majorities in each house to probably get it through, I think it will probably pass sometime next year.
Will Kmiec be able to twist himself into enough of a knot to say such legislation actually promotes life or that the availability of federal funding for abortions will in fact decrease them? Or, will he say that on this particular matter, he was wrong. It will be interesting to see.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
Actually I don’t "gotta love" the Carlson response at all, and I’m only putting this down to you having a weird bent for the guy.
matoko_chan
Douthat’s response to Kmiec is classic fundamentalism.
We can look for much more of that.
When the "guild" (the GOP) feels that core ideology is being diluted or corrupted by moderates, it returns to the more pure and older ideology, the fundamental ideology.
The leadership then attempts to burn the middle ground to force moderates back into the purist camp, and to excommunicate and punish "defectors" to prevent both corruption of core doctrine and increasing numbers of defections.
Evolutionary theory of culture 101.
hillary
Last year Tucker Carlton came to WV, we spent the evening being entertained by this charismatic speaker, he stayed late signed books, hats, bodies etc.
Very, very bright, nice man. Its difficult now to ‘like’ Tucker Carlton.
The bowtie got me at an early age – Tucker represents all the good things about that political party.