Tucker Carlson’s Shock Jock Comments — And Non-Apology — Get Blasted on Twitter: ‘This is Bullsh*t’

Colby HallMar 11th, 2019, 12:09 pm
 

Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson is getting more criticism than usual after progressive media watchdog Media Matters unearthed audio snippets from interviews he participated in with shock joke radio host “Bubba, the Love Sponge.”   The three and a half minute video was posted on YouTube over the weekend and includes numerous examples of Carlson saying remarkably shocking commentary from 2006 and 20011.

As we posted earlier, some of Carlson’s comments proved shocking.

At one point, Carlson said this, referring to underage marriage and seeming to defend statutory rape: “the same thing exactly as pulling a child from a bus stop and sexually assaulting that child. … The rapist in this case has made a lifelong commitment to live and take care of the person so it is a little different.”

He also made this gross comment about his own daughter, after the show hosts spoke about sexual experimentations at boarding school: “If it weren’t my daughter I would love that scenario.”

Carlson even called the charges against polygamist and husband of child brides Warren Jeffs “bullshit” because “arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old and a 27-year-old is not the same as pulling a stranger off the street and raping her.”

And there is more, some may even say worse.

Carlson released a statement in response, but in his signature iconoclastic style, the Fox News host notably did not apologize,  and instead accepted that he said “naughty” things in the past and inviting his critics to a debate on his program.  Carlson tweeted:

Because we live in a culture that so easily tilts toward outrage — and expressing both outrageous comments and/or resulting outrage rewards media figures with the attention that they so sorely seek — there has been predictable but no less interesting reaction on the Social Media platform known as Twitter. Here follows are a collection of outrage and support for Carlson’s comments, that also sever as the purest expression of the current civil discourse in these “Divided States of America.”

First, the anger from usual and notable suspects:

Of course Carlson had his share of defenders, often helped with the use of ironic detachment:

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Colby Hall - Founding Editor

Colby Hall is the Founding Editor of Mediaite.com. He is also a Peabody Award-winning television producer of non-fiction narrative programming as well as a terrific dancer and preparer of grilled meats.