National Review Writer Roasts ‘Nihilistic’ Tucker Carlson Over ‘Awkward Timing’ of Navalny Death: ‘He Should Know Better’
Tucker Carlson
National Review‘s Charles C.W. Cooke roasted Tucker Carlson for heaping praise on Russian dictator Vladimir Putin just before he murdered opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Monday, calling Carlson a member of the “nihilistic” faction of the right.
After being asked about the “unfortunate timing” of Navalny’s death for Carlson, who has been praising Putin’s Russia for everything from its grocery stores to its subway system, Cooke teed off on an episode of National Review‘s podcast “The Editors.”
“Yeah, it’s awkward timing in one sense, but it’s really not awkward timing in another sense,” began Cooke. “And that sense is that you don’t find yourself the victim of awkward timing if you don’t praise dictators.”
He continued:
This isn’t something that happened to Tucker Carlson. He wasn’t on the golf course one day and he was hit by a bolt of lightning. He went to Russia and then praised it. He defended its leader. He said that killing people’s part of the job. Then Putin kills someone and he says “Ugh, gosh! Could you believe the misfortune that has befallen me? There I was saying that Putin’s a good guy and killing people’s part of the job and then he kills someone!”
I mean, this isn’t someone putting all their life savings in the stock market the day before a crash. This is what happens to you if you lay down with the worst people in the world. No one else has had this happen to them. I didn’t lay awake at night yesterday thinking “Oh, I just hope, I just hope that Hitler doesn’t do something bad! Shouldn’t have written that book saying he was doing a good job!”
No! If you don’t want to be subject to the vicissitudes of awful people, don’t praise them. This isn’t difficult for most of us. Why’d you think we’re all sitting in horror watching this Walter Duranty routine? Because we know that it isn’t true. We don’t say this stuff ’cause we don’t think it, and we don’t think it ’cause we know that the guy is a monster.
I just — I find this so funny. “Whoops, that was just bad, bad luck for Carlson.” No! It was bad form for Carlson is what it was and he should know better. How have we got to the point where this faction on the right is so nihilistic — and I think that probably is the right word — so nihilistic, so relativistic, something conservatives used to care about, that they can’t distinguish between the dictator of Russia and the United States?
Well, Carlson’s got there and he deserves this. He deserves this because what he said was absolute nonsense and it was demonstrated to be so within a few hours of his having said it.
Cooke had previously criticized Carlson for gushing about his “full girlfriend experience” in Russia.
