Courtesy of the American Scene. Tucker Carlson calls for the professionalization of conservative media--and is booed for it. Too bad. He's basically right.
I'm an unabashed lefty. But I understand the difference between my liberal beliefs, and the tools I need to do my job. Being pro-choice is a statement of who I am, and is part of my world-view. But a writer confusing his belief system with the trade of reporting and word herding, is a soldier confusing his flag for his sidearm.
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"a soldier confusing his flag for his sidearm"
Nice metaphor. Is it your own creation, or did you pick it up somewhere?
This is why the are where they are and why they won't be going anywhere any time soon. Mind you at least Tucker has actually been on Tee Vee and in media. The dumbasses booing probably have never worked in media ever. But even Tucker when faced with a hostile audience ends up captitulating by sinking to invoke FAUXNOOZ as a cheap way to get the audience back on his side instead of standing by what he was saying. To use FAUXNOOZ as an example of caring about accuracy is hilarious.
it's almost like watching the last days of Jonestown. the conservatives are in lalaland.
I almost felt sorry for him, until he started in on Fox News as the gold standard for conservative news gathering, not because Fox gets the facts wrong most of the time--they don't, though they have their moments--but because their model is far more commentary than news, which is what Carlson was decrying. The Chicago Tribune is a far better example of a conservative news organization more concerned with news gathering than with commentary. The problem with Fox is that they often refuse to make it clear whether they're doing news or commentary, and most people who watch the news--in general here, I'm not picking on Fox viewers in particular--aren't sophisticated enough to be able to tell the difference except in extreme cases.
While I can't stand Carlson's snarkiness at times, he does have a measure of my respect... because of things like this. He isn't just an opinion shill, and he gets it why no one like me can respect his party.
While Republicanism means a war on science, an elevation of ignorance as noble, a disregard for facts, a complete and total love affair with ignoramuses like Palin, and sensibilities that would motivate a genuinely smart individual like Jindal to say the moronic things he did the other day to appeal to them....
I cannot even consider respecting it as a whole.
I am no democrat, and am actually rather conservative, but until the Republican party changes, I am dead set in my opposition to handing power at any level of government to a Republican, unless they have substantially proven themselves free of this burden of idiocy.
That can't be easy to stand up there and say unpopular things.
I can't see moderate, thinking, educated, secular minded Republicans necessarily staying with the Dems for long. But I can't see them with the ignoramus party either. The Republican party does not provide a counter balance to the Dems, as they should, for the reasons Carlson, and Robert above mention. They are bankrupt of ideas.
Peter,
It's mine. I try to give credit when borrowing.
Peter,
It's mine. I try to give credit when borrowing.
Peter's right, it's a brilliant metaphor. I was going to make the same comment, but saw his post.
I guess that's why people pay TNC to be a writer, and the rest of us schmucks have to be content with commenting on his blog.
Which is certainly all right with me.
Oh I don't know. It's just like the analogy questions from my old SATs. In the following sentence, Writer is to ideology, as Soldier is to blank. A little more abstract than that, but the same idea. Often I'll write a sentence like that out, with the structure in tact, and then spend 15 minutes trying to find the most evocative thing for the second part of the analogy. It's very powerful when it comes off right. If it's weak, I usually scrap the sentence.
Irritating and picayune metaphor Nazi alert: wouldn't the metaphorical conservo-soldier be confusing his flag for his rifle? If he/she/it is resorting to their sidearm, things have already gone pretty sideways.
Although perhaps this is an appropriate depiction of the current fortunes of the mainstream conservative movement in America.
I love these conversations! I thought of rifle first actually, and it probably makes more sense. I just like the almost archaic sound of "sidearm."
When they start booing the likes of reliable media flunky Tucker Carlson, you know they are in sad shape.
I have been reading and commenting at TAS, and have been flabbergasted to find out how deep in the weeds today's young cons are about commerce and the market place of ideas. They are as bad/lost as the lefty doco filmmakers. Check out this post and comments:
http://theamericanscene.com/2009/02/27/substance-matters
I need to take a dig at Fox news. My probably with those fools is not that they are right-wingers. Well, not my biggest problem. My problem with them is that they lie to no end. I'm not talking about particular stories or the partisan slant they have other networks (MSNBC for one) does that kind of thing too. My problem is that they have the balls to say its "fair and accurate" and that people disagreeing with them are twisting the news or are shills for the "liberal media". That's the same tactic Bush used to make his power grab "you're with us or you're unpatriotic".
The bigger problem is not that Fox news refuses to admit that they have an agenda and are not fair and balanced. It's that otherwise intelligent conservatives are blind to this, willfully or otherwise. These frakking people! They're the same ones whose eyes roll and get twitchy when Rachel Maddow or Olberman even show up on screen for a second. But they're the first ones to yell in an argument "But last night on Hannity [fill-in the right-wing douchebaggery of your choice]!" These are the same people who bitched about media bias even as they had control of Congress and the White House and the New York Times was printing Bush administration press releases as news. And these jokers are surprised that, while many lefties may appreciate input from intelligent conservatives, we don't want to hear anything else from them or the idiots they champion/elect?
/rant
I'm sorry. It's been that kind of week.
And it's a great metaphor, Rifle is more accurate, but the subvocalization works better with sidearm because of the elision between "his" and "sidearm"
The grunts have rifles, the officers have sidearms. The metaphor is perfect.
It's a wacky day when *conservatives* (these are the people who cheered when Ambassador Bolton joked about nuking Chicago and laughed when Ann Coulter called Senator Edwards a *fag*, which makes them kooks in my book) get lectured about seriousness by Tucker Carlson.
A quick search of Carlson at Media Matters reveals Carlson said that Obama sounds like *a pothead*, the NAACP *should be shut down*, and that he *crosses his legs* whenever Hilary Clinton speaks. And who could forget the time Carlson bragged about getting a friend to help him beat a a guy who made a pass at him in a restroom? And yet he's the serious guy in this room.
Was thinking the same thing, but have trouble classing a reporter as an officer.
TNC, are you a officer or an enlisted man?
So not only is Carlson a homophobe, he's a coward too?
@KevDog: I thought enlisted personnel carried sidearms as well. My dad was enlisted, an MP in Vietnam, and I remember him telling me about how inaccurate some standard-issue Colt pistol was past a certain range. He was speaking like someone who had first-hand knowledge. Maybe he just had to qualify on a pistol as opposed to carry it around. Maybe its just the special ops guys who carry pistols and rifles.
AMT
Traditionally officers carried sidearms, as last ditch personal defense and to shoot enlisted men. They did not carry rifles because they were not supposed to be shooting, they were supposed to be directing their men. I seem to remember stories of British officers in WWI going "over the top" armed with nothing more than a swagger stick.
Also seem to remember my former Marine Corp father telling me that the Marine's "lead from the front" creed and no rifles for officers resulting lieutenants walking point carrying nothing more than a .45 automatic.
I knew I could totally derail this thread. Huzzah!
I really respect Carlson for what he was saying, up until he got booed and completely caved.
I completely agree with his opinion about the NYT. It absolutely is a liberal paper (my favorite thing about it is its editorial page), but it is a NEWSpaper first. The only programming on Fox News that I would call straight-up news is whatever show Shepard Smith is doing now. The rest have no line between opinion and news.
How many shows does Hannity have there now? Like three?
@ Tony Comstock
TNC, are you a officer or an enlisted man?
TNC is a mercenary. He probably subscribes to Blogger of Fortune.
it's almost like watching the last days of Jonestown. the conservatives are in lalaland.
I don't see it so much as the decline of Jonestown as the Black Helicopter crowd getting crazier as they were increasingly marginalized. It won't end in a mass suicide. It'll be a repeat of the Murrah Federal Building.
USMC Lt. Nate Fick (One Bullet Away; Generation Kill) carried a rifle, anyway.
On the main topic: Those guys (the GOP) are so screwed.
"Also seem to remember my former Marine Corp father telling me that the Marine's "lead from the front" creed and no rifles for officers resulting lieutenants walking point carrying nothing more than a .45 automatic."
Tony-
Maybe it depends on your MOS, you exact job? My father was a gunner & driver in a tank, the armored infantry, during the Korean War. (He finished off his four years as a Staff Sergeant.) During boot camp he had to qualify on a rife, the M-1 Garand I am assuming, but he was issued a sidearm once he was in combat.
I remember this distinctly because he mentioned how his particular Colt .45 automatic was a piece of crap. It was automatic only in the sense that it would fire one round and then automatically fall apart.
The metaphor is a gem - but I'm afraid you might not see it quoted precisely by others. I think it should be "confusing his flag with his sidearm." Or, replace "confusing" with "mistaking."
Or am I just being a pedantic white dude?
@Tony Comstock
I am enlisted, about to deploy in a month to Iraq, and will be carrying a sidearm. My job makes it necessary. I'm not the typical enlisted infantry man people are thinking of here, but just to be clear there are a number of jobs in the military that now require or highly suggest that enlisted soldiers carry M9s. It's not the pure status symbol it once was.
@AMT
I remember reading a piece a couple years ago about how most of the European media is quite upfront about the fact that they're biased in one way or another. It's just assumed that there's at least some agenda and so people know what to expect. Here we're still holding on to the notion that the media is supposed to be unbiased even when it's clear that it's rarely the case anymore. The author was arguing that the European system is better in as much as you know upfront what kind of slant to expect.
Tony,
It depends on when your father served. In the modern Marine Corps officers certainly carry rifles, M-16s.
But during World War II, your father's statement was sadly true. It also led to the Marine Corps enlisted man motto, of never standing anywhere in the vicinity of a Second Lieutenant. (See Eugene Sledge's memoirs, With the Old Breed.) This was a motto that seemed to evolve as early as Wake Island and remained true throughout the Solomons, the Marianas and even up through Okinawa.
Part of it was that Second Lieutenants often didn't know what they're doing. But part of it was exactly what your father said: A lead-from-the-front motto, followed by issuing them only sidearms. Experienced officers generally learned to either pilfer a rifle or simply carry one with them, tradition and regs be damned.
This is my pencil, this is my gun. This is for writing, this is for fun.
These hecklers are like the musicians on the Titanic......they refuse to face the truth.
A huge faction of the Republican party is in denial that we aren't living in the 20th century anymore. They don't want to live in a global world (unless they can exploit little brown people to make money) and they are terrified that white (western Euro) people aren't on top anymore.
Their discomfort with the concept of other countries or other races thriving and being as successful or more successful than they are has made them tweak out. They are full of fear. So they create their fairy fables and spin the hate and present them as truth. And they pretend that we are back in the 50's. Look at any footage of a Palin rally........it's all there in the twisted faces.
It's pathetic.
And I'm not surprised that Tucker caved. This group eats their own.....he's done it himself.