Ben Smith Lets Tucker Play With Himself On Camera, It Goes Great

Really, for sure.

 The headline from the dopes at The Hill says "Tucker Carlson defends his commentary on race in fiery interview." Oh golly! That almost sounds like Tucker Carlson did a fiery interview where he defended his commentary on race!

 The headline at Media Matters says "There’s no point to interviewing Tucker Carlson." That's the ticket.

Ben Smith has some new goddamn thing called Semafor,because what the world was crying out for was another internet guy to have a new internet guy idea for a new internet guy news website. "Today, readers are overwhelmed by too many options and unsure of what to trust," says its "About Us" page. 

So of course they decided to jizz-splat themselves into the discourse by doing a "hard-hitting" interview with Tucker Carlson, who is so much better at this than Ben Smith it's really truly not funny. Because readers are overwhelmed by too many options and unsure of what to trust.

A lot of people are making fun of this thing Tucker said, but what you need to see, and what Media Matters does an excellent job of diagramming, is just how skilled Tucker Carlson is at completely stealing an interview from an interviewer. The video excerpt below shows Tucker saying he has never met a white supremacist . You can keep to yourself whatever snarky comments questions your brain is asking about if there are any mirrors in Tucker's house or if he's ever met   any of his biggest fans, because if we are all thinking the same thing, there's just no reason.

Transcript long, because it's long:

BEN SMITH (SEMAFOR FOUNDER): You keep having these sort of explicit white supremacists, who have on secret message boards, who work for you, and I know this has been very painful for you in some cases –

TUCKER CARLSON (FOX NEWS HOST): I’ve never had a white supremacist – I’ve never even met a white supremacist!

Tucker has never met a white supremacist. He probably doesn't even know what the phrase means! That's one of his gimmicks, like when he pretends he doesn't know what "great replacement theory" is, even though he promotes it on his show all the time. It is one of his rhetorical tricks, and Ben Smith wasn't ready for it.

SMITH: You have people who have posted, large numbers of people –

CARLSON: Wait, slow down, slow down.

Tucker needs you to slow down.

SMITH: Scott Greer, Blake Neff –

CARLSON: Hold on, hold on. [LAUGHTER]

Tucker is filibustering, Tucker is giggling like the Girl Scout who sold the most cookies the day of the cookie-selling awards ceremony.

SMITH: I’m just curious why you’ve been sort of –

CARLSON: This is fun!

Tucker is having fun! He likes to parry and ping-pong back and forth with an intellectual adversary!

SMITH: – flypaper for these people on your staff?

CARLSON: You’re giving me a lecture, you’re not asking me a question.

Tucker does not like format of this interview, it is not fun anymore : (

SMITH: That was the question, why have you been flypaper for these racists?

CARLSON: Deep breath, deep breath. I’ve never had a white supremacist work for me. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a white supremacist. Please, let me finish.

Oh no, Tucker is in danger of being silenced.

SMITH: And I don’t want to talk about labels.

CARLSON: Hold on, slow down. I’m not sure what that means.

He doesn't know what "white supremacist" means. It is a very confusing term. He hasn't ever had white supremacists work for him, except for all the times they did. He's never talked to one, except for all the times he has.

Tucker Carlson is a liar. That's another thing an important internet news guy like Ben Smith ought to have known   about Tucker Carlson. 

CARLSON: I know that it’s a slur, it’s the worst thing one can be. I don’t really understand the terms, but let me just say –

SMITH: You’ve had to let people go who have said objectionable stuff.

CARLSON: Whoa now, Ben. I believe that people are not defined by their race. Any race, Black, white, Asian, pick a race.

Tucker Carlson is a Benetton ad bareback fucking the It's A Small World ride at Disneyland.

CARLSON: People are defined, their value derives, from a) the fact they were created by God – I believe that, maybe you don’t, I do – and b) by what they do, by the choices they make. By who they are, they have agency, they’re not part of some larger group, they’re individuals. I believe in the individual, and I say that virtually every night. Now if you don’t hear that, or if you for whatever reason want to claim that I’m some racist, I don’t know what to say to you. I’m stating my sincere views as reflected in my personal life and my professional life, as clearly as I can.

Oh shut the fuck up.

Isn't that tiresome? We are tired just copy/pasting it.

We write about Tucker here, and we call him names that accurately describe him, and we call out his white supremacism and his lies, andoccasionally a little bit  sometimes we make fun of the masculinity issues he constantly wears on his sleeve

But we would never ever be dumb enough to think a conversation with Tucker would be productive in any way, shape or form. And we guarantee we are better at this than Ben Smith, who literally begged at the beginning of the interview, “I’m just hoping you’ll let me ask questions and not steamroll me, because you’re a professional and I’m not." Jesus! And why can we make that guarantee? Because your garden variety Wonkette would have zero problem telling Tucker Carlson to choke on a bag of dicks on live TV and we would automatically become America's Sweetheart.

Still not worth it, washing our dog that day, probably catching up on a show, may have found a cool recipe on the internet, BUSY.

Media Matters makes a very good point here, about how there is just literally no actual news value in interviewing Tucker:

The only revelatory Carlson interviews come when he is talking to someone he views as friendly. In interviews with radio host Bubba the Love Sponge unearthed by Media Matters, for example, he credited “white men” for “creating civilization,” called Iraqis “semiliterate primitive monkeys,” distinguished between underage marriage and child rape, and said he would “love” a scenario with underaged girls sexually experimenting.

Those are not statements he would make to the likes of Smith – his guard is up when he is being interviewed by professional journalists.

“That was fun!” Carlson exclaimed, laughing, at the conclusion of his interview with Smith. Reporters interested in explaining Carlson’s worldview and influence should take notice.

If Tucker is having fun, literally everyone else is losing.

Good luck on your new website Pinafore or Petit Fours or whatever it is, Ben Smith.

OPEN THREAD.

[ Media Matters ]

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