While I’ve largely refrained from writing about the beaten-to-smithereens Tucker Carlson story, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld‘s blistering single-tweet response on Wednesday to a cheap-shot tweet from sometimes “The Five” cohost Geraldo Rivera regarding the recently departed Mr. Carlson forced my hand.
Geraldo being Geraldo, he launched into a silly hyperbolic snit fit at the former ratings king of Fox News:
I don’t wish ill on anybody, but there is no doubt-as I said at the time-Tucker Carlson’s perverse January 6 conspiracy theory was “bullshit.”
Having lost the election President Trump incited an insurrection that sought to undermine our Constitutional process.
Ouch. We’ll get back to the alleged “bulls**t” in a minute.
Meanwhile, Gutfeld — who has often reduced Rivera to a howling, out-of-control, hot mess on the set of “The Five,” responded to the veteran liberal’s victory lap in the wake of Carlson’s Monday firing by Fox News — with a single-sentence tweet for the win.
You’re a class act Geraldo. A real man of the people.
Damn, bullseye.
Rivera, who began his “journalism” career as a reporter for WABC-TV in New York City in 1970, has long fancied himself an “everyman’s reporter,” which, 53 years later, he remains anything but. While the old-school liberal doesn’t hold a candle to the radical leftists of today, which I say as a lefthanded compliment, his takes are often infuriating, not to mention unworthy of a professional journalist.
So here’s the deal: While Carlson’s presentation of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was a clear attempt to portray the breach of the Capitol as little more than a leisurely stroll through the building by QAnon “shaman” Jacob Chansley and others, with Capitol guards as more-than-willing “tour guides,” it wasn’t any more “perverse bullsh*t” than the Democrats’ pathetic portrayal of Jan. 6 events as an “insurrection.” The reality, in both cases — and it matters not who agrees or disagrees: Both sides used carefully selected and edited videos to frame their respective narratives.
While I’ll now return my focus to people, places, and things other than Tucker Carlson, I will say this, in closing: Carlson delivered nightly exactly what his audience wanted to hear, irrespective of his off-air views.
Now that I think about it, there “might” be a soon-upcoming op-ed about the above observation.
Related on RedState:
For Reasons Unclear, Lincoln Project Co-Founder Thinks Tucker Carlson Might Run for President
REPORTS: Tucker Carlson’s Executive Producer Also Gone From Fox News