Jitterbugging for Jesus

It is total hypocrisy to pretend that something didn’t happen.”

— Former Fox News star Gretchen Carlson on how Fox News totally ignores its own dirty laundry

“You want a sex scandal, the Republican party, baby, that‘s where you go.” — Tucker Carlson in a 2006 interview
(Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

Speaking of influential men who are icky to no end… (see the previous post writ about the Weinstein fallout here).

You’ll recall that after Bill O’Reilly, one of the predators ousted from the buzzard perches at the Fox News empire, was given the boot, he was replaced by Tucker Carlson.

Tuck, who has turned out to be a bigger Fox star than the shameless O’Reilly, has had the audacity to come down hard on Democrats for being so chummy with the revolting Hollywood fat-cat Weinstein. So, predictably, have Hannity and the other Fox apologists for their sick friends like the late fat-cat Roger Ailes.

One would think that Fox would have been humbled by all nasty behavior at Fox that was, uh, exposed by former Fox star Gretchen Carlson and so many other women who once were such popular broadcast stars in Murdoch World.

But I’ll have more to say on Gretchen below.

Gretchen Carlson, keeping the burners burning on her former colleagues at Fox News and power to her.

Regarding Tucker, this excerpt from a Huffington Post piece tells you everything you need to know about how deplorable Tucker Carlson’s attitude toward women is.

During a 2006 segment on Carlson’s former MSNBC show, “Tucker,” Democratic strategist Steve McMahon claimed that Democrats taking control over Congress would usher in an era of “a lot more fun.”

In a slight departure from the topic, Carlson responded with a reveal of his own feelings about sexual harassment.

“A lot more fun?” Carlson said. “This is a group that made up the concept of sexual harassment. ‘You look great today.’ ‘Boom, I‘m charging you with a crime.’”

Yes, unbelievably, Tucker claimed that Democrats “made up” the concept of sexual harassment.

What’s worse, he followed up his cringeworthy crack about Democrats with this amusing(?) little crack:

“Do you know what I mean? It’s not a group I associate with fun. You want a sex scandal, the Republican party, baby, that’s where you go.”

See more on the exchange here.

A prince of a fellow, that Tucker Carlson.

* * *

There was a time when no would could have foreseen the ultra-conservative Gretchen Carlson being a feminist crusader on behalf of the multitudes of women who have been harassed, assaulted or abused by powerful men with money.

Who would have dreamed that she would turn out to be the darling of progressive feminists? But she has been relentless in exposing the hypocrisy at Fox as evidenced by the interview at this link.

I disagree a bit with her assessment, though, that Fox was hypocritical to ignore the cases of Boss Hog Roger Ailes and the other Fox predators.

For one thing, Hannity, Boling and others rushed to the defense of Roger Ailes and lamented “the rush to judgement” by the female whisteblowers.

Even some of the other females who stayed on at Fox, the other Gretchen (Van Suren) were in denial about Ailes for a long time before they were convinced of the obvious truth.

Secondly, our whole culture and society–politics, business, the media, the church, entertainment and all the rest–is saturated with enough hypocrisy to go around.

But what Fox does in seeing no evil, hearing no evil, and speaking no evil when it to its own monkey business (as happened with Weinstein in the entertainment culture) is something beyond hypocritical.

Carlson and Hannity and company give Academy Award performances every night in lying brazenly and lying just as much by omission with their sanctimonious grandstanding.

Good for Gretchen Carlson for standing up for truth.

Notwithstanding the fact that the deplorable behavior of men with power is not bound by any political parties — since sexual predators have all kinds of political and apolitical stripes — I think Gretchen Carlson brings a certain gravitas to the cause for women in and out of the workplace, to some extent, because of her conservative bonafides.

People are more likely to stop and listen to what she has to say than the baggage-laden Hillary Clinton so more power to her and long may she live and long may her story be told.