I really don’t understand my friend Tucker Carlson. He owns the website The Daily Caller and it currently has on its front page the most vile story — referring to a sex act with Governor Sarah Palin as a “womb shifter.” It is even the headline. Do you know what that means? Figure it out It is really vile. It is not just smut…this is violence against women.
The “womb shifter” reference reported in the story is only the tip of the ice berg in terms of the vile nature of the posting. I am sparing you the details. To show you how bad it is, however, I have put a screen grab up of the front page reference on Tucker’s website. (I am deliberately not putting the link up since I am not going to help Tucker be a pig…he apparently can do it all himself without my help.)
Yes, I know the Daily Caller story is repeating what Mike Tyson says and Tyson has been a guest on ON THE RECORD at 10pm but to talk about boxing and his life – not to denigrate women. I won’t even begin to tell you my disappointment in Tyson. Many will say I should have expected that from Tyson – but Tucker? Tucker should have used judgment, a sence of decency and not promoted this denigration - a good journalist, a responsible journalist uses judgment. Tucker did not.
I keep asking myself, why would Tucker allow this to be posted on his website? I am suspicous his website is not doing well and this is one quick last breath to create buzz to keep it afloat. I wish Tucker had not allowed this to be posted on a site associated with his name because Tucker and I have been friends (and even colleagues) for years. I have always liked Tucker and I assume you can tell that when I introduce him and greet him on air.
I don’t like it when I see that my friends do disgraceful things – but we need to start calling out even our friends to stop this. Tucker has daughters and a wife and I would think he in particular would not want to be a purveyer of smut (and this is actually more, this is violence against women) and allow this to be posted on his website. There is nothing funny about violence against women and repeating what a thug (I thought – even hoped – Tyson had outgrown that) says on a radio show is also not news. I know he loves his wife and children and would never want this said or reported about them….so why is it ok to report about another? This is not news.
I emailed Tucker yesterday and asked him about it. He did not reply. I wanted to know what action he was going to take about it since I really did not want to blog about it and felt some urge to protect him. 24 hours have passed and I have not heard from Tucker and it is still on the front page of his website.
So…I am calling him out on this. This is not about whether you are in favor of Governor Palin’s policies or not — this is about whether women should be treated this way and whether this is journalism. It is also about the willingness to stand up to a friend when he or she has gone way over the top and this is one instance where a friend has gone way over the top.
In case you have any doubt, there is an easy test as to whether this is deeply wrong. To all you Palin haters out there, ask yourself, would this be ok if this were written about others – eg Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? or Speaker Nancy Pelosi or any other woman leader? or put in the name of your mother….your daughter…your own name…your sister…etc.
Tucker can’t hide behind ‘this is news, it was said by Mike Tyson and we are simply reporting it.’ It is not news. This denigrates women. He knows that, I know that, you know that.
By the way….I can’t help but wonder what the women on The Daily Caller think.
I hope Tucker does something about this. For starters, he should pull the posting down and then fire anyone who used this bad judgment and was part of posting it. This is not journalism. It is denigrating women.
One last thought…all conservatives who in the past have ‘called out’ NOW and other women’s groups for not standing up when Palin or other conservative women were or are gratuitously trashed, this is your chance to show you are not a hypocrite. Speak up when a conservative website does this.
What do you think?
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PS – if there IS a silver lining in The Daily Caller’s posting it is this — it gives us a launching pad from which to discuss the very important issue about violence against women and what is journalism. It puts the topic smack in our faces. Maybe others will begin to talk about this and that is a good thing.
