'You could wind up with a page only about porn, executions, and Sarah Palin every day.' A
New Republic profile of no-longer-bowtied Tucker Carlson as he launches
The Daily Caller, a 'right-leaning Huffington Post.'
It may be hard to remember now, staring back through the thick haze of cable-news smackdowns, but, before Carlson embarked on a TV career--and, at various points, even during that TV career--he was a great writer and reporter. His 1999 profile* of George W. Bush for Tina Brown’s short-lived Talk painted a portrait of the then-Texas governor--stubborn, profane, callow--that should have told voters everything they needed to know about why he would be such a terrible president. The piece he wrote for Esquire about traveling to Africa with Sharpton, Cornel West, and other civil rights activists was at once viciously hilarious and bracingly humane, like David Foster Wallace’s or Michael Lewis’s best reportage. At The Weekly Standard, where he worked for much of the 1990s, he was one of the rare writers less consumed with scoring political points than producing quality journalism. [more inside]
posted by shakespeherian
on Feb 18, 2010 -
72 comments
Journalism's vacation from the truth One day after Tucker Carlson, the co-host of CNN's "Crossfire," made his farewell appearance and two days after the network's new president made the admirable announcement that he would soon kill the program altogether, a television news miracle occurred: even as it staggered through its last steps to the network guillotine, "Crossfire" came up with the worst show in its 23-year history
posted by Postroad
on Jan 15, 2005 -
44 comments
In 2004, we had Jon Stewart on Crossfire. In 1986? There was Frank Zappa... As Zappa once said,
"There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another." (I don't know of any song that could ever inspire me to love John Lofton, though... compared to him, Tucker Carlson is simply delightful!)
In 1986, I was a 19 year old art student. One Saturday afternoon I found myself volunteering at an event at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood where Frank Zappa was scheduled to speak about censorship. I was not that familiar with him or his music at the time, but he was so funny, eloquent, and intelligent as a speaker that his many "words" made a major impression on me that day. In
this interview conducted on March 16, 1986, Frank Zappa talked further about his appearance before the US Congress and his involvement in the fight against censorship.
BTW, this is my first post. I hope it passes muster! ;)
posted by miss lynnster
on Dec 20, 2004 -
73 comments
Right-Wing Bullies Caught in Crossfire "No doubt all of the above qualities irritate the conservatives who follow party instructions to shun Crossfire. What has shocked them is that the new hosts don’t quite fit TV’s stereotypical 97-pound liberal, ready to be worked over like a talking speedbag. Mr. Carville is a tall, rangy Marine veteran, sports fanatic and jock; Mr. Begala is a born-and-bred Texan who grew up with guns and still likes to hunt. Both have expressed their powerful distaste for the Democratic tendency to wilt under attack."
posted by owillis
on Apr 14, 2002 -
46 comments
