I don’t know if there are all that many people who still think of Tucker Carlson as a reliable source of objective reporting, but the juxtaposition of his fawning February 9 “interview” with Putin, followed by the murder of Alexei Navalny in the Russian gulag, was sickening.
As if the flaccid interaction with Putin weren’t quite enough, Carlson went on to visit a Moscow grocery store, where he rhapsodized about the virtues of the Russian economy. Somehow Mr. Carlson failed to mention that one of his U.S. dollars buys, at current exchange rates, 93 Russian rubles. He also failed to mention that the average annual income for Russian citizens is equivalent to $14,000 (Putin and his circle of corrupt cronies notwithstanding), and that Russians spend upwards of 33 percent of their income at the grocery store. Americans, on average, spend 11 percent of their income on groceries.
Carlson is not, in fact, a journalist; he is a fabulist who lost his job at Fox News after deliberately spreading fact-free hogwash about a “stolen” election here at home, and incessantly maligning and slandering the Smartmatic and Dominion voting machine companies on his primetime lie-a-thon. Rupert Murdock has no problem employing a whole stable of Pinocchio’s who make demonstrably false assertions on a regular basis, as long as their drivel drives viewership and ad revenues—but he does not take kindly to talking heads who cost him close to a billion dollars in defamation payments to Smartmatic. The Dominion case is still waiting in the wings, and that should cost Murdoch another billion. He fired Carlson.
Unemployed but undeterred, Carlson cobbled together some cockamamie pseudo-news program on Elon Musk’s online “X” (formerly Twitter) platform. He seemed likely to sink into oblivion from there, so it is unsurprising that he turned up in Russia for a “hail Mary” sit-down with Vladamir Putin. People like Tucker Carlson and some former presidents of the United States cannot thrive in the absence of unceasing media attention. Depriving them of an audience is like withholding blood from vampires. They will do anything to reclaim the spotlight, including flying to Moscow to extoll the virtues of tyranny.
Carlson is hardly the first useful idiot who has been manipulated by Putin. Paul Manafort and Rudy Giuliani were equally useful, and it appears that Donald Trump and his MAGA handmaidens intend to be useful to Putin for quite some time to come. There was one voice notably absent from the universal condemnation of Putin following the murder of Navalny: Donald Trump’s. The man who shoots off his mouth all day, every day, was uncharacteristically silent about the persecution and subsequent assassination of a political rival by his sociopathic idol.
Wikipedia defines sociopathy as follows:
A personality disorder characterized by a limited capacity for empathy and a long-term pattern of disregard or violation of the rights of others. Other notable symptoms include impulsivity and reckless behavior, a lack of remorse after hurting others, deceitfulness, irresponsibility, and aggressive behavior.
History is replete with clear examples of sociopathy. The roster of famous—or, more accurately, infamous—sociopaths includes Ivan the Terrible, Benito Mussolini, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. This list is in no way exhaustive; Vladamir Putin is a member in good standing of this ignominious boys’ club.
All of Putin’s behavior comes straight from the sociopath playbook. He has a long history of “disappearing” those who show any sign of disloyalty to him or his regime. I have lost count of how many of his countrymen have been deliberately poisoned with Novichok or plutonium, shoved off of rooftops, thrown over stairwells, or pushed out of open windows. Those who manage to avoid assassination can look forward to spending the rest of their lives in a Siberian prison. His long experience in the KGB provided a first-class education in the art of elimination.
Vladimir Putin is pure, unadulterated evil. He murders his detractors; imprisons American journalists, athletes, and ballerinas in order to hold them for ransom; has stolen and continues to steal billions from the Russian people; and is systematically destroying Ukraine in his lust for power. If Trump, Carlson, and the useful idiots in the “Freedom Caucus” have their way, Ukraine will be consigned to the ash heap of history and the territory will be taken by Russia.
Putin won’t stop there, just as Hitler didn’t stop after the conquest of Austria. Putin will attempt to take Poland, a NATO ally, and then move on to the rest of eastern and central Europe. If Trump is reelected, he will be only too happy to exit the NATO alliance, opening the door for Putin to take a defenseless western Europe as well.
After that, Putin is coming for us.
Time will tell what becomes of useful idiots when they are no longer quite so useful.
