Watching FOX News and even FOX Business over the past few days, I find that FOX has maneuvered itself into a pathetically defensive crouch. Chris Wallace is sacrosanct. His name is not to be defiled. Certain erroneous election night calls are not to be the subject of public criticism. Even the stalwart Maria Bartiromo shut down and talked over Conrad Black as he began to allude to one such election night call in the course of an interview on Mornings With Maria yesterday. Wallace and the FOX News news anchors behave in an increasingly high-handed fashion. And so on.
Debra Heine notes that FOX News has yet to retract its early call on election night that the Dems would pick up five House seats: “American Greatness emailed Fox News’ corporate communications vice president Irena Briganti Monday Morning to ask if the Fox News Decision Desk had rescinded its inaccurate projection, but did not receive a reply.” As I wrote on Sunday, FOX News is resting on its right to remain silent.
Tucker Carlson isn’t naming names or taking up all of these issues, but he isn’t keeping quiet either. As the man with the highest ratings in cable news, he continues to pursue the themes that have made him successful, even if they touch on his colleagues. He remains his own man.
Taking up one prong of the issues I itemize above, Tucker conveyed a few relevant thoughts last night. It is necessary to read between the lines, but we can surmise about whom and what he was talking in parts of his 23-minute monologue (video below). They seemed to hit home.
FOX News itself has posted the video of the monologue on YouTube, so there is that. RedState’s Bonchie reads between the lines in “Civil War: Tucker Carlson Hits His Own Network in Epic Post-Election Monologue.” I think Bonchie’s explication of the text is both interesting and correct.
