If it’s a day ending in Y or a week that ends on Saturday, there is a theory that Tucker Carlson is a secret racist. Really, you can set your watch by it. As soon as his shows end on Fox News, the MacBook keyboards at Media Matters for America headquarters are clacking away.
The outrage this time? Carlson mispronounced Kamala Harris’ first name.
In case you missed it — and if you did, consider yourself lucky — Carlson was debating Biden’s vice presidential pick with Richard Goodstein, a Democratic adviser, on Tuesday, hours after the announcement that the California senator would be the Democratic nominee’s running mate.
Carlson pronounced Harris’ first name “Camma-la.” Goodstein made a point to say Carlson should be pronouncing her name “Comma-la.” He proceeded to sternly reprimanded the Fox host by pointing this out, quite huffily, in the context that he did.
This was part of it, where Carlson was deemed to be the one who “loses it”:
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Tucker Carlson loses it when a guest corrects his pronunciation of Kamala Harris’s name pic.twitter.com/1fHIrPGuwN
— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) August 11, 2020
“Her name is pronounced ‘comma’ — like the punctuation mark — ‘la.’ Seriously, I’ve heard every sort of bastardization of that. That’s how it is. ‘Comma-la,’ ” Goodstein said.
“I unintentionally mispronounced her name. … So what?” Carlson said.
Would Kamala Harris be a good vice president?
“Out of respect for somebody who’s going to be on the national ticket, pronouncing her name right is actually kind of a bare minimum,” Goodstein said, clearly piqued.
Carlson responded in kind, and, well, as he put it, “So it begins.”
And so it began. The Washington Post: “Tucker Carlson’s mangling of Kamala Harris’s name was all about disrespect.” CNN implied it was bigotry, according to Carlson.
And then you got the Twitter chorus, who piped in with helpful remarks such as this one:
Because he obviously was mispronouncing it intentionally. It’s a well known power move by arrogant guys to let everyone know that the other person is insignificant.
— Dan Todd (@dtodd_411) August 11, 2020
The subtext, of course, is that Carlson is a racist. He always has been, as far as the left is concerned — and now Kamala Harris is the nominee? They know what he’s thinking.
The problem is that there’s another prominent Democrat who does this, too:
His name is Joe Biden:
Because he obviously was mispronouncing it intentionally. It’s a well known power move by arrogant guys to let everyone know that the other person is insignificant.
— Dan Todd (@dtodd_411) August 11, 2020
The thing was, Biden didn’t have Democratic strategists arrogantly correcting him and accusing him of racism by insinuation.
Yes, Biden calls her “Camma-la,” not “Comma-la.” But that’s Uncle Joe! He’s just kind of loopy. Don’t hold him accountable for anything such as this. He’s certainly not a racist.
Meanwhile, Carlson obviously has been critical of Biden and the Democrats. He also says a lot of stuff the left likes to call racist when it’s a slow news day. So, hey, if the shoe fits …
Except it doesn’t account for this suddenly being a sign of disrespect.
I suppose I’m on Richard Goodstein’s good side, pun intended, since I’ve been pronouncing her name “Coh-MAH-la” for years. However, has he asked every Republican and Democrat he’s met to pronounce it the other way and then huffily demand they repent and apologize?
More importantly, why don’t we see him do it on air with Biden? Let’s see Goodstein correct the party standard-bearer. See if he gets this sort of reaction, or whether he gets called a lying, dog-faced pony soldier.
We know why they’re picking on Carlson — and it hasn’t succeeded yet, no matter the best efforts of Media Matters.
It’s time to stop.
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