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Destroying a Shill: Tucker Carlson Humiliates David Brock
by Liberty and Power
In this video, Tucker Carlson, who has described himself as a libertarian and a critic of the Iraq war, shows his mettle as a journalist. He thoroughly humiliates former rightwing (and current leftwing) hit-man, David Brock.
No doubt, the pro-war bloggers now praising Carlson's doggedness in this interview will soon flip-flop when he gives one of their heroes the same treatment.
David –
You wrote
"My comments were aimed at David Brock, not at the antiwar movement, the 9-11 movie, critics of the Bush Administration, oor leftists as such. My objection to Brock is that he is a down-the-line company man and thus not to be trusted. His client was once the right, now it is the left. He will never criticize his patrons."
Me:
OK, that makes more sense to me. Much more. Thanks.
BUT criticisms always occur in contexts, and the context was Brock being attacked by an ill informed bully arguing there was nothing wrong about the tissue of lies that ABC was trying to put on the air, a tissue of lies almost certainly hoping to impact the national elections coming up, where the war is very very much an issue.
David:
"I would have more respect for him if he wasn't so obvious and shameless in playing this role. Carlson was exactly right in calling him on this. The antiwar movement would make a great mistake if it puts its trust in the likes of Brock."
Me:
I’m not sure there is an “antiwar movement” in the sense there was in the 60s and early 70s. One of the fascinating things about the turn against the war is that it has happened mostly under the radar of the new media (if they can be termed “news” media any more). I suspect blogs will turn out to have had a major impact here, but that is for historians of the future to puzzle out. There are next to no demonstrations and the like to get the most idiotic portion of our population up in arms.
As to David Brock…
Brock was as he admits a hit man for the right, and a well paid one. He later found some ethics and turned against it. When I read Blinded By the Right I was fascinated because while I never rose that high in young conservative circles in the early 60s, I rose high enough so that the personalities and views he described all sounded very familiar to me. Even his points about closeted hypocritical gays rings true. I have only met an aggressive gay who wouldn’t take no for an answer from a straight guy at the very conservative Philadelphia Society when I was a guest many years ago. He chased me around my hotel room. As I thought about it afterward, I realized I had been “set up” by several people I met there to fulfill this economist’s fantasies. But that’s another story.
I do not know Brock and have never met him, but his book rang very true for me.
He quit and joined the opposition, for which as far as I can tell he makes a LOT less money. He may not criticize his patrons, but I don’t expect him to. He is in the same dilemma as a member of an ideological think tank.
In the world of ideas, unless you are blessed with a trust fund or have tenure, it is very dangerous to go against views that originally supported you. I know. I am always amazed on the few occasions when people in conservative think tanks show intellectual independence (they then get fired), ditto for super orthodox libertarian ones, and ditto for people like Brooks who depend on people with a political agenda for their bacon.
But the best of them can be expected to do honest work where their ethics do not collide with the interests of their benefactors. So far I have no reason to distrust Brooks on this issue – especially since he has already demonstrated willingness to take a financial and career hit when his ethics finally protested against what he was doing.
David:
"I agree entirely with you that there many people of integrity on the left who try to be even-handed and I trust more than Bush and his cabal. Perhaps I could have more clear that I was mainly criticizing the messager (Brock) than the overall message.
"The implication that I have been soft on conservatives or blind to their sins does not bear scrutiny. As a random search of my posts on L and P will show, I have been dogged in my effort, for example, to enlist classical liberals in groups such as the left-dominated Historians Against the War and against Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights. I too regard the Bush administration as an enemy to both civil liberties and world peace but this doesn't mean that I have to give Brock a pass. As I explained above, however, it would be a strategic mistake for antiwar activists to do so."
Me:
I am aware of, and very grateful for, your work in this area, David. I did not mean that ending comment quite as personally as you took it. I may have written too broadly, because I was outraged at the enormity of the lies ABC and its right wing allies were attempting to foist on to us. But I think most classical liberals are still caught in a time warp rooted in JFK's New frontier and LBJ's Great Society.
The present administration and the Republican Party have repudiated EVERY principle of classical liberalism. Indeed, they have repudiated every principle of liberalism in all its guises. When you add “national greatness neoconservatism” to the totalitarian impulse of so many on the Christian Right and the rise of crony capitalism that talks about markets and seeks privileges (like Disney on copyright), you get a well funded mass movement far more subversive of our country and its principles than anything the old Communist Party managed to do
David:
"I also think you are wrong about Carlson. Certainly, the man has his faults but he has come a long way from his days as a McCainiac and budding neo-con. Carlson is probably the only non-leftist today on major network t.v. who has dared to criticize the war. Moreover, I rather like his willingness to take controversial positions such as defending polygamy over the last month. I can't think of any talk show host today on CNN, Fox, etc. who would take that kind of contrarian view."
Me:
That means that Carlson’s views have caught up at last with those of more than half the American people – and there are many ways to criticize the war, including that we should have gone in but the effort was done incompetently. I call that a C- performance.
And then he flunks.
That at this late day in the game he could give ANY credence to the right wing lies about WMDs having been found in Iraq removes him from the universe of intelligent conversation on the issue as far as I am concerned. A dunk in a bar can have that view and it doesn’t bother me. Much. But a major media figure spreading his ignorance to millions is another matter entirely. He should be fired.
David:
"Tucker also deserves praise for challenging head on the view that promotion of democracy should be a goal of American foreign policy. He has pointed out that democratic governments are often just as oppressive [I changed it as you wanted] as authoritarian ones. Can you name any network commentator, left or right, who has taken that position? There is a reason why the wackos at Freerepublic hate Carlson!"
Me:
And he is 100% wrong on that one. Democratic governments are NOT as oppressive as undemocratic governments. Not even close. The empirical and statistical evidence has been compiled by Rudy Rummel. He and I disagree strongly as to whether democracy can be imposed in Iraq, but we agree on the larger issues of the nature of democratic governments compared to undemocratic governments. His blog is http://freedomspeace.blogspot.com/
I am admittedly uncomfortable agreeing with Freepers, and suspect we only agree superficially.
David: "I think you're being far too hard on Carlson and far too easy on Brock."
And I still take the opposite view!
David T. Beito -
9/9/2006
That's "oppressive" not "impressive"
David T. Beito -
9/9/2006
My comments were aimed at David Brock, not at the antiwar movement, the 9-11 movie, critics of the Bush Administration, oor leftists as such. My objection to Brock is that he is a down-the-line company man and thus not to be trusted. His client was once the right, now it is the left. He will never criticize his patrons.
I would have more respect for him if he wasn't so obvious and shameless in playing this role. Carlson was exactly right in calling him on this. The antiwar movement would make a great mistake if it puts its trust in the likes of Brock.
I agree entirely with you that there many people of integrity on the left who try to be even-handed and I trust more than Bush and his cabal. Perhaps I could have more clear that I was mainly criticizing the messager (Brock) than the overall message.
The implication that I have been soft on conservatives or blind to their sins does not bear scrutiny. As a random search of my posts on L and P will show, I have been dogged in my effort, for example, to enlist classical liberals in groups such as the left-dominated Historians Against the War and against Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights. I too regard the Bush administration as an enemy to both civil liberties and world peace but this doesn't mean that I have to give Brock a pass. As I explained above, however, it would be a strategic mistake for antiwar activists to do so.
I also think you are wrong about Carlson. Certainly, the man has his faults but he has come a long way from his days as a McCainiac and budding neo-con. Carlson is probably the only non-leftist today on major network t.v. who has dared to criticize the war. Moreover, I rather like his willingness to take controversial positions such as defending polygamy over the last month. I can't think of any talk show host today on CNN, Fox, etc. who would take that kind of contrarian view.
Tucker also deserves praise for challenging head on the view that promotion of democracy should be a goal of American foreign policy. He has pointed out that democratic governments are often just as impressive as authoritarian ones. Can you name any network commentator, left or right, who has taken that position? There is a reason why the wackos at Freerepublic hate Carlson!
I think you're being far too hard on Carlson and far too easy on Brock.
Steven Horwitz -
9/8/2006
Gus asked me to post this for him as he's had problems accessing the blog.
****
I listened to the video.
Tucker Carson did not humiliate Brock although he sure talked faster and louder and then kicked him off the air. I grant that Brock did not do a good job, but he is a writer, not a media star. VERY different set of skills. And Brock was far far more right on the facts of the matter than Carson who used plenty of distortions and misinformation of his own.
First, Carson switched the issue, a common right wing tactic. No one challenged the fact that Clinton could have done more. I have been following this issue pretty closely, and NO ONE I have read in Left blogosphere has made a complaint of that sort, as Carson intimated. Maybe someone did, but the major parties to the issue have been frying other fish conveniently left unmentioned by Carson. They challenged the many factual errors that put Democrats in a very bad but false light and the obviously partisan intent of the "docudrama."
Tucker Carson is either utterly ignorant and or dishonest. Beats me which. For example, I just heard him say they found WMDs in Iraq. What a pile of crap. Even Bush admitted that was not so. And not the only pile of crap, either. Even leading Republicans associated with these issues have said the “docudrama” is misleading. We are not talking artistic license here, we are talking lies.
Here’s an example:
Think Progress reports James Bamford, in a MSNBC interview discussing “The Path to 9/11.” revealed that an FBI agent working as a consultant quit halfway through production because he believed the writers and producers were “making things up.” http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/fbi-agent-quit/
In a letter by leading Democrats to ASBDC they summarize other problems with the “docudrama”:
“Richard Ben-Veniste, speaking for himself and fellow 9/11 Commissioners who recently viewed the program, said, ‘As we were watching, we were trying to think how they could have misinterpreted the 9/11 Commission’s findings the way that they had.” [“9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased,’ New York Times, September 6, 2006]
“Richard Clarke, the former counter-terrorism czar, and a national security advisor to ABC has described the program as “deeply flawed” and said of the program’s depiction of a Clinton official hanging up on an intelligence agent, “It’s 180 degrees from what happened.” [“9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased,” New York Times, September 6, 2006]” http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/senate-democratic-leadership-threatens.html
More lies:
One scene revives the myth that press reporting made it impossible to track Osama bin Laden, accusing the Washington Post of blowing the secret that American intelligence tracked his satellite phone calls. In reality, responsibility for that blunder -- contrary to "The Path to 9/11" -- rests with none other than the arch-conservative Washington Times. But in fact, Bin Laden had already stopped using electronic communication by the time the Times reported it. And David, what stronger threat to libertarian values than the attacks on freedom of the press as "unpatriotic" by Bush and his lackeys?
Atrios reports "The former National Security Council head of counterterrorism says President Clinton 'approved every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against bin Laden and al-Qaeda,' and the 9/11 report says the CIA had full authority from President Clinton to strike Bin Laden. Yet chief "Path to 9/11" scriptwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh, a friend of Rush Limbaugh, says the miniseries shows how President Clinton had 'frequent opportunities in the '90s to stop Bin Laden in his tracks -- but lacked the will to do so.'" http://www.atrios.blogspot.com at 10:39 pm, 9/6
If ABC was so honest and sincere why did they mail out advance copies to right wingers like Limbaugh but refuse to give them to any one else? Why didn't they interview democrats who were involved?
Why did they lie about the role of Pakistan and the US military and the missile attack on Bin Laden's base in Pakistan? Pakistan was informed of the missiles AFTER they were over Pakistani soil, and they were informed so Pakistan, nuclear armed as both she and India are, wouldn't think it was a secret India attack. Their account is beyond error and has nothing to do with dramatization. This is an utter lie.
Why did they lie in saying we had bin Laden in our sites and the chance to kill him was nixed by people in the Clinton administration. That is far different from saying, as Carson tried to make the case, that Clinton could have done more.
Why are they putting this $40 million campaign gift on the air just before an election when the fabrication initially claimed to be based on the 9-11 report - and ABC only backed off when challenged?
Why was there an internal ABC memo admitting the target was not the president who ignored a security report that bin Laden planned to attack, and stayed on vacation, but the previous president who, whatever his many faults, did prevent many attacks?
Why did they refuse to have Democratic members of the 9-11 commission as advisors - only Republicans? Especially given the current Republican leadership's record of lying over and over again and the fact that a very important election where they are looking bad is coming up immediately.
I could go on, but I would probably waste my time.
Historians of ideas in the future will long write about the utter blindness of the "classical liberal" scholars who were focused on motes in one set of eyes while ignoring the beams in others. There has never in our lifetimes been an attack on Constitutional government, the Bill of Rights, even the free market, on the scale of the current one – but because these goons use conservative anti-government rhetoric, far too many classical liberals assume the Democrats just have to be worse.
