Fox News is a Putin Asset, Plain and Simple

Yet again last night, the most popular host on Fox News was joined by his favorite military “expert,” Douglas Macgregor, as the two men continued not only to insist that Russia has effectively already won the war in which it is increasingly obvious to everyone else that Putin’s military has been decimated and humiliated by a tiny foe, but more importantly ramped up their incessant echoing of official Kremlin talking points about how the real cause of this war is somehow the U.S. government, which has “refused to negotiate” with Russia (over Putin’s desire to annex an independent neighbor?), and has (so the Russian talking point goes) been threatening Russia with talk of initiating a limited nuclear war.

So it must be said, just for the record: Fox News, through its continuing refusal to stop Tucker Carlson’s overtly anti-American, pro-Putin propagandizing is now officially, intentionally, unmistakably an agent of the Russian state media. When are the Trump cultists and other “conservatives” going to come to grips with what they are swallowing, and who is feeding it to them? It’s a rhetorical question, obviously — partly because we all know the answer, and partly because none of the people in question will ever read this.

“Oh, so you want censorship?” the cultists and “conservatives” would object here, if they were reading.

No, I want a profiteering corporate broadcaster pretending to be an American news network to assume editorial responsibility for the positions taken on its own expensively produced primetime programs, by its most famous and highly remunerated employees. That is not censorship. It is an honorable act of taking responsibility for one’s own microphones and the content being fed through them to the world. If Tucker Carlson suddenly started spouting communist propaganda, reciting passages from the Communist Manifesto on air, and repeatedly hosting and fawning over guests who tell lies about the virtues of socialism, the evils of the free market, and the need for total state control of the means of production, would you be praising Fox for continuing to promote and fund that show? 

And when you have gotten your mind around that question, consider this one: Then why are you defending and admiring Tucker and his band of anti-Americans now, as they pimp the latest Russian dictator’s pro-Soviet propaganda and aggression in Europe? 

And the Tucker effect may be felt everywhere, far beyond Fox and its moron viewers. I recently watched a bit of the much-ballyhooed Rob Schneider interview with Glenn Beck, in which the unfunny comic, who made his tiny mark with one overdone schtick on Saturday Night Live ages ago, explained his disdain for leftwing Hollywood. The whole thing went off the rails when Schneider started spouting these same pro-Putin talking points, literally asking (as Carlson has done since months before the invasion) why the U.S. is supporting Ukraine, when in fact “we” have so much more in common with Russia — and Beck, who for the sake of his money and audience numbers caved in to the cult in 2016, just sat there nodding like an idiot. 

“Heyyyy, it’s Rob the Putinator! The propaganda-pusher man! Doin’ the To-Russia-With-Love thing! Roooooob!”