Carlson was a symptom; the disease is Murdoch
Michael Tomasky says never mind Carlson, get Murdoch.
As Tucker Carlson begins to slither out of the news cycle, here’s a reminder to keep our eyes on the prize. The prize—that is, the real enemy of standards and decency and integrity—is Rupert Murdoch. Carlson was a symptom. An unusually disgusting and purulent (great word, look it up!) symptom, but a symptom all the same. The disease is Murdoch.
He has been destroying journalism for 50 years. I’ll get into some of that below. But right now, let’s focus on something that’s happening in England, which I can assure you is something that Rupert is worried about—maybe even more worried than he is about Smartmatic.
He means Britain or the UK, not England. It’s about Harry v Choss and Harry v Murdoch and the fact that Harry is a real threat to Murdoch and his foul empire, which causes me to feel suddenly optimistic.
Harry is part of a large group suing Murdoch’s British media empire, News Group Newspapers, over the old phone-hacking scandal, which Harry and other litigants claim went on far longer than known and extended to the Murdoch property The Sun (so far, only The News of the World, shuttered after a massive settlement, has been implicated). In papers released Tuesday, Harry alleges that Queen Elizabeth II wanted to go after Murdoch’s media empire legally but that Charles called her off. This was allegedly because he wanted to stay on Rupe’s good side for the sake of Camilla—that is, so that Murdoch media outlets didn’t make any waves about her becoming queen.
The tiny things that sway important matters. Murdoch is a one-man pandemic, and Charles Windsor wants to protect him because of his, Charles Windsor’s, sex life.
The internal royal squabbling is an interesting curiosity. But what concerns us more over here is Harry’s crusade against Murdoch. Clive Irving explains in The Daily Beast: “Harry’s attack on the ‘grotesque and sadistic’ London tabloids is likely to bring more reputational harm. Murdoch’s lawyers know this. Harry’s refusal to settle out of court—as thousands of other hacking victims have done because they lack his kind of wealth to support protracted litigation—means that damning documents uncovered during discovery would suddenly be made public in court.”
Harry is out for blood. And unlike the thousands of regular-person victims of the phone-hacking scandal, such as the grieving parents of dead children, Harry has the money to go toe-to-toe with Murdoch in the courtroom. He doesn’t want to settle. He wants all the facts out there, and he wants Murdoch crushed.
Does he now.
I wish him all the luck in the world.
He’s got his flaws, but Harry does seem to be the least objectionable of the Windsors, for whatever that’s worth. Good luck to him in taking on Murdoch.
I will say that, for all his many obvious flaws, Tucker was willing to and did give airtime on one of the most-watched, news-related programs to voices getting shut out of CNN and MSNBC; feminists, anti-war activists, etc.
‘For all his/her/their/etc flaws…’ The phrase is clearly catching. Regarding TUCCA you may read on Andrew Sullivan’s ‘The Weekly Dish’ a serious (from his point of view, not mine) recommendation that TUCCA should stand for president on the Republican ticket. And as the Democratic candidate, he recommends John Kennedy on the basis of his anti-vaccination credentials.
Andrew Sullivan is a remarkably silly man.
That would be Robert Kennedy, Jr. The living John Kennedy is a super conservative Senator from the Louisiana. RKJr has announced, of course, but he’s not going to draw much attention in the primaries except from among the anti-vaxxers. What’s sad, is that he really was a champion for the environment in fighting against the practice of mountain top removal for coal mines, then he got fixated on vaccines.
Ah, thank you, Mike! Yes, the living John Kennedy is that ghastly old windbag who affects a folksy persona.