Greta Van Susteren takes Tucker Carlson to the woodshed

"A mother does the same, c. 1897," Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.

"The public shaming of Tucker Carlson. Cybervillage disapprobation of 'elders' like @gretawire [Greta Van Susteren's twitter handle] shape moral behavior," we twittered as the smoke began to settle this morning in the aftermath of a fiery flame war that had erupted in the blogosphere and twitterspere in response to "Mike Tyson: Sarah Palin met ‘the wombshifter,’" a gratuitously coarse Jeff Poor journalistic effort published by Carlson's The Daily Caller Friday evening. At issue were Tyson's foul-mouthed comments spun off from spurious allegations made by author Joe McGinnis in his hit piece, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, to the effect that a young Sarah Palin had had a one-night stand with basketball star Glen Rice back when she was a sports announcer on Anchorage TV station KTUU. Greta takes no prisoners:

I really don’t understand my friend Tucker Carlson. He owns the website The Daily Caller and it currently has on its front page the most vile story — referring to a sex act with Governor Sarah Palin as a “womb shifter.” It is even the headline. Do you know what that means? Figure it out. It is really vile. It is not just smut … this is violence against women.

Tucker should have used  judgment, a sense of decency and not promoted this denigration — a good journalist, a responsible journalist uses judgment. Tucker did not …

I don’t like it when I see that my friends do disgraceful things — but we need to start calling out even our friends to stop this. Tucker has daughters and a wife, and I would think he in particular would not want to be a purveyer of smut (and this is actually more, this is violence against women) and allow this to be posted on his website …

I keep asking myself, why would Tucker allow this to be posted on his website?  I am suspicous his website is not doing well and this is one quick last breath to create buzz to keep it afloat.

Ouch, squared. Moral education in the venerable Judeo-Christian principles that guided our Founding Fathers in fashioning the Shining City may have fallen out of favor amongst the establishment elites of our nation's mainstream institutions, but we old-fashioned Country Class types are firing at will, disintermediating the powers that be through the new media. As Jedediah Bila, herself a writer for Carlson's publication, twittered this afternoon:

I stand with gretawire. As a freelance opinion contributor to The Daily Caller, I'm very disappointed re editorial judgment.

And to her fellow Daily Caller writer Matt Lewis Jedediah affirmed:

I have publicly praised The DC many times for giving me the freedom to speak my mind in my columns & not censoring me.

I call it like I see it. If I go to bed at night knowing I stood up for what I think is right, I consider it a good day's work.

And a final word from Tammy Bruce, who salutes the man in the trenches who fired the first shot over Tucker Carlson's bow* early Saturday morning:

In Palin Report I mistakenly credit the excellent Gateway Pundit for 1st calling out DC. It was in fact the magnificent Dan Riehl.

Update: Twitter friend and filmmaker extraordinaire Ladd Ehlinger goes for the jugular. Don't get on his wrong side!

Update II: DaTechGuyblog links:

Tucker Carlson vs Dan Riehl? No contest.

Update III: Instalanche! Thank you, Professor Reynolds.

Update IV: Dan Riehl,  Stacy McCain and Nice Deb link.

Update V: Love this from Cybrludite in the comments:

*Should that have been "a shot fired over his bow... tie"?

Comments

[S. Weasel]

I checked Alexa. Daily Caller is doing fine traffic wise. Given this is the third strike, I think we can call it systemic anti-Palinism.

[D]

This is not a one time thing. It goes to the character and the consistent policy of Tucker Carlson and his bitch Jeff Poor. Carlson himself has publicly called Palin a vulgar name, and refused to apologize for it. And this last incident is one of many, many times in which the Carlson-Poor team reacted with delight when someone publicly makes a vulgar remark about Palin; they add their own megaphone and milk it for all it's worth.

That's why it's important not to accept any pro-forma non-apology apology and let the matter slide. The Daily Caller is going down; we should accelerate its demise and not provide it any hits or links (and maybe convince Virginia Thomas to actually take a look at the site, after which, I'm sure, she would stop contributing.)

[D]

My evaluation of Tucker Carlson remains the same, as does my recommendation that those who think to hasten the demise of his site by not visiting or linking. But I made a factual error above. After Carlson made a vulgar remark about Palin, he first tried to shrug it off by offering a "funny" non-apology apology, but then - after further protest - he offered an actual apology.

And then after that, Carlson and his bitch Jeff Poor have exhibited malicious glee in re-broadcasting & turning up the volume on many vulgar attacks on Palin. Which proves that the 2nd apology recited the right words, but was not sincere.

[Laura Lee Donoho]

I have hardly ever clicked over to the Daily Caller and when I have in the past I thought they had something against Michelle Bachmann because there was always some kind of negative spin against her, even before the gardasil debate, and now, this absurdity against Sarah Palin.

Despicable.

What is wrong with these so-called men?

You would think they were playing for the other team or something.

[Sauce for the Gander]

Tucker has daughters? Are they teh hawt? Anyone have pics that they could post? Maybe someone could p-shop them into 'interesting' poses?

Tucker wouldn't mind, he's ok with this sort of thing.

(Or maybe he needs to give serious thought about unintended consequences.)

[Jim Treacher]

A quote is not an endorsement.

[Laura Lee Donoho]

Say it ten times and maybe it will be believed but I doubt it.

[D]

I'm glad you got a job, Treacher (because you're pretty funny), but you could have made money without working for the likes of Tucker Carlson. I shall now scour the Internet and all other media and public records for any vile statements about Treacher's family, and re-broadcast them 100-fold for ad dollars, and when Treacher objects, I'll lamely say:

"A quote is not an endorsement."

Must be humiliating, Treacher, to feel you have to spout statements like that, which you personally believe to be crap.

[Jim Treacher]

How could I possibly believe something you don't? My motives must be base and nefarious.

[Jim Treacher]

"Say it ten times and maybe it will be believed but I doubt it."

Do we endorse the stupid stuff Bill Maher says when we report on him? Chris Matthews? Keith Olbermann? Why is it different this time?

[Jim Treacher]

If you scoured the Internet and found vile things said about my family, I would blame the people who said those things, not you for exposing them. But I'm sure you don't believe me, because of course I am a bad person who is a misogynist and so forth.

[D]

Treacher, the argument is not with you. You're an employee defending his boss, and all indications are you're defending him in good faith. And when you learn you're wrong, both practical and moral considerations will prevent you from stating it publicly, until some time after you have a new job or other source of income.

But you are wrong.

Tucker Carlson had a supercilious, character-revealing reaction to the protest after he joined the idiot club and and made a vulgar remark about Palin. He thereafter recited the words of apology, and after that your truly worthless co-worker Jeff Poor (care to tell us the important stories he's broken, Treacher?), under the direction of Carlson, re-broadcast and amplified every vile smear against Palin for ad dollars, with zero analysis or commentary; zero value added. It's hard to believe your brain is incapable of accessing what's going on here.

You're lying in the example about your family, BTW. If I amplified vulgar smears about your family, you would not feel kindly about me, just because they ultimately derived from some other source.

[Laura Lee Donoho]

Treacher, on facebook you called those of us who have defended Palin from the Carlson/Tyson attacks "cultists". It seems to me you are going all out for your boss.

[Cybrludite]

Should that have been "a shot fired over his bow... tie"?

[D]

Treacher is good at the epigram and at name-calling; at arguing, not so much.

[Jim Treacher]

"You're wrong because you're wrong." Well, no, YOU'RE wrong. Hey, this is easy!

[Jim Treacher]

If you're not one of the people I'm talking about, Laura, then why would you assume I'm talking about you? This whole thing has been made up of people just looking for something to be outraged about.

[Jim Treacher]

"Treacher is good at the epigram and at name-calling; at arguing, not so much."

Whereas "You're lying because you disagree with me" is some solid debating, D.

[harkin]

I think Treacher's point is that the more you respond to his curiously empty statements, the less attention is on the DC's hate campaign against Palin.

[Former SSG]

I don't get it - Mike T and the radio boys were gross, crass and stupid. I would have been in the dark about what was said if not for Carlson. How is he wrong? I read the article, concluded (using my own brain) that DC disapproved, and was angry at the speakers, not the messenger. Without the details, I couldn't use the info to show my dem friends what jerks are out there slamming my candidate (hopefully)!

[harkin]

Hey Former SSG, which specific sentence in the DC article led you to conclude that they (the DC) disapproved of what Tyson said (feel free to use any brain available)? And was it before or after the editors quickly added on a note trying to backpedal their intentions?

I think the funniest thing about the editor's note is the line where they claim even the NYTimes wouldn't publish this garbage - do they even know what they say??????

Anyone else notice that the DC establishment repubs and the lefties are in perfect lockstep in the few comments defending the article?