Did Tucker Carlson just admit on television that he and a friend jumped a gay guy for propositioning him? Yeah, it seems like he did.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
I'd like to see some confirmation and more details on that story. Somehow I can't see Tucker Carlson being able to beat anyone up. But maybe the guy was a 70 year old blind amputee.
I too wonder about the veracity of the story. Jon Stewart gave him a nice pummelling as I recall (still one of the finest moments on TV). In any event, now Tucker will have to look over his shoulder any time he's near Dupont Circle.
According to Media Matters -- hours before you published this -- Carlson issued a statement reiterating that he was physically attacked -- not propositioned -- by a man when he was in a restroom, and this happened when he was in high school.
Where's your concern for victims of sexual assault?
When Carlson initially told the story, he didn't say "physically attacked", he said "bothered", and he said it in the context of discussing the solicitation of sex in a bathroom, not sexual assault. At which point he got another guy (thus explaining how he could assault, well, anyone), and beat up the botherer.
Saying he was "physically attacked" is revisionism.
I think this bit of the transcript is more honest than his post-crucifixion spin-doctoring:
CARLSON: Hit him against the stall with his head, actually!
[laughter]
CARLSON: And then the cops came and arrested him. But let me say that I'm the least anti-gay right-winger you'll ever meet --
[laughter]
But let me say that I'm the least anti-gay right-winger you'll ever meet
In order to boast, shouldn't that be the most pro-gay right winger?
Look, I don't really mean to snarkastically blame the victim here (yes, I do), but Tucker Carlson just recently stopped wearing his cute little trademark bow tie. Back when his men's room encounter happened, he probably had a gay proposition coming to him. Just saying.
Not to pimp a "web log," but all pertinent links are here (as well as funny pictures):
http://mbouffant.blogspot.com/2007/08/bow-tie-justice.html
If Tucker is being honest about what happened then I see two problems. One, he was a minor and assaulted and sexually propositioned in a public rest room. It struck me, after watching the clip, that Hannity and the other guy were laughing at him for being propositioned in the first place. Though maybe that is a misperception on my part. Two, He and a friend beat the guy up in retaliation. That is of course wrong but I doubt that Tucker will suffer much for it. Most people are not going to have much sympathy for the pederast who approached Tucker in the first place.
I would bet that Carlson was being more honest in the first version he told, to Joe Scarborough (not Hannity).
He got hammered for it online, so he sent a note to Media Matters claiming he was assaulted, not "bothered," and that he and his friend held the guy down (I imagine it was like Gomer Pyle screaming "Citizen's arrest!") and waited for help to arrive, instead of smashing the guy's head against the wall.
I still think Tucker's full of it on this one. I hope The Smoking Gun is looking for the arrest report as we type.
Of course the guy may have been another card-dropping GOP legislator so the report was never made.
One detail in Tucker's revision that seems odd is his "25 minutes later" line. I could see "half an hour" or "went back a while later" but "25 minutes later" sounds like a load of hooey. Was he taking notes back then? Did he consult his diary in between story versions?
I'm guessing he can't run from this story fast enough.
Regardless of what actually happened, Carlson originally played the story for laughs. Boasting about beating people up is not cool, and he deserves all the flack he's gotten.
As far as his revised story, if that's really what happened, of course it's wrong for anyone to sexually assault someone. That's not the story Tucker chose to tell, though, and he can't retroactively invoke a new version to shield against his decision to play physical violence for laughs.
Isn't someone going to explain how this post shows that Megan is materialistic, stupid, and full of hate?
The pathological American obsession with "manliness" is the source of male gay bashing (figurative and literal). Imagine a woman describing a similar story with an all female cast. Public opinion would condemn her as crazy and dangerous. But a "real man" is congratulated for beating up gay men.
Tucker is playing to the wink-nudge male audience that responds to Republican gay-baiting, and this is an ugly thing to behold.
Imagine a woman describing a similar story with an all female cast.
The really pathetic thing is, Hannity's response would surely have been "That's so hot, Ann! Did you go for it? You should have gone for it! You're not bi-curious? Just a little? I'm gonna be thinking about that one for days!"
I think the story is fake. It sounds far too much like the kind of thing somebody like Carlson would just make up on the spur of the moment, before suddenly realizing, oh shit, they're going to ask me for details. There's just something really weird about the idea that a guy in a restroom would actually do anything construable as "assaulting" him; if that happened, it's a truly strange exception to the normal way a pickup would go.
"I think the story is fake. It sounds far too much like the kind of thing somebody like Carlson would just make up on the spur of the moment, before suddenly realizing, oh shit, they're going to ask me for details."
The more I think about it there's no way this story holds up. If it gets supported I'd be amazed. Tucker's the kind of guy who hasn't had a genuinely "tough" moment in his life, and I think he made one up on the spur of the moment.
I hope he gets "outed" over this tall tale.
I'm with Moe. Tucker Carlson made up an unbelievable lie that only highlights his general wimpiness. If he's ever thrown a punch in his life it was directed at his tear-stained pillow.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think machismo or "manliness" are prerequisites for being a "real man" (whatever that means), but I'm a little sick of the Republican need to prove an earthy toughness they haven't earned: Dubya in the flight suit costume, Fred Thompson and the rented red truck (in fact Thompson's entire pseudo-campaign), Rudy Giuliani's lying about how he was at Ground Zero "as often, if not more" than rescue workers, Mitt's indignant fit over not being considered a real hunter, etc. Were I a Republican, I would be offended by the fact the candidates who want to represent my party in the 2008 election think the way to win the primary is to stuff their shirts with tissue and say, "Check out these guns!"
I don't believe Carlson made the story up. I think he forgot which audience he was pandering to. I have had gay friends who were beat up (in fact, I got beat up for being with a gay friend). The s.o.b.s who did it dined out on the story for months. Dined out--well, they got free beer in a bar... What Tucker claims to have been done is widely accepted and acceptable behaviour, at least in the missing front teeth crowd, a category to which I am happy to assign this idiot.
Since I'm not a guy and I don't hang out in men's bathrooms, I have to ask: is there a lot of random propositioning going on? I would think gay dudes would be smart enough to only sidle up to guys who are putting out some come-hither signals. Maybe Tucker was really giving off a strong twink vibe.
But what do I know. I still don't get the whole tap-the-foot-through-the-stall tactic.
"In order to boast, shouldn't that be the most pro-gay right winger? "-Posted by Neal Murray
C'mon, give the guy a break. Even right-wing gays aren't pro-gay.
Since I'm not a guy and I don't hang out in men's bathrooms, I have to ask: is there a lot of random propositioning going on?
"Hang out" would be an exaggeration, but I've used them when the need arose, and never noticed any such thing.
(Uh-oh. That guy's pulling the paper towel with his right hand, but he pushed the soap button with his left. I'm not sure what that means, but I'd better slug him just in case.)
Since I'm not a guy and I don't hang out in men's bathrooms, I have to ask: is there a lot of random propositioning going on?
According to various sources linked in the more salacious reports of Craig's arrest, certain bathrooms are 'cruisy'--airports, truck stops, etc, meaning high nonlocal traffic bathrooms.
That's what's really damned Craig here: The fact that so many recognized immediately that what he'd done was cruising etiquette. The possibility that his innocent movements perfectly matched a cruisy bathroom's negotiation protocol is vanishingly small.
Tucker Carlson, man's man.