The hullabaloo over Tucker’s trip to Moscow to interview Putin gets even more unhinged
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February 8, 2024
What are they so afraid of?
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Democrats and their European Union allies are starting to top themselves in hysteria as they howl about Tucker Carlson going to Moscow to interview Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
Most of us would find such an interview interesting, actually, given that Putin is not unknown to us and is reputedly very, very, smart and calculating. He’s launched into the war on Ukraine, there’s a news blackout, most of us cannot go to Russia now and most Russians cannot come here now, there’s longtime historic backdrop worth exploring, and it would be interesting to hear Putin speak for himself as he remains very popular in Russia.
Putin’s also a longtime observer of the U.S., and a lot of us would like to know what he thinks about us, how he compares Presidents Trump and Biden, and who he thinks is really running the country. What does he know about corruption in Ukraine, how does he see the war ending, what aim does he want to achieve that will get him to stop the war. Such information, along with the body language, the state of his appearance and health, and the way the interview is handled, could actually yield useful information to U.S. inteligence and its policymakers, even if the interview itself is largely flattering and friendly, which knowing Carlson, might not be.
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But that’s not how Democrats and their Eurotrash allies see this stuff. They’re obviously scared to death of what Putin might say along with the possibility that Americans might just have a more positive view of him. They want him to be the devil, and we already know he’s not the devil, he’s a Russia-firster, but that amounts to a topic worthy of knowledge.
Here is how nutty it’s gotten:
According to BigNewsNetwork, citing RT News,
Former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, now a member of the European Parliament, has already called for Carlson to be banned from the bloc.
“As Putin is a war criminal and the EU sanctions all who assist him in that effort, it seems logical that the External Action Service examine his case as well,” Verhofstadt told Newsweek. The EAS is responsible for the bloc’s foreign policy and can recommend sanctions, which need to be approved by the European Council.
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Verhofstadt is best known for having served as the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, and for championing the idea of the bloc becoming an “empire.” He is not a lone voice in demanding a ban on Carlson, however.
The journalist “is no longer a newsman, but a propagandist for the most heinous regime on European soil,” former Spanish MEP Luis Garicano told Newsweek. The London School of Economics alumnus now teaches at two US universities.
“Carlson wants to give a platform to someone accused of crimes of genocide – this is wrong,” Estonian MEP Urmas Paet told the outlet, falsely characterizing the International Criminal Court (ICC) claims against the Russian president. Moscow has rejected the case as politically motivated.
“So, for such propaganda for a criminal regime, you can end up on the list of sanctions. This concerns primarily a travel ban to EU countries,” added Paet, the former foreign minister of the Baltic state.
Yes, I know it’s a Russian state outlet, but who else is reporting this? And what kind of an idiot is this? What Carlson is doing is journalism, not treason. Anything that increases our body of knowledge is a good thing, not a bad thing. But this clown prefers to decide for us what we are to be allowed to hear, making Putin look like the reasonable one here.
The European Union has since backtracked since word of this buffoonery got out, but the damage is done.
Over on our side of the pond, the hysteria is just as telling.
According to Newsweek:
Tucker Carlson risks “bogus” prosecution under the Espionage Act for interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin, one legal expert warns.
Carlson, a former Fox News host who remains popular among conservatives, is set to interview Putin, he confirmed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday. He said that he is interviewing Russia’s leader because most Americans “are not informed” about what is happening there and that it’s his “duty to inform people.”
…
Carlson is taking a risk by interviewing Putin, lawyer Ian Corzine said in a video posted to X on Wednesday, with his analysis drawing some pushback. He said that while interviewing Putin may be legal, there may be “some big problems ahead” for Carlson, pointing to the “super broad” language of the Espionage Act, which prohibits Americans from spying on behalf of foreign countries.
Corzine warned that the language of the law “could be construed to prohibit any sharing of information with another country with intent to harm the U.S.”
Carlson sharing questions with Putin’s team before the interview, or Putin’s team providing the American with evidence supporting the war with Ukraine, could be covered by the Espionage Act, Corzine said. But he explained why the case for prosecution would still be weak.
Since when is doing a journalistic interview “treason”? Tucker goes there, he asks the Russian head of state some questions, the head of states answers, and the rest of us watching can decide for ourselves. That’s journalism and lots of journalists have done it. CBS’s Andrea Mitchell even urged President Trump to meet with President Putin a few years back, and practically stamped her feet in fury when he didn’t.
More to the point, where was the outrage when other unusual people went to interview highly elusive targets? Did they howl like this when Oliver Stone went to Caracas to interview Hugo Chavez, in his now-telling documentary called “South of the Border”? Did they scream like this when actor Sean Penn went to interview Chapo Guzman? How about all the journos who interviewed Osama bin Laden, whose 9/11 attack on the U.S. wasn’t his first terrorist rodeo? He’d been doing bad stuff for years before the big one in New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Did my late friend, the journalist Nate Thayer, who spent 20 years in the Cambodian jungle in search of Pol Pot for an interview, and finally succeeded in 1997, do something prosecutable or sanctionable, or treasonous?
Not in the least. Nate was praised for his courage and grit. because he wanted very much to find out who this mass murderer was and what he was like — so that history could record it. He wanted that bastard hiding out in the jungle on the record.
As for Oliver Stone, let’s discuss that documentary “South of the Border.” That documentary, which I saw several times, gave the most amazing insight into the sheer crumminess of South America’s early-aughts socialist wave of dictators and dictator-wannabes. Stone interviewed Chavez in all his leering clown malevolent glory, along with all his pals in the region, each done in a kind flattering tone, and each coming out in the worst way. You could feel the sneakiness of the president of Paraguay. You could feel the greed and Imelda-like avarice and cheap wokester feminism of Argentina’s president and his wife sidekick. You felt like you were in the presence of a thief when the president of Bolivia was interviewed. And when the president of Ecuador was interviewed, you felt like you were in the presence of a total crook and criminal.
That is valuable and Stone did the world a service by getting those interviews. The true personalities of the dictators and dictator-wannabes came through, whether they meant it or not. Policymakers could make better decisions through this video and as for the rest of us, we could make up our own minds about whether these creatures were just idealistic communists, or something sleazier.
Now Tucker has stepped up to the plate, exercising his First Amendment rights and practicing true journalism by interviewing a public figure of immense consequence. The garbage coming out from the left is just amazing. Is it jealousy? Is it a fear that Putin will expose the swamp money dynamic of funding the Ukraine war?
What are they afraid of? Maybe we ought to see this interview to find out.
Image: Twitter screen shot
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