After 9/11 a Colorado professor named Ward Churchill was ritually sacrificed for saying that the “chickens came home to roost” and suggesting that people who worked in the World Trade Center were accomplices in the West’s capitalist crimes against the rest of the world. It was written as a cheap shot, although a serious critique, but the timing was very bad and in that environment it was deemed to be tantamount to treason by Republicans and tut-tutted by most Democrats as well.
Now look at this:
Imagine if Chris Hayes had Ward Churchill talking about the “Little Eichmans” who worked in the WTC on his show in the days after 9/11 and Al Qaeda was broadcasting it all over Al Jazeera. I think we can imagine the response from Tucker Carlson and his cohort, can’t we? Aaron Mate is a voice of the left, so he is consistent in his criticism of the US although excusing Vladimir Putin’s unilateral invasion and merciless bombing of civilian populations certainly isn’t consistent with any anti-war position I’m familiar with.
It’s always fair to criticize American policy and Tucker is free to spread whatever unmoored from reality conspiracy theories he likes as long as the platform he’s on allows it. But the shamelessness of this faux earnest “just asking questions” schtick that Carlson does is more than I can take.
Of course, Donald Trump commonly says the US is the stupidest nation on earth and his flag-wearing so-called cult of patriots cheers him like he’s Uncle Sam himself. So consistency isn’t their strong suit.