“Your Backhanded Support of Tucker Carlson Is Despicable”

“Your backhanded support of Tucker Carlson is despicable,” reader Eric scolds us, adding:

He was welcomed by Victor Orban autocrar [sic]. He routinely appeared on Russian TV, as a propaganda move, to show Russia there are cracks in our failing democracy.

And worst of all, Carlson’s “questioning” was routinely directed to American institutions that are the basis of our very democracy. He was critical of our very democracy, and you are likely supporters of his same lies.

May you have satisfaction in your critiques that are based on lies and conspiracy theories. I’m done.

We thank Eric for his parting benediction. We do in fact take mighty satisfaction in our critiques that are based on lies and conspiracy theories.

It is in our very nature. And to this fiendish nature we are chained.

We must — however — correct Eric on one salient point. Our support of Tucker Carlson is not “backhanded,” as Eric states.

A Necessary Correction

Our support for Tucker Carlson is fronthanded, full-throated, unshaded, unmitigated.

That is because Mr. Carlson puts out questions that official sources find discomfiting and scandalous.

These are questions — in our estimation — that rate square answers. And in our estimation these answers have not been forthcoming.

That is why we are with Tucker Carlson. That is why we are against his exiling.

Yet we regret the loss of Eric’s readership. Each reader’s defection represents a sort of death, and a failure of our editorial helmsmanship.

We may be a vicious hellcat. But the milk of human kindness yet trickles through our veins — despite all the angels and saints.

And we wish to depart on fond terms.

And so in the spacious spirit of magnanimity we pledge to dispatch Eric an autographed copy of our upcoming biography of Mr. Carlson:

Tucker Carlson: American Savior.

We hope Eric accepts our gift in the gracious spirit in which it is intended.

Tucker Carlson, Devil

Yesterday’s reckoning drew a flooding mail. And we thank you for your input.

We lack the space to document them all here, yet be assured we have seen each and every one of them.

They were — incidentally — 99.9% loudly and robustly in support of Mr. Carlson. Eric was one of few exceptions.

And again, we thank you for piping up.

To many, Tucker Carlson is a devil. And a devil attracts far more passion than an angel.

Who is the target of greater zeal — a Mother Teresa — or a Vladimir Putin?

In brief, the hate for devils vastly exceeds a love for angels. A devil may be a “lightning rod,” such as Tucker Carlson.

An angel is not.

Angels do not get the blood up. Angels do not bubble the hormones. Angels do not furl the fingers into fists.

But devils?

Devils do get the blood up. Devils do bubble the hormones. Devils do furl the fingers into fists.

Is it perhaps because most men fear evil more than they trust in good?

Men Fear Evil More Than They Trust in Good

A man prays to God. He hopes against all hope that God will answer the phone and… take his request.

He begs God to answer. Yet he may inwardly fear He will not.

The same man contemplates the devil. Yet he dare not invoke this devil or to summon it in any way. He harbors a fantastic fear of the thing.

He secretly fears the Dark One is but one phone call away, that it will answer on the first ring, that it will be at his front door the instant he hangs up.

That is, God is aloof. God will keep you dangling on the line perhaps for eternity while the devil is merely one ring away.

The devil is there for the asking.

Thus he fears that evil forms a far more active and immediate presence in this world than good does.

Good Plays Defense, Evil Plays Offense

He fears that good is… benign. That good is passive. That good is meek. Who is it — precisely — that shall inherit the Earth?

He fears that good plays defense while evil plays offense. He fears that evil forever presses the assault.

Perhaps this explains the phenomenon. Men simply fear evil more than they trust in good. And so those who believe a Tucker Carlson is a devil fear him to their depths.

Him being evil, they believe in his power. Themselves being “good,” they do not believe in their own. That is why they are so hot to scotch him.

It is merely a theory of course. It may lack all anchoring in the psychological sciences. We really do not know.

It’s the Individual That Matters

Of course, we stand with Tucker Carlson because he gives every indication of a powerful individuality.

As we said of him yesterday:

This Carlson fellow refused to march in step. He refused to become a member of the regiment. He went absent without official leave…

This we respect of any man — regardless of his political or ideological colorings. They are not relevant.

From our perch, we observe that the great bulk of men seek the peace and contentment of herd living — of life in a crowd.

And perhaps, even, their choice is the proper choice. The individually oriented man may sentence himself to a cold loneliness absent the company of his fellows.

The crowd offers safety. Meaning. Solidarity. Companionship.

The individually oriented man must — at times — go upon his own hook, peg along under his own steam, weave his own safety net, face cruel fate alone.

We therefore have no heat against the man who prefers communal life.

We enjoy happiness ourself. And safety. And security.

And — despite all contrary evidence — we enjoy companionship.

The Eagle

We nonetheless confess a vast respect for the man who never wanders into a crowd, for the man who does not flock.

For we prefer humanity in batches of one. That is why, perhaps, why we have lifted our sword from the scabbard… and leapt to Tucker Carlson’s defense.

He has manifested the individualistic attributes of the eagle — the free and noble eagle.

As we have maintained before: We prefer the solitary eagle to the flocking birds, to the birds that crowd.

For the eagle does not flock. You find him one by one.

That is, the eagle takes the individual view. In our experience, that view is often the higher view, the superior view.

Not always — yet often enough.

The free individual is the eagle high aloft, wheeling and wheeling on motionless wings. On steady wings. On confident wings.

He is free to starve, it is true. But he is also free to soar.

And the man in a crowd?

As the bird in a flock… he is free only to follow…