A mere border dispute

Fox & Putin & Carlson:

Hours before Putin ordered his forces into Ukraine, Fox News’ biggest star was still praising the Russian president.

Putin’s bellicose threats towards Ukraine and assembling of up to 190,000 troops on the country’s border, was, Carlson said, a mere “border dispute”. Carlson, who played into Kremlin talking points by declaring that Ukraine was “not a democracy”, launched an apparent attempt to humanize Putin.

“Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia?” Carlson said as he then recited a rightwing tip sheet of pet causes.

Putin has never called me a racist either, nor has he called me a terf or a bigot or a CIA agent. Despite that heartwarming generosity and forbearance, I still think Putin’s an evil man and that his invasion of Ukraine is an evil act.

Carlson went on:

“Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity?”

That’s a very far-fetched kind of whataboutery. It’s possible to come up with a long list of bad things Putin isn’t doing, just as one could come up with such a long list for anyone else, but it doesn’t follow that Putin isn’t doing bad things that aren’t on the list. No one can do all the bad things at once.

By the end of the week Carlson’s colorful defense of Putin was being played on Russia 1 and the Kremlin-backed RT television network.

He’s the Lord Haw-Haw de nos jours.

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