Jack & Jill Politics

In the aftermath of the David Vitter scandal, in which the Louisiana Senator was revealed to be on the list of customers for the infamous “DC Madam,” Tucker Carlson was all righteous indignation. Despite Craig’s record of attempting to legislate other people’s sex lives, the media had no right to be delving into his. In defending Vitter, Tucker even compared seeing a prostitute to “double parking”, and claimed the media was “ruining” Vitter’s life by publicizing the news that he was on the DC Madam’s list of customers. (Press is radio host Bill Press) From the July 14th Tucker:

CARLSON: You know what`s even more ridiculous, it`s not really the Democrats who are doing it; it`s the press. It`s us. It`s the media. After humiliating David Vitter, putting his wife`s picture on television, as many of us have, which is almost indefensible in my opinion, because she did not do anything — the guys has four kids. We have helped destroy his life. We publicized this thing he did.

Now we in the press are attacking him for not showing his face in public.

PRESS: Wait a minute, this guy lied for years about this, OK.

CARLSON: Lied about going to hookers. Is he supposed to tell the truth? What are you talking about?

PRESS: He lied about going to a hooker. By the way, may I point something out? This is against the law. This is a felony. The question is not is he going to resign, the real question is; is he ever going to be charged with breaking the law. By the way, prostitution is against the law even in New Orleans and even in Washington, D.C.

CARLSON: It`s against the law in the sense that double parking is against the law.

PRESS: Tucker, you ask the vice squad about that. They`re a little more serious.

CARLSON: In New Orleans?

PRESS: I think it ought to be legal.

CARLSON: Have you ever been to a restaurant in New Orleans? One out of three women is for sale. I mean, come on–

Well, I’ve been to New Orleans. But I guess I’ve never been to one of those “restaurants” Tucker normally goes to.

Tucker’s tirade against the media for delving into Vitter’s “private life” continued for days. From the July 17th Tucker:

DICK ARMEY, FREEDOMWORKS.ORG: If there is a question of whether or not he has broken the law, there is a due process. My guess is, from what I understand, there would be statute of limitations issues as well in this case. The thing is, you have to understand that David Vitter is in a difficult situation because a very large part of his voting constituency, those people who voted for him enthusiastically in the past, are evangelical Christians who have very little tolerance for this sort of thing.

And then a very large part of the opposition is the militant Democrat party that opposes him. They are going to seize on the opportunity to vilify him. My guess is, if you check the voting record of the editors that wrote the editorial that are so dang sanctimonious about this, they are one, very aggressive liberals, and two, the same editors that a few years ago were making all kind of excuses about why we ought to stay out of the private business of President Clinton.

CARLSON: Yes, and I bet they got some pretty far out bedroom habits. I mean, look, they are in the press. Alexandra, you have been in the press your whole life. You tell me, as you sit and watch people in the press wag their fingers at David Vitter and say, you hypocrite, you sinner, how disgusting; can you believe it? Can you believe the gall of journalists mocking another person`s sex life, of all groups, journalist, famously creepy in the sack? It`s pretty overwhelming, don`t you think?

Can you believe the gall of journalists “mocking” other people’s sex lives?

Last week Tucker misread a statement from Michelle Obama to suggest that she and her husband were “not sleeping in the same bed.” After the Obama campaign called to take issue with his statement, he suggested that the Obamas should come on his show and discuss their sex life.

On the September 6 edition of MSNBC’s Tucker, host Tucker Carlson quoted Michelle Obama, wife of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), from a recent interview with Glamour as saying of her husband and children: “We have this ritual in the morning. They come in my bed, and Dad isn’t there — because he’s too snore-y and stinky, they don’t want to ever get into bed with him.” Glamour left out a key word from Michelle Obama’s quote; she had said, “They come in my bed, and if Dad isn’t there …” — the addition of “if” turning her remark into a conditional statement that her children come into bed “if Dad isn’t there.” But Carlson went beyond Glamour’s original error, asserting, based solely on the inaccurate quote, that “the Obamas do not sleep in the same bed, Mrs. Obama is saying.” Later in the program, Carlson reported that he “just received a call from the Obama campaign taking issue” with his claim that Michelle Obama said “the Obamas do not sleep in the same bed.” Carlson claimed to “know nothing about the Obama’s bedroom habits beyond what Michelle Obama has told the rest of us,” and reread the excerpt from the interview adding: “I don’t know anything she hasn’t told me. So if there’s more they want to tell us about their bedroom habits, this is the show to tell us on.”

Tucker, who described the media covering the possibility that a Senator who campaigned on his willingness to legislate the sex lives of others was frequenting prostitutes as “galling,” “creepy,” and “overwhelming” suddenly lost his sense of outrage when it was time to speculate about the sex life of a Democratic presidential candidate, despite having to invent a reason to do so.

I won’t speculate on the reasons for Tucker’s odd desire to fabricate marital problems among the Obamas, but if he’s going to tell journalists how to cover politics he might want to at least follow his own advice.

Transcripts via Lexis-Nexis.