DeeGeesLifeBlog ~ Life as Art ~ Or is it Heart?

FOX News post-Tucker something to behold

Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things. For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips. ~ Proverbs 8: 5-7

Richard Kirk, American Thinker, FOX News post-Tucker: So FOX News has decided to replace Tucker Carlson with Bill O’Reilly’s one-time man-on-the-street interviewer, Jesse Watters — someone whose gravitas rating hovers in the same abysmal neighborhood as the network’s late-night darling, Greg Gutfeld. What attracted folks like me to Tucker’s program was his unpredictability, his willingness to let guests talk, his repeated calls to spend time with family and loved ones, and his apparent devotion to a moral vision rooted in religious tradition — all of which informed his tagline opposition to “lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink.” The “group think” moniker wasn’t limited to the multitude of woke idiocies, but also extended to third-rail GOP topics, most conspicuously to opinions about the war in Ukraine. Republicans like Lindsey Graham who are welcomed on Hannity’s program frequently found themselves targets of Carlson’s anti-neocon open border criticism.

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DGH: There happen to be scores of us – erm, make that millions – who remember the three degenerates aka Megan Kelly; Bret Baier; and Chris Wallace, turning the far-too-early assumption of taking out candidate Trump in the very first debate would go down very well within their own quarters. Au contrare as a result, as Fox news died in that 2015 spotlight. Far too few didn’t realize it then, but that was the nasty beginning of all of this, the content of which Foxnews and We the (90 million+) American people didn’t realize then, but that was the beginning of the end. FOX News post-Tucker something to behold. THAT!

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Richard Kirk: A Mediaite analysis of prime-time ratings showed that FOX News lost a million viewers after Tucker’s firing, viewership going from an average of 2.6 million in the four weeks prior to Carlson’s departure to a 1.6 million average in the four subsequent weeks.  The hemorrhage in Tucker’s 8 P.M. Eastern time slot was even more dramatic, falling from 3.27 million to 1.49 million viewers — an outflow that continues to this day. I doubt the network’s brass expect to recover Tucker’s audience with Watters at the helm, a broadcaster whose comic persona and intellectual shallowness (he wasn’t sure Hawaii was the 50th state) detract significantly from the impact of his largely accurate but analogy-saturated critiques of leftist policies.  Indeed, one might argue that the Paul Ryan contingent on the network’s board have a death wish for FOX News as a Trump-friendly conservative voice.  What else can explain Greg Gutfeld’s ubiquitous presence as a regular host on The Five plus his own late-night show (soon to be at 10 P.M. Eastern and 7 P.M. on the West Coast)?

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DGH: In a somewhat convoluted kind of way, libertarians are like liberals. The fatal flaw is their initial fundamental assumption that everyone is decent, law abiding, and moral. Above all they deny the true nature of selfish humanity and replace it with a fantasy of cooperativeness that does not generally exist in the human species. Starting from this falsehood, they extrapolate that libertin-ism will somehow not become toxic exploitation, and that sin left unchecked, will not naturally magnify to depravity and corruption. Mmmmm…..

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Richard Kirk: Gutfeld and his assortment of handpicked outcasts do provide unique perspectives, but perspectives largely communicated through the host’s obsession with foul language, sexual deviancy, and scatology — all conjoined with an insult-spewing persona that makes Don Rickles look like Pat Boone. Granted, Gutfeld excels at monologues that skewer woke idiocies, but unlike Tucker, one senses a yawning spiritual void at the heart of his tirades, a void not filled by the intoxicants he touts with conspicuous fervor. In a recent Wall Street Journal piece about the “irreverent” “King of Late Night,” Gutfeld mused about taking over Carlson’s prime-time slot. Apparently, replacing Tucker with a crude libertine who displays no discernible connection to faith, family, or activities cherished by ordinary Americans proved a bridge too far for network suits in prime time — but not at 10 P.M. (or 7 in the west).

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DGH: But somehow the prudes were right (again), and this surrender of social structure has led to drag queens, naked bondage and “doggies” in street parades with children, gender confusion, and, you guessed it prudes – that darned exploitation of children sexually. Now who could have seen that coming? Surely Not the libertarians? FOX News post-Tucker something to behold. THAT!

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Richard Kirk: Certainly there’s no way Gutfeld’s most regular panel member, Kat Timpf, could have taken Tucker’s place, though for some reason FOX has allowed this intellectually vapid, morally challenged libertarian increasing time as a commentator, whose appearances culminated in a panel chair on Bret Baier’s program. Two on-point examples: Timpf ignores human, legal, financial, and social service disasters caused by an open border and instead regurgitates the unrealistic libertarian dogma that an open border would be fine were no welfare benefits available. Similarly, she decries Governor Ron DeSantis’s efforts to protect young schoolchildren from wildly inappropriate books with explicit sexual messages because such governmental action amounts to, in her mind, right-wing censorship. Of course, Timpf ignores the fact that absent such intervention, one leaves in place governing school boards and curricula that facilitate the corruption of minors.

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DGH: Libertarianism being an outlier is why most adherents are “little L” libertarians, willing to dilute the orthodoxy and accept reasonable external controls in the interest of a virtuous culture and societal order. The Left is especially troublesome in this respect, having a philosophy that pretends to the goodness of human nature (“from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”) attempting repeatedly to achieve their futile objective naturally, effortlessly — but always, in the end, forcing compliance through government power. THAT!

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Richard Kirk: The months-long promotion of Timpf’s gossipy, self-referential book (You Can’t Joke About That), paired with the network’s limiting promotional appearances for Judge Jeanine Pirro’s substantive volume (Crimes against America: The Left’s Takedown of Our Republic), provides more evidence that folks at FOX are working to eviscerate a once-conservative news outlet. The assortment of temporary hosts who filled Tucker’s time slot over the last few weeks were generally competent, but only Will Cain provided the kind of perspective and passionate delivery that rightly makes leftist heads explode, and only Joey Jones communicated the heartfelt compassion that Carlson also exuded.  If one could graft those two hosts together, FOX might have something that comes close to the Carlson standard, but then the globalist suits at the network would have to fire that broadcasting centaur as an unacceptable threat to the D.C. swamp.

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DGH: Tucker’s removal was required to solidify truth, facts and consensus among the MSM. He was the last journalist in the MSM willing to investigate things, and follow/report the story/facts wherever they went. At some point in the foreseeable future, April 21, 2023 will be remembered as the day that mainstream journalism died. FOX News post-Tucker something to behold. THAT!

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All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them. They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge. Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. ~ Proverbs 8: 8-10

• Richard Kirk, American Thinker: FOX News post-Tucker

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Soli Deo Gloria!

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