OPINION:
This time, it’s Tucker Carlson.
Once again, Fox News has been set in the crosshairs of angry left-leaning activists who still haven’t grasped the concept that freedom of speech runs both ways — both liberal and conservative — and who are now, currently, as we speak, drooling up boycotts of the media giant.
Sigh.
Didn’t we just go through this with Laura Ingraham and Ingraham-hating leftist activist David Hogg? Yes, yes we did. And it didn’t end well for young David and his crowd.
In fact: It ended as anything but well for young David and his crowd.
Both times around — first in March, then again, in June; first when he felt insulted by Ingraham who joked about his college application process, then again, a few months later, when he felt insulted by the television hostess’s characterization of migrant children.
Yet there Ingraham still sits, advertisers and all, atop Fox’s list of most-watched media personalities.
Now it’s Tucker’s turn to be spun ’round the boycott wheel.
Hollywood’s Judd Apatow promoted an advertiser boycott of Carlson’s highly rated show because the host remarked during a recent on-air segment about immigrants, certain ones, anyway, bringing about a “poorer and dirtier” United States.
The left seized on the phrase as a means of painting Carlson a racist hater. But taken in context, Carlson’s remarks were actually pretty tame.
His full statement went like this: “Our leaders demand that you shut up and accept this,” Carlson said. “We have a moral obligation to admit the world’s poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided. Immigration is a form of atonement.”
But doesn’t opening border doors to people who want simply to take advantage of America’s generous entitlement package strip citizens of their hard-earned money — which, in turn, sucks money from the government coffers — which, in turn, leads this country down a hand-out path of eventual poverty? That’s why President Donald Trump recommended crackdowns on the ability of newbie immigrants to tap into taxpayer benefits.
That’s why the Center for Immigration Studies just put out a warning via a report about immigrants staying far too long on the public dole — even into the next generation.
That’s why sane border reform advocates want to be more selective about which migrants are allowed into this country versus which aren’t — and in the end, bring in more with shiny job futures, career aspirations and the necessary skills to bolster, not drain, America’s resources.
Pshaw, says the left.
Boycott Carlson — he’s a racist, says the left.
And a few advertisers have indeed left his show, according to various media reports.
But Fox News, so far, is sticking strong.
“It is a shame that left wing advocacy groups, under the guise of being supposed ’media watchdogs,’ weaponize social media against companies in an effort to stifle free speech,” Fox said in a statement reported by Deadline. “We continue to stand by and work with our advertisers through these unfortunate and unnecessary distractions.”
Unfortunate and unnecessary distractions — there’s an understatement. Partisan hatchet job — there’s the bigger truth.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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