Scott Johnson Should Apologize to Tucker Carlson
Against Irresponsible Charges of Anti-Semitism
An insightful scholar wrote this about one of Shakespeare’s least-performed plays, Timon of Athens:
We have very little in the way of anything pleasant—there seems to be no delight in the play. The banquet, the masque, for all their brilliance, are somehow unpleasant. …No beautiful speeches charm us; the poetry is a scolding, harsh, vituperative poetry. Despite the outward glitter, the play reproduces the unpleasantness and harshness of the political itself.
Shakespeare as Political Thinker, 157, Leo Paul S. de Alvarez.
Now the best political philosophers, such as Aristotle or Manent, do make us aware of the possible realization of the highest human qualities amid the political, and a book like Daniel Mahoney’s on statesmanship fleshes-out a key aspect of this; but we can say that politics more typically brings out and concentrates human ugliness.
There are innumerable kinds of political ugliness, but one of the more dismaying is when you a see person rightfully celebrated for good political judgment, and by and large on your own side of the debates, treating another political figure on your side with patent unfairness. You might see them deploy patterns of rhetoric they used to good effect against various errant positions—and in those cases, the hyperbole and dramatic framing felt fair enough—but now in a way that casts someone you also respect into the darkness, highlighting their foibles or blind-spots in the manner of the Accuser.
Sometimes this can occur over minor policy differences or personal feuds, but often, it reflects a deepening of serious differences, and the recognition on both sides that what a political party or coalition might potentially split.
Consider, for example, the come-down any admirer of the Founders experiences when he reads about them beginning to tear one another apart in the early 1790s, as the divide between the Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians opened. All became guilty of some ugliness, but some behaved better than others, being fairer and more gentlemanlike in their criticism of former allies whom they now felt obliged to oppose. It is hard for Jefferson’s more naive admirers to admit to themselves his many failings on this score, and it is harder yet for wise patriots to wrap their minds around the fact that Madison, even Madison, went along with this, indeed, in a sense founded America’s first ruling political coalition on the very basis of not demanding from Jefferson serious adherence to principles of civility in these debates. (There are some lesser Federalist lights who behaved abominably also, but Hamilton himself comes out of any serious investigation of these matters quite a bit better than you might initially expect. For the best overall evaluation of the split, try this book by Carson Holloway.)
There are two things that should be said about Scott Johnson before I relate how he yesterday violated his duties to civility and the Golden-Rule, i.e., how he became Jefferson-like in the bad sort of way.
First, for two-and-a-half decades now, he’s been one of the leading writers for Powerline, probably the best conservative group-blog ever, one that established itself within a year of the “blogosphere’s” advent; and week-in and week-out, Scott has been judicious. He’s generally been right, folks! He’s racked-up a very strong batting average, in my judgment. Not something easy to pull-off for twenty-four years.
Second, like myself, he’s a music lover. He has probably two-hundred or so posts at Powerline under the title of “Sunday Morning Coming Down” on popular music, focusing on rootsy or folksy artists, often from a more Boomer perspective, but also with attention to masters of the American Songbook. What he does in these posts is to celebrate artistry, always with ample clips, and often with a report on a live performance. If he has a post that collects links to these, (such as what I once did with 3/4 of my Carl’s Rock Songbook) I’ll gladly link to it here in an update. Meantime, try this one on the Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen.
It’d be nice to talk instead about music with Johnson, but yesterday he attacked Tucker Carlson for this video:
What’s wrong in that? You don’t see it? Well, for Johnson, it represented not simply a failure to get the tone right, a failure to accept without nit-picking Nikki Haley’s strong denunciation in which she called for Israel to “finish” Hamas, but also as evidence for his broader theory that Carlson has been going off-the-rails since liberated from Fox News. Here, from his “Tucker’s Tailspin” post, is Johnson:
Tucker’s comments constitute little more than an exercise in minimizing the genocidal massacre that Israel has sustained. He asserts that if it’s moral outrage you’re looking for, we can easily find it right here at home...
No, Carlson didn’t say it that way, and it is disgusting to suggest that he was “minimizing” Hamas’ massacre-attack. But Johnson is not done:
What is going on here? It strikes me as something very dark. Tucker’s tailspin puts me in mind of Charles Lindbergh’s descent before the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor. I can’t help but think back to the “Anti-Semitism for Ye, but not for me” episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News.
The general charge is clear: Carlson’s descent is in part, one into anti-Semitism.
(BTW, contrary to Johnson’s suggestion, there’s no evidence that damns Carlson in that Ye-interview link if you bother to follow it.)
Johnson is Jewish, and has long been a powerful voice for U.S. support of Israel, and so of course, one commenter, “RCReader,” replied with this:
Johnson is correct that "something very dark" is going on. That is the re-emergence of the neocons with their attacks on anyone who even slightly questions their views as anti-Semitic or anti-American. Tucker's remarks were reasonable; it's fine to criticize them if you disagree…but Johnson and his crowd are simply engaging in a version of left-wing cancel culture...
A fair response, though I should add that while I am among those conservatives ready to embrace the tag “populist-conservative,” one oddity about my stance is that I reject Tucker-ite and Trumpist talk about the obvious wrongness of the second Iraq war, or of the decisions made by Bush and Obama (and Trump) to extend operations in Afghanistan. “Forever wars” seems to me a phrase that has migrated from understandable rhetoric with a good point, into hardened dogma.
For I hold, among other heretical views, that George W. Bush made the right decision when he backed the “surge” plan, and that how we judge his bigger decision to invade in the first place depends on our theory of why U.S. intelligence fell for Saddam’s nuclear bluff—was that a sincere failure, or a devious Bush-ordered “finding”? Clearly, the occupation was revealed to be a strategic mistake overall, but to judge Bush fairly requires sober consideration of the decision situation he was in, and an irony of this week is that we probably have to admit that the tinderbox of the ME would be even more prone to an inferno were Baathist Iraq still in the mix of major players, and Hamas would have launched a successful massacre attack sooner. That’s contrafactual history, with all the unknowns that come with it, but face it, the situation facing Israel today is better than it would have been apart from the error of W. in invading and occupying Iraq. I was quite for it too, at the time, and in some part due to Johnson’s influence. One important piece which led to my reconsideration, was the 2006 essay by Daniel Mahoney, “Conservativism, Democracy, and Foreign Policy.”
Now most of those classified as neocons were unable to rationally deal with the rise of Trump, and most also failed to provide a balanced assessment of our options when Russia invaded Ukraine. I’m with Carlson in thinking our opposition to peace-talks was a grave error—Ukraine is now losing despite tons of aide, and apart from losing a generation of its finest men, will have to concede much that it might not have had to had the U.S. pushed early-on for talks; moreover, the West is merely lucky that China has become too unreliable and insular under Xi Jinping to forge a truly strong alliance with Russia in response to our proxy-war behavior.
My differences with the neocons mentioned, I am unlike “RCReader” in that I think it entirely natural that this Hamas attack gives them more prominence, and causes people to listen to them more. Populist-conservatives need to admit that the neocons often keep up with more of the p’s and q’s of foreign policy than they do, and that on some topics, they are worth heeding. Is Victor Davis Hanson to be classified as a neocon? He does appear to be laying down some excellent long-form tweets about the current situation. Should we close our ears to him on this? On the domestic front, we might similarly notice that Frontpage magazine is something we need to pay more attention to now, as they bring forward extensive documentation of the anti-Israel hatred permitted to blossom at American campuses.
While those few conservatives who stood plainly against the Iraq invasion have some license to crow, for most conservatives and moderates, it is too-convenient denial, including a refusal to recall that most Americans were for it, to categorize the second Iraq war as a total disaster, and, as totally the fault of the neocons.
So it should not be surprising that I am with Johnson on most of his judgments of Israel’s security needs, and of its longstanding moral claims against the appalling behavior and bad faith negotiations of most Palestinian leaders and Arab nations, even before we look at those of the Nazi-fied Islamists called Hamas. And I am similarly inclined to err on the side of skepticism regarding the many claims made over the years about a unified Jewish lobby’s iron hold over our ME foreign policy.
Still, I agree with RCReader: Johnson is playing an anti-Semitism card here, and nearly as odiously as leftists play their various race-cards.
Indeed, I was harsher yet. Here’s most of the comment I left at Powerline:
Y'all are already confirmed supservatives, and now are veering towards a stand openly against populist-conservativism, and worse, into a mode of slandering.
Quick question which should shine some light: does PL agree with the UK Tories or not that Anthony Bridgen deserved ejection from that party due to alleged Anti-Semitism? The answer to that by the PL writers, which I now fear would be in the affirmative, would tell us all we need to know.
My own hot take [here] on Hamas' attack was unequivocal: Nazis ruling a slave state. I condemn the Harvard student orgs and called today on the Crimson site for their members to be placed on blacklists. I don't see any reason to think that Tucker would disagree with my kind of harsh stance against Hamas.
What is wrong in what Tucker and Vivek say? With the questions they ask? If your friend was so repelled by the first 5 minutes, which featured criticism of Haley, Graham, and Crenshaw, and of US support for continuation of Ukraine war, then his judgment is poor. Sure, you make a fair point in your "unreliable narrator" charge, but Tucker did use the phrase "effectively calling for war with Iran." (20:00) I.e., the dispute here is normal back-and-forth disagreement about what politicians like Haley mean when they resort to moralistic yet vague speech.
And what possible excuse is there for the last paragraph here? It does suggest--notice the words "something very dark" & "Lindbergh" that Tucker is flirting with anti-Semitism. It is so beneath everything Scott Johnson has ever stood for, and he must apologize for it if he is to regain the trust of serious conservatives.
I stand by my demand of an apology from Johnson to Carlson. The suggestion that Carlson is a anti-Semite is even more ridiculous and repellant than ol’ Jefferson’s insinuations that Hamilton was a Monarchist. Johnson should swallow his pride, and do what’s right. He has some legitimate criticisms of Carlson’s views, and especially, of his half-punditry/half-just-an-innocent-interviewer mode of delivering them, but he should admit that he stepped over the line in this case.
I will also note that I mixed my rising ire about Powerline’s willing participation in our regime’s Suppression of news and discussion about the Covid-19 vax-harms into my denunciation of Johnson’s cheap attack. I continue to repeat, like a broken record, that the “supservative” game and stance grows more perilous to the republic, and to the future unity of the conservative coalition, by the day.
Thus, a deployment by supservatives of RINO-esque talking-points against those populist-conservatives who call them out, suggesting that they are kooks, perhaps for daring to talk about topics like unsettled JFK-assassination stuff, 2020 election fraud, the Las Vegas massacre, an upswing of UFO reports from within the government, etc., and worse, trying to use “you’re an Alex-Jones!” associations/charges against perfectly reasonable hesitations about moralistic foreign policy statements by the likes of Haley, or against perfectly legitimate demands for investigation/discussion of widespread Covid-19 vax-harm claims, has toxic potential. If Disaster-aware populist-conservatives like myself can expect continued behind-the-scenes slandering, and even open charges of anti-Semitism, then all bets are off. GOP big-wigs had better understand that what the Sunak-led Tories dared to do to Anthony Bridgen, using preposterous charges of Anti-Semitism to kick him out of the party and shut-down his demand for public vax-harm discussions, will not be tolerated here. That is, a GOP that followed Johnson’s example yesterday would commit suicide.
That’s why I’m being harsh, and demanding repentance. While Johnson’s thinking about his response, I invite him to view this recent John Campbell video, which connects to the shameful treatment of Bridgen.
Yep, he let his thumos get the better of him. It is true that he's been anti-Tucker for a while, so this predisposed him to mishear what was actually said. Frankly, Powerline is less helpful than it was back in the day. Steve Hayward tends to stay in his lane(s) and avoid saying silly things. Not so for Scott and John.