I have a theory about Tucker Carlson. He’s always been a snotty, preppy right-winger but he wasn’t always evil. In fact, he used to have liberal friends such as Rachel Maddow. That began to change about a decade ago and accelerated when he took Bill-O’s evening slot on Fox News. Some blame Trump, I blame the necktie. That’s right, the necktie.
Carlson used to be known for his cheerful bowties and preppy button-down shirts. He’s moved on to regular shirts and neckties. He’s still fond of stripes only on his neck, not on his torso. Did I just contemplate the Mothertucker’s torso? Apologies for crossing that line.
Nobody wants to contemplate Tucker’s torso except to comment on his pocket square, which seems to be the same in the necktie era. He looked happier during the bowtie era. In the necktie era, he’s angry as if he’s ready to take his tie off and lynch somebody. Strike that. Tucker Carlson fights with his mouth.
Do I buy my own Tucker Carlson fashion theory? Hell to the no but it was fun writing it. Sometimes bloggers just wanna have fun.
In addition to anger, Necktie Tucker specializes in lies: the bigger the better. In his 2018 book, Ship Of Fools, the Mothertucker told an easily refuted lie about his first grade teacher of all people:
He attended the elite La Jolla Country Day School, where a woman entered his life whom he grew to detest. It was his first-grade teacher, whom he referred to in his book as Mrs. Raymond. He caricatured her as “a parody of earth-mother liberalism” who “wore long Indian-print skirts. . . . She had little interest in conventional academic topics, like reading and penmanship.” He recalled her sobbing theatrically at her desk, saying, “The world is so unfair! You don’t know that yet. But you’ll find out!”
Carlson said he just wanted liberals to “stop blubbering and teach us to read. . . . Mrs. Raymond never did teach us; my father had to hire a tutor to get me through phonics.” Thus, Carlson says, he began his sojourn as a conservative thinker, questioning the liberals who he said were all around him, exemplified by his first-grade teacher.
Which is all rather shocking to Marianna Raymond, 77, who remembers Carlson as “very precious and very, very polite and sweet,” and said she had no idea, until contacted recently by a Washington Post reporter, that her former student had ridiculed her as a key to understanding him.
Raymond said in an interview that she never sobbed at her desk, didn’t wear an Indian skirt and didn’t advocate her political views. She said that not only did she teach Carlson reading at La Jolla Country Day School — with a student body that was “very affluent and White” — but that she also was then hired to tutor him at his home.
“Oh my God,” she said, when informed of Carlson’s attack against her. “That is the most embellished, crazy thing I ever heard.”
Embellished and crazy. That fits Necktie Tucker like a tailor-made shirt with French cuffs. I wonder if he has the Swanson Frozen Food logo on any of his cufflinks. Bowtie Tucker had a sense of humor, so it’s possible…
I don’t know about you, but I had no idea what the political views of any of my grade school teachers were. I remember them as nice ladies who taught me how to read, write, and multiply. The only criticism I have of any of them is of my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Fredrick. I think it was third-grade and that she was a one-E Fredrick but I’m not sure of either.
She taught us cursive writing and gave out pens to the kids whose handwriting was neat. I was the last in my class to get a pen. If I were Necktie Tucker, I’d blame my cynicism and snarkiness on this incident and cursive the day it happened.
In reality, she was right: my handwriting has always been terrible. One of my law professors told me that my penmanship was so bad I should have gone to medical school. I hate the sight of blood so that was never an option.
Back to Tacky Tucker. Lying about the Dipshit Insurrection and Dr. Fauci is bad enough but who the hell lies about their first-grade teacher? As far as I know, Bowtie Tucker never did but Necktie Tucker is a lying sack of shit. He should return to the bowtie before it’s too late.
The last word goes to Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention:
I’d bet a shiny nickel that Tuckums thought his first grade teacher was safely in the grave so he could slander her without risk of being gainsaid. It reminded me immediately of a former member of Congress from Oregon, Wes Cooley (R-Naturally), who turned out to have some discrepancies in his military service biography. Cooley maintained that he had earned every last citation he claimed, but that perhaps the records from the Korean War era had gotten lost or misplaced. Or that his work for the military was of such a high level and super secret classification that it wasn’t in the publicly available record. Or something.
Anyway, Cooley claimed that his old C.O. Sgt Poppy would know about his record and could back him up. But wouldn’t you just know it, Cooley didn’t know where Poppy was or what had ever happened to him. Well, an enterprising reporter went spelunking, and it turned out that Sgt. Poppy was still alive, living in Arizona, and actually did remember young Wes Cooley. Ooops. Turns out Sgt. Poppy’s memory was a lot more detailed than Cooley’s, and that pretty much spelled the end of Cooley’s political career. I’d bet a shiny nickel that Cooley didn’t think Sgt. Poppy was still alive, much less still with it enough to remember Cooley.
These days, a Trumpista would simply claim that the sergeant was anti fascist.
A lot of veterans’ service records from that era were destroyed in a fire in an Army records facility some time around 1962, including my father’s. So it might be that Cooley thought he could get away with it because of that. But he shouldna lied anyway, and I’m glad he paid a political price. So few politicians do anymore.
Well, he got caught 25 years ago, and Republicans hadn’t quite totally lost their sense of shame.