Tucker and Suckers

Bowing to pressure from his far-right flank, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy turned over forty thousand hours of January 6 security tapes to Fox's Tucker Carlson, one of the very few media personalities to have been an employee at all three cable news channels.  Carlson wanted to prove that January 6 was a peaceful demonstration with a few bad apples that got all of the attention from the media, who in turn blew the January 6 riot out of proportion and claimed it was an "insurrection" rather than the peaceful protest that Carlson says it was.  

The footage showed that indeed, there were peaceful moments during the break-in of the protestors who tried to stop the certification of Joe Biden's win of the 2020 presidential election - demonstrators quietly milling about, police officers showing deference to the QAnon shaman character, and the like.  But, just as Michael Lindsay-Hogg and Peter Jackson proved with the film footage of the Beatles' Get Back sessions, you can construct two entirely different narratives from the same reality.  And the January 6 narrative Carlson presented was so obviously flawed, marshaling evidence selectively and out of context while glossing over the more unpleasant parts.  One clip apparently showed the late Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick walking through the Capitol Rotunda and apparently looking "healthy and vigorous" after having been attacked, which would suggested, as Carlson claimed, that Sicknick's death "was not the result of violence he suffered" at the Capitol. In fact, no one can tell if it the police officer in the video is Sicknick or not, and even if it is Sicknick after he's just been attacked, the effects of the attack may not have been immediate. Even victims of serious head injuries have a "lucid interval" before the effects of the injury manifest themselves. 

Needless to say, numerous members of Congress are furious at Carlson's claims that January 6 was no big deal, and many of them are Republicans.  Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said that Carlson depicted the riot "in a way completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol" described, referring to Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger, while North Carolina Republican senator Thom Tillis called the Fox preseation BS.  Tillis was especially emphatic on Carlson's mischaracterization of the riot as a tourist outing.

What's more, in addition to the fact that Rupert Murdoch more or less agrees with folks like McConnell and Tillis, we now know, thanks to the ongoing court case from Dominion Voting Systems against Fox for defamation, that Carlson himself was sick and tired of having to lie for Donald Trump, adding that he hated him with a passion.

Don't expect any mea culpas from Fox "News," as most of their viewers wouldn't believe it anyway.  The truth is, Carlson will continue to keep lying to help Fox "News" remain America's most-watched news channel!

No evidence showing that January 6 was indeed an insurrection is going to sway Fox "News" viewers, just as no lack of evidence of an ancient Nephite civilization in the Americas can sway Mormons that their sacred book is a true historical record.  The Mormons are entitled to their religious beliefs, though, because unlike empirically verified events, religious beliefs rely on faith alone.