Tucker Carlson Demolishes Sick Rumor About Kicking a Dog: 'This Is Absurd'
To paraphrase an old saying, the world consists of liars, damned liars and liberal authors.
Thankfully, Tucker Carlson has set the record straight by refuting as “absurd” a recent claim that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida once might have kicked one of the Carlson family dogs.
On Wednesday, New York Magazine printed a lengthy excerpt from author Michael Wolff’s new book, “The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty.”
According to Wolff, DeSantis and his wife Casey visited the Carlsons’ Florida home in the spring of 2023.
By then, DeSantis had become Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch’s choice for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Murdoch hoped that DeSantis could make inroads with former President Donald Trump’s MAGA voters by impressing Carlson, a MAGA favorite.
Wolff claimed that the DeSantis-Carlson meeting did not go well.
“The Carlsons are dog people with four spaniels, the progeny of other spaniels they have had before, who sleep in their bed. DeSantis pushed the dog under the table. Had he kicked the dog? Susie Carlson’s judgment was clear: She did not ever want to be anywhere near anybody like that ever again. Her husband agreed. DeSantis, in Carlson’s view, was a “fascist.” Forget Ron DeSantis,” Wolff wrote.
LOL. Breaking … Ron DeSantis may not like dogs. According to writer Michael Wolfe (irony), he pushed and may have kicked Tucker Carlson’s dog. 👢🐕🦺 pic.twitter.com/1EvnIuWTpf
— mcbc 🇺🇸🗽 (@mcbc) September 20, 2023
Yes, a liberal author implied that DeSantis abuses dogs.
Carlson quickly refuted Wolff’s assertion.
“This is absurd,” Carlson wrote in a text to Business Insider. “He never touched my dog, obviously.”
Of course, liberal publications desperately wanted at least part of the story to be true.
For instance, Bess Levin of Vanity Fair noted that Carlson did not deny thinking DeSantis a fascist. This “suggests that Wolff got that detail exactly right,” Levin implausibly speculated.
Alas, liberals’ promiscuous application of that epithet has deprived the word “fascist” of all relevance.
Meanwhile, Wolff once again might have some explaining to do, for he is no stranger to controversy. In fact, the journalist has a history of appearing to invent key details in some of his books.
In 2018, for instance, Business Insider identified 11 disputed claims from Wolff’s “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.”
If Wolff invented the DeSantis dog-kicking story, he would not be the first liberal author to have fabricated evidence.
In 2002, Columbia University’s Trustees took an extraordinary step when they rescinded the prestigious Bancroft Prize they had awarded to historian Michael Bellesiles of Emory University.
Bellesiles had come under fire for his anti-Second Amendment book, “Arming America: The National Gun Culture.”
A panel of scholars found “evidence of falsification” along with “serious failures of and carelessness in the gathering and presentation of archival records and the use of quantitative analysis.”
The trustees’ decision caused quite a stir in historical circles two decades ago.
Sadly, I recall that among my then-fellow graduate students — nearly all liberals — the news left one of two impressions.
Most expressed disdain for Bellesiles because, in their judgment, he had hurt the cause of disarming America. A few, however, had no problem with Bellesiles, because they believed ends justify means.
No one denounced the lies as lies, only as they related to the ideological objective.
If Wolff has evidence to corroborate his tale about DeSantis, then the author should produce it, if he has not done so already.
If not, then hopefully the new book’s publisher will take appropriate steps.
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