Russell Brand comments on the recent interview between Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin who, up to now, has not been interviewed by major Western media (that I know of) after he started his current war with Ukraine.
I watched the entire interview. Putin initially gives Tucker Carlson a long history lecture as a partial justification for Russia's current incursion. The interview then goes into more modern times as well as into other issues than just the Ukraine war, and Tucker manages to ask Putin about whether he'd release a certain young American journalist as a sign of "decency." Putin sounds annoyed at points when Tucker interrupts him, and Tucker also sounds annoyed on occasion. What struck me, though, was the diplomatic evasiveness of many of Putin's answers, and I'm glad we at least have that on record. Putin is a smooth one, for sure.
Meanwhile, the American left, especially its "journalistic" wing, went nuts upon learning that Tucker went to Russia. So Carlson has been called a "MAGA leader," a "Putin stooge," and someone who "carries water for Russia." That very same left is also engaged in Monday-morning quarterbacking: "He should've asked X or Y," "The questions were too softball in nature," etc. I actually agree that Tucker could have gone way harder than he did, but consider his situation: had he overstepped, it's doubtful we'd see any of his interview. Or worse: we might've seen a sanitized, edited-by-Russia version of it, and Carlson himself would have suddenly gone missing. (Putin doubtless has his own version of Arkancide.) More importantly, the leftists complaining about how Tucker handled the interview are hypocrites: they didn't have the courage to go over and ask their aggressive questions themselves—bravely risking their lives and freedom—and now they think they're in a position to judge what Tucker did? The nerve. The irony. The idiocy.
These pious, arrogant "journalists" should all be banging down Putin's door so as to scourge him with their oh-so-righteous questions. I'd love to see them try. Short of that, anything critical they have to say about Tucker Carlson is worth less than the shit on their shoes. Tucker's interview was far from satisfying, but it lends us some crucial, indirect insights into how Putin thinks and what Russia's position might really be.
ADDENDUM: I completely disagree with everything Putin said about China.
A pretty safe default these days is to take everything the mainstream press says and believe the opposite. I don't really give a flip about the interview itself, but the reaction to it has been telling.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that most Western journalists of every stripe have been trying to get an interview with Putin over the past couple of years.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that he chose to only speak with Carlson says all you need to know.
Brian
So when Carlson gets the interview, he's a traitor and a Putin shill, and these other fine people who have supposedly been clamoring to talk with Putin aren't? Interesting. I'd like to see evidence of the clamoring, and then I'd like to see the reasoning behind calling Carlson a Russian agent just because he got access while they didn't.
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