Tucker Carlson - Gay Basher

UPDATED

I wonder if Tucker Carlson realizes that he confessed on national television to committing a violent felony.

CARLSON: Let me -- let me put it this way. Whether he's gay or not actually is not our business, and I do think it's indefensible that the newspaper in Idaho spent a year interviewing 300 people to answer the question, Is he gay? That's none of your business. Having sex in a public men's room is outrageous. It's also really common. I've been bothered in men's rooms. I think people who do -

SCARBOROUGH: Really?

CARLSON: Yeah, I have. You know what, Let me just say.

SCARBOROUGH: Wait, hold on a second. Dan, hold on a second. I don't mean to take over, but have you been bothered in public restrooms, Dan? Because I know I haven't.

CARLSON: I have. I've been bothered in Georgetown Park. When I was in high school.

[...]

ABRAMS: Tucker, what did you do, by the way? What did you do when he did that? We got to know.

CARLSON: I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the -- you know, and grabbed him, and -- and --

ABRAMS: And did what?

CARLSON: Hit him against the stall with his head, actually!

[laughter]

CARLSON: And then the cops came and arrested him. But let me say that I'm the least anti-gay right-winger you'll ever meet --

[laughter]

This story is pathetic and horrible whether it is true or not. And whether it is true or not, it suggests some serious sexual insecurity on the part of Tucker Carlson. What kind of lunatic would beat somebody up merely for making a sexual advance? Isn't it better just to walk away... assuming you're not interested?

This is not the first time Tucker has given us reason to question whether he is entirely secure in his own manhood. He has admitted explicitly to feeling emasculated by Hillary Clinton. More than once.

Now, we learn that a sexual advance from a guy is enough to send Tucker into a near-homicidal fury. Trust me when I tell you that, unless the advance involves physical contact, a sexually confident man will just walk away.

I have never been propositioned in a men's room, but I did have a man say something that moments later I realized might have been a come on. I was sitting at a diner counter when this guy engaged me in conversation. I was eating and reading the newspaper. He asked me some stuff about my baseball cap and the weather and local politics. I answered his questions and went back to my food and newspaper. I just thought he was an awkward conversationalist.

After the guy paid, he got up to leave. As he was passing me, he leaned over and said, "I'd just like to tell you, you're a very handsome man." I didn't really know what to say to that, so I just muttered, "um... thanks." Then, the guy went on his way... and I let him.

I suppose the rough and tough Tucker Carlson would have chased the guy outside and beaten his head against the sidewalk, or thrown him back into the diner through the plate-glass window. Better still, he would have called his friend to come over so they could double-team the poor guy. Then, they would have called the police who, in Tucker's universe, would have arrested the beating victim without inquiring as to how he got that way.

Tell you what, Tucker. You stop telling lies about smashing gay guys' heads into bathroom walls, and I'll believe you're not gay. No, really. I believe it. You're not gay. Really.

UPDATE

Via AMERICAblog, we have the video of the segment.



And through a spokesperson, Carlson has responded by e-mail to Media Matters on the outrage over his gay-bashing anecdote.

UPDATE: Media Matters received the following statement from Tucker Carlson by email from an MSNBC spokeswoman:

Let me be clear about an incident I referred to on MSNBC last night: In the mid-1980s, while I was a high school student, a man physically grabbed me in a men's room in Washington, DC. I yelled, pulled away from him and ran out of the room. Twenty-five minutes later, a friend of mine and I returned to the men's room. The man was still there, presumably waiting to do to someone else what he had done to me. My friend and I seized the man and held him until a security guard arrived.

Several bloggers have characterized this is a sort of gay bashing. That's absurd, and an insult to anybody who has fought back against an unsolicited sexual attack. I wasn't angry with the man because he was gay. I was angry because he assaulted me.

Absurd?

Carlson claims to have been "bothered" in a public restroom, to have left the restroom and returned with a friend, and then to have smashed the head of the person who "bothered" him into a bathroom stall. Then, he claims that it is "absurd" to characterize the incident as gay bashing.

That is absurd. During the locker-room banter with Scarborough and Abrams, he did not describe the incident as a sexual attack. And, even if it had been, hitting the person would only be appropriate as self-defense in the heat of the moment. Leaving and then returning with some backup to stomp the guy is assault.

Of course, the story has changed in other ways, as well. In the first version, Carlson and his buddy beat up the guy in the bathroom and then called the cops, who arrested him. Now, they just held the guy until a "security guard" showed up and presumably took some unspecified action against Carlson's molester. What are we to believe?

I suspect that when Carlson was on the air with Scarborough and Abrams, he was just making up a story to make himself sound cool and tough and not gay. Then, he was surprised by the outrage over his having claimed on the air to having committed a violent felony. So now, in the retelling, the initial provocation was a sexual assault against him, and his response was measured and nonviolent.

Either way you look at it, Tucker Carlson is a liar.

But, he's not gay.