All This Has Happened Before

By now you've all probably read about, or at least heard about, NPR's Steve Inskeep's epic sanewashing of Tucker "Mothertucker" Carlson's deservedly monstrous reputation.  

From Raw Story:

NPR faces wave of pushback for helping MAGA star 'rebrand': 'Stop sane-washing fascists'

NPR's Steve Inskeep faced thunderous criticism for interviewing a seemingly contrite Tucker Carlson, who's been trying to distance himself from President Donald Trump.

However, critics were not interested in hearing Carlson attempt to rehabilitate his image.

"Apology not accepted," declared attorney Bradley P. Moss...

"Earlier this year, Tucker Carlson said that 'the defining fact of our lives is that whites around the world are being eliminated,'" reminded Media Matters' Matthew Gertz. "Journos who don’t watch his show are helping his effort to rebrand so he isn’t a liability for his protege JD Vance’s 2028 run."...

"The long awaited antiwar left-right coalition is gonna happen this time I can feel it," groaned author Eoin Higgins, posting a photo of Charlie Brown charging toward a football...

"NPR is the latest to rush in & give white supremacist Tucker Carlson a mainstream media boost, helping to normalize him as he floats creating a third party and running for president," observed podcaster Brittany Page. "I listened to the whole thing. Not one single question about his constant promotion of racist conspiracy theories."...

And the most striking thing about the tone of the critics is what it wasn't.  It wasn't shock.  It wasn't confusion or bafflement.  It was a kind of battle-weary "Here we fucking go again" cynicism inflected disgust that of course the legacy media is going to jump on any opportunity to rehabilitate the reputation of any conservative blackguard who dangles a faintly contrition-scented scrap of sucker-bait in the water.

For the sake of fairness, don'tcha know.  And balance.  And feeding the tote-bag Centrist the narcotic they crave.    

And the reason for the collective eye-roll from us independent outsiders is that we've seen this kabuki before.  Over and over  and over again.  

One of the earliest Trump-era examples was the media's determination to mistake Glenn Beck's tactical disagreement with Donald Trump for a moral awakening.  They rushed to embrace the then-newly "repentant" Glenn Beck during that brief interlude when he was cosplaying as a Never Trumper -- a blindingly obvious con about which I a wrote a great deal back in the day.

For example, in this here post -- Glenn Beck: Canary in the Never Trump Mineshaft -- which you are free to read or not as you please. The gist is that in 2016 he got the full treatment -- the door jamb wiping, triple foam wax and the aromatherapy air fresheners -- from everyone from The New York Times to NPR because he and Trump, swear to God, were never ever getting back together.

Until Trump won.  And then...

From The Washington Examiner:

Glenn Beck dons MAGA hat: I will 'gladly' vote for Trump in 2020

Conservative firebrand Glenn Beck appeared to have a change of heart about President Trump on Friday, vowing to vote for him in the 2020 presidential election.

“I will vote for him in 2020! Gladly!” Beck said on his radio show. The longtime NeverTrump pundit donned Trump’s signature red “Make America Great Again” hat. Beck pointed to the media's negative coverage of Trump for spurring his decision.

Beck directed a message to the president: “I will tell you — the things that you have done as the president are remarkable! Remarkable!”..

And from the heart of Beck's own dying media empire:

Glenn Beck: Here’s the real reason the left is coming unhinged, ‘You are winning’

The same thing happened with Bill Barr. The minute Barr decided to cash in by pretending that his objections to Trump's January 6th conduct somehow erased four years of service as Trump's chief legal enabler, the prestige press was there with a warm towel and a mint on the pillow.

And the same Steve Inskeep jumped right on the Bill Barr Reputation Rehab bandwagon back in 2022 when Barr was making the rounds, pimping his shitty book, "Fuck You All, I Got Away With It" "One Damn Thing After Another."

About which I also wrote a thing at the time.

 

No Fair Remembering Stuff