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The last time we encountered a political analogy this sexualized was, I believe, after the initial burst of Fredmania last year, when the left discerned a decidedly gay tinge to conservatives' hero-worship of a big, drawlin', southern hunk such as he. (Presumably, McCain's victory proves in hindsight that we're straight.) Tucker turns the tables here, but is the analogy fair? Go have a look at the new cover of Time magazine. All that's missing is a milkshake with two straws in it and the headline, "You have beautiful eyes."

"Thrill up my leg"? Forget about it. Chris Matthews's famous description of the excitement he gets from Barack is nothing compared to the tumescent terms in which MSNBC senior campaign correspondent Tucker Carlson has depicted the intensity of the MSM's love affair with Obama. Tucker appeared on today's Morning Joe. TUCKER CARLSON: It's gonna be such a great election; it has been so far. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Especially when you have the media loving one candidate as much as they love Barack Obama. CARLSON: But it's more than love. I mean, it's the kind of love that anyone who's been a...

Were they commenting on the same speech? Rev. Jeremiah Wright goes before the Detroit NAACP, claims that black and white children learn with different parts of their brain, and offers a simpering, unflattering imitation of the way white pastors speak. CNN's Soledad O'Brien gushes that the speech was a "home run" and "really funny." But over at Morning Joe, Wright's words prompted a panel member to call the reverend a "mediocrity" and a "buffoon." View video here.

After me, the deluge" (après moi, le déluge) -- popularly attributed to Louis XV Look for Chris Matthews to start calling her "Louie." The Hardball host was as roiled as Robespierre today at Hillary Clinton's threat to take the Dem party down in a convention credentials fight over the seating of the Florida and Michigan delegates. In the course of an interview with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News yesterday, Clinton made clear her intention to take things to a floor fight if necessary, and went so far as to pre-emptively undermine Barack Obama's legitimacy as a candidate if he...

We can't let Tucker Carlson's show, which I've enjoyed, pass into history as it did last night without a mention here. MSNBC has said that Tucker will remain at the network as an at-large commentator, and I have a feeling that, liberated from show-host concerns, he might become even more uninhibited in the expression of his quirkily conservative/libertarian views. So let's usher Tucker out by focusing on one of our favorite nemeses, Rosa Brooks, the liberal LA Times columnist who appeared on the show's final episode last night. The unreconstructed Obama apologist offered the lamest excuse yet for his failure...

Even Tucker Carlson, MSNBC's uninhibited house libertarian, was a bit taken aback. But good Dem Bill Press has had the, um, gumption to say what others may have thought about Hillary Clinton: that she has "balls of brass." View video here

Tucker Carlson Out at MSNBC NEW YORK (AP) — The bow tie is out at MNSBC. David Gregory is replacing Tucker Carlson as host of a one-hour show each evening. The news network is making a handful of changes to respond to heavy political interest. Gregory's new show is called "Race for the White House" and will be on each weekday at 6 p.m. starting next Monday. Carlson has been at MSNBC for nearly three years. MSNBC also says that Andrea Mitchell will anchor an hour each afternoon. Keith Olbermann's popular "Countdown" program will rerun every night at 10.

NEW YORK (AP) - The bow tie is out at MNSBC. David Gregory is replacing Tucker Carlson as host of a one-hour show each evening. The news network is making a handful of changes to respond to heavy political interest. Gregory's new show is called "Race for the White" and will be on each weekday at 6 p.m. starting next Monday. Carlson has been at MSNBC for nearly three years.

Insiders tell TVNewser Tucker Carlson's 6pmET show Tucker is getting the axe, but Carlson stays on as a political contributor to all MSNBC shows at least through the 2008 election. The official announcement, expected tomorrow, will include details about who will replace Tucker at 6pmET as well as other political programming additions. Sources say the network is going to beef up its schedule with more NBC News talent. In recent days, Jossip, as well as other blogs, ratcheted up the talk that Tucker would be replaced "for a new project." In its 33-month run, Carlson's show has had two names,...

The most interesting part of the controversy over Obama advisor Samantha Power's referring to Hillary Clinton as a "monster" -- one might say the only interesting part -- is that immediately after Power said it, she tried to proclaim that it was "off the record." Here was Power's exact quote: She is a monster, too –- that is off the record –- she is stooping to anything. But the reporter who was interviewing her, Britain's Gerri Peev of The Scotsman, printed the comment anyway -- as she should have, because Peev had never agreed that any parts of the interview...

With advisors like this, no wonder John Edwards got blown out of the Dem primary . . . Of all the qualities Hillary might have emphasized to her advantage, can you imagine basing her campaign on her "warmth" and "likability"? Chris Kofinis can. The former communications director of the John Edwards campaign appeared on Tucker Carlson's show this evening. View video.

Now that David Shuster has returned from MSNBC exile after the Clinton campaign complained about his comments on Chelsea, will Tucker Carlson's be the next head Camp Hillary hunts? Senior Clinton advisor Kiki McClean comprehensively rapped Carlson's knuckles this evening over comments Tucker made about Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer. View video here.

Tucker Carlson, on his show tonight, describing the Clinton campaign's press relations . . . TUCKER CARLSON: They're awful to the media: let's be totally blunt. They're awful to the press. They treat the press like enemies. [Clinton Communication Director] Howard Wolfson's always calling around threatening people. Threatening people! News organizations! They do that! People hate you if you do that. I mean, they've earned the enmity of the press, in my view. They have. I mean, it's been hard but they've done it. The affable Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post tried to take the edge off. EUGENE ROBINSON:...

You vill obey update . . . The domestic policy differences between Hillary and Obama are negligible. But the Clinton camp likes to claim that his national health care plan would leave 15 million people out, whereas hers covers everyone. Let's put aside for the moment the fact that former Clinton cabinet member Robert Reich says the Obama plan would actually wind up covering more people. The key to Hillary's claim that she would cover everyone is that . . . she would punish people who refuse to fall in line. Naturally, Clinton isn't eager to specify just what such...

David Frum might not be every conservative's cup of tea. But un-fans of John McCain will find plenty to like in Frum's biting analysis of the Republican front-runner. The former Bush speechwriter and author of Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again, was a guest on this evening's Tucker. View video here.

When one of Tucker Carlson's guests this evening ventured into the racial minefield that our political landscape has become, the show host chose not to join him on the perilous journey . . . . Carlson began a segment by reading the recent statement by Michelle Obama displayed here. View video here.

If whoever plays the Nazi-analogy card first loses, then Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) is a double loser. First, for having played the Bush = Hitler card, second, for lacking the courage to stick by his slander. Moran, a member of Congress' Out-of-Iraq Caucus, was a guest on this evening's Tucker. The eponymous host was hammering him over the fact that despite all their inflamed anti-war rhetoric, the Dems have folded like the proverbial lawn chair, caving to all President Bush's funding requests for Iraq. When Moran could take the taunting no longer, he resorted to the loser's strategy. But watch...

Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad . . . Be assured, Baghdad is safe, protected. There are no American infidels in Baghdad . . . There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad. -- Saddam's Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, AKA "Baghdad Bob." Not bad, Bob. But if you want to see how flackery is done at its supremely sycophantic best, you should have tuned into tonight's "Tucker" to catch Lanny Davis's act. View video here.

Hillary Clinton is a "moral conservative." Don't believe it? Ask Amy Sullivan. The "Time" editor said so on this evening's "Tucker." Let's just let the dialogue between Tucker Carlson and Sullivan speak for itself. But come back after the transcript to learn some interesting factoids about Ms. Sullivan's background. View video here.

Hillary Clinton doesn't just want to give us all free healthcare, or fix things in Iraq. No, she's set her sights much, much higher -- nothing short of "repairing the world." At least, so says her avid supporter, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY). In the wake of Hillary's "National Women's Finance Council Summit," a campaign event in which she explicitly appealed to women to vote for her because of her sex [raising $1.5 million along the way], Lowey was a guest on this evening's "Tucker." Host Carlson was prodding the congresswoman to explain just what it is about a woman president...

Welcome back, Tucker. Really. When Carlson was away, guest host David Shuster sullied Tucker's name-sake show with the tasteless "gotcha" game he sprung on Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), then compounded matters by leading a liberal love-in. Tucker's been back in the saddle for a couple days, and this evening took on Wesley Clark and later a representative of Media Matters. Speaking with Paul Waldman, Senior Fellow and Director of Special Projects of "Media Matters," Carlson displayed the graphic shown here, in which Hillary Clinton stated that she had "helped start" Media Matters. Under close questioning by Carlson, Waldman wound up...

Don't look for Shuster to be guest hosting "Tucker" again any time soon. -- from my column of September 26th. Oy, was I wrong! I had figured that David Shuster wouldn't be subbing again for Tucker Carlson after embarrassing his show, and MSNBC at large, with the tasteless game of "gotcha" he played on Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), exploiting the death of a soldier for partisan political purposes. But tuning to Tucker today, there was Shuster, the supposed MSNBC "correspondent." Carlson is certainly no partisan Republican, having mentioned more than once that he didn't vote for W in 2004. Tucker...

On this afternoon's "Tucker," the eponymous host was discussing with Dem strategist Peter Fenn and former Dem congressman Tom Andrews [a grown-up among liberals, IMHO] the unwillingness of the leading GOP presidential contenders to participate in the debate moderated by Tavis Smiley, billed as addressing issues of concern to black Americans. On the one hand, Carlson criticized the Republicans' reticence. On the other, he flashed anger at the way Dems play the race card. He concluded with a particularly tantalizing comment.View video here.TUCKER CARLSON: I do think the Democrats ought to stop calling everybody who disagrees with them racists. I...

<p>Could there possibly be an American who doesn't admire the Reverend Billy Graham? Apparently, yes. Have a look at the cover of this week's 'Time.' Of all the ways the editors might have positioned the logo, they managed to do so in a manner in which the 'M' in 'TIME' is transformed into horns protuding from the good reverend's head.</p>

Understanding fellow, that Jonathan Alter. On this afternoon's "Tucker Carlson" on MSNBC, the eponymous host mentioned that Barack Obama had travelled to NYC to seek the support of Charles Barron of Brooklyn. Carlson knows Barron well, the NYC Councilman being a frequent guest on Tucker's show. Carlson described Barron as a "pretty straightforward racist, pretty straightforward black nationalist, anti-white character, exactly the kind of person you would not expect Obama to be courting." He then asked guest Jonathan Alter: "What is Obama doing?SENIOR NEWSWEEK EDITOR JONATHAN ALTER: "Well, I think Obama wants the support of everybody, and I think the...

In 2003, David Kuo resigned from the Bush administration's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and later wrote a book [published just before the 2006 mid-term elections] claiming that the administration was hypocritical in its dealings with religious conservatives. Liberals had a field day because according to them [as E.J. Dionne wrote here, for example], Kuo was a religious conservative himself. But is that true? What kind of religious conservative, the day after Jerry Falwell died, would go on MSNBC's Tucker Carlson show and say this about the late pastor?: DAVID KUO: In bringing the pulpit to politics in the...

All the pundits and analyst are hollering about the debate these days as though the elections were going to be held tomorrow. All this nonsense has no bearing on what will actually take place. For starters the people will ultimately decide this not Tucker Carlson.

Judging by the excerpt Tucker Carlson played on his MSNBC show this afternoon at about 4:15 PM ET, Richard Engel's War Zone Diary is a powerful and moving documentary of the NBC reporter's experiences in Iraq. To his credit. Engel has accompanied troops on many combat patrols. Among other clips, we saw particularly compelling footage Marines on a night mission in the mean streets of Ramadi, in Anbar province, searching for - and finding unharmed - one of their comrades who had gotten separated during an earlier patrol there. Speaking of combat, Engel even mentioned at one point that "it...

From the moment Tom Matzzie turned up on this afternoon's Tucker Carlson, something just didn't feel right. The Washington director of Moveon.org, just didn't fit the Moveon mold. There was no whiff of the angry zealot about him, no sense that Tucker was one misstep away from witnessing a meltdown. Mattzie came across as one more pleasant-enough fellow with a DC organizational gig. Someone who might even have fit in an outfit as conventional and boring, say, as the 2004 John Kerry campaign. Which is precisely where, as the record reveals, Matzzie did spend the last presidential season, working...

Where has Maxine Waters been? It wasn't until she turned up on Tucker Carlson's show this afternoon that I realized how long it's been. Now there is one fun lady. The Representative from California proved the perfect foil, helping Carlson score some wicked points on Nancy Pelosi. Carlson's fundamental question, and I think it's a good one, is, given that Dems ran and were elected on an anti-war platform, why are they apparently about to go along with the surge? The unstated answer is that they've made a cynical political calculation that it's in their interest to demagogue the...

As we noted here, when Andrea Mitchell appeared on The Factor last week, Bill O'Reilly confronted her over NBC's leftward tilt. Andrea not only denied any NBC bias, she also vouched for CBS' and ABC's fairness. For good measure, Mitchell claimed that Chris Matthews is no liberal. Tucker Carlson fired back on his MSNBC show this afternoon. The gist of his argument: that in attacking Keith Olbermann, O'Reilly was actually promoting the Countdown's lefty host. There was only one problem with Carlson's theory: O'Reilly never mentioned Olbermann. Not once. I watched the Factor segment live, wrote about it, posted a...

Oct. 11: "Countdown" has obtained a copy of new book that suggests the White House repeatedly uses evangelical Christians for their votes, while consistently given them nothing in return. More than five years after President Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, the former second-in-command of that office is going public with an insider’s tell-all account that portrays an office used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities.[..] “National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just...

CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in… (Chrissy)MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that? CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. They live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals. And the evangelicals know that, and they're beginning to learn that their own leaders sort of look askance...

by Mark Finkelstein September 26, 2006 - 17:13 Who would have thought that Howard Dean would come off looking like the relatively statesmanlike DNC Chair? Dean acknowledged that Chris Wallace was "tough but fair" in his questioning of Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, Dean's DNC predecessor, with all the class and dignity for which he's known, has attacked Wallace as a Republican "tool," suggesting along the way Tucker Carlson must be on drugs. McAuliffe was a guest on Tucker Carlson's MSNBC show this afternoon. Carlson touched things off with this observation: "It's interesting to see the attack machine cranked up again. I...

by Mark Finkelstein September 25, 2006 - 17:10 Let's play one of our favorite games: WIACHSI, which of course stands for "What If a Conservative Had Said It?" Ready? OK, let's play. What would happen if a conservative attacked a female liberal icon by calling her promiscuous? How many outraged Dem elected officials, NOW leaders, Naomi Wolfs . . . and Air America hosts would be popping up all over the MSM to proclaim their outrage? And yet, on today's edition of Tucker Carlson, Air America host and class-action trial lawyer [nice two-fer!] Mike Papantonio leveled the loose woman charge...

by Mark Finkelstein September 12, 2006 - 21:30 As the Dancing With the Stars host said, Tucker Carlson - host of the MSNBC show of the same name - "has braved some of the most perilous situations in the world, but now [for] his most intimidating assignment - dancing the cha-cha-cha on national television." It was Tucker's turn to shine on tonight's episode of Dancing With the Stars. Carlson's professional dance partner Elena Grinenko did her best to lower expectations. Said the sultry Russian "when it comes to Tucker's ability for dancing . . . " She let a grimace...

Under direct questioning, and given several opportunitites to do so, Republican candidate for NY Attorney General Jeanine Pirro refused to say that she would vote for Hillary's Republican Senate opponent. There will be a Republican primary on Sep. 12th between former State Department official KT McFarland and former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer. Pirro was a guest on Tucker Carlson's MSNBC show this afternoon. Pirro declined to answer Carlson's repeated questions as to whether she would vote for the Republican candidate for Senate, replying only that she was "focusing on her own race."

by Mark Finkelstein September 1, 2006 - 16:49 During the course of a conversation with former Deputy Defense Secretary Jed Babbin on this afternoon's show, Tucker Carlson described himself as "a real conservative." But it was just a few minutes earlier, chatting with New Republic editor-at-large Peter Beinart, that Carlson mentioned in passing that he hadn't supported President Bush for president in 2004. When Carlson stated that he had been wrong to support the war in Iraq [and now opposes it], Beinart retorted: "You've just made a statement which almost guarantees that you're going to have to support the Democratic...

I think we now know Tucker Carlson's strategy for winning 'Dancing With the Stars': multiple partners. That's perhaps the only way to explain Carlson's odd defense of Warren Steed Jeffs, the polygamist leader arrested today. On his MSNBC show of this afternoon, Tucker was outraged that Jeffs had been placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list: "His crime was wanting to enter into life-long arrangements with women, or facilitating that between a man and . . . was this guy trying to undermine America, destroy our way of life or murder our citizens? No! What the hell was he...

by Mark Finkelstein August 25, 2006 - 18:42 The New York Times might be thankful that it is not on trial with Dan Abrams serving as prosecutor. The impassioned argument he made against the journalistic value of the Times' lengthy account of the Duke rape case in today's paper, Files From Duke Rape Case Give Details but No Answers, might have sent the paper to the Big House for years to come. Interviewed by Tucker Carlson, Abrams, who until taking over as head of MSNBC had his own justice-oriented show on the network, came out guns ablazin'. "I thought it...

.....Separating the men from the boysPosted: August 25, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern It was a shocking moment for me, and it took a few seconds for me to be sure I had heard him correctly. Had MSNBC's Tucker Carlson really belittled the argument that Islamic terrorists posed a growing threat to Western civilization as being "reprehensibly dumb"? I was on Carlson's bottom-ranked cable news show, and the once bow-tied anchor was lecturing me that my justifications for the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq was nothing more than "administration talking points." It was yet another in an incalculably...

by Mark Finkelstein August 22, 2006 - 17:14 Has Tucker Carlson ever heard of the Marshall Plan? Seriously. The question arises in light of Carlson's show-closing diatribe this afternoon. Tucker was irate that, "now that Israel is done pummeling Lebanon, Uncle Sam wants to help clean up the mess. Your hard-earned tax dollars will include $42 million to help Lebanon's military prepare for deployment in the southern part of the country, rebuild schools and help mop up an oil spill off the Lebanese coast." He continued: "Here's the question - if the United States was so opposed to the physical...

First off, I ’m a big fan of your show. Until you came on the scene, nobody thought politics could be funny. Yet you made it hysterical.You are an innovator in your field and I have the utmost respect for your accomplishments. Hell, I even bought a copy of Naked Pictures of Famous People. However, I do have one small bone to pick with you.

by Mark Finkelstein August 9, 2006 - 17:26 Tucker Carlson stopped short of saying that some of his best friends are Jewish. But he did let us know that "I love Israel, I think it's a wonderful place, I support it completely, I support it instinctively." That was just before he declared that "I think this war helps Hezbollah. I think it's bad for Israel, bad for the United States. I think you can love Israel and believe this war is a disaster." And it was just after he criticized President Bush for "taking the side of Israel to the...

by Mark Finkelstein July 24, 2006 - 18:40 I thought Tucker Carlson was supposed to be MSNBC's conservative counterweight to Olbermann, Matthews, & Co. Perhaps I better think again, judging by the opening roll of his 'Tucker' show this afternoon. Here's how it went: Open to video of an Israeli tank firing rounds, as an off-screen voice breathlessly announces "Lebanon, under siege" as the scene changes to smoke rising from an urban Lebanese landscape. Cut to a Lebanese couple, with the woman informing us that "our house is bombed, everything is bombed." Cut to what looks like a mosque in...

by Mark Finkelstein July 17, 2006 - 17:25 Israel versus Hezbollah? Those exchanges pale in comparison to the crossfire between MSNBC host Tucker Carlson and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu on this afternoon's 'Tucker'. Alright, perhaps I exaggerate just a tad, but there was no mistaking Netanyahu's anger at the way Carlson had framed the issue of Americans in Lebanon. Here's how Carlson, who made the plight of the estimated 25,000 Americans in Lebanon a theme of the show, introduced Netanyahu: "25,000 Americans are trapped as the nation of Lebanon continues to come under fire from Israeli airstrikes....

by Mark Finkelstein July 7, 2006 Does Norah O'Donnell read NewsBusters? Could it be pure coincidence that on this evening's 'What'd You Say?' Hardball segment featuring the audio highlights of the week Norah just happened to select two items we had featured here and here? Who knows? In any case, Joe Scarborough took the occasion to apologize for being too mean to Democrats earlier in the show. For the record, the two soundbites featured were Joe Biden's Indian/7/11 slur, and Cindy Sheehan's pronouncement that she would rather live under Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez than George Bush. Panelist Tucker Carlson had...

-snip- Tucker Carlson, who joined MSNBC last year after a career at CNN, will move from 11 p.m. to airings at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. where "The Abrams Report" used to be.

MATTHEWS: Do you find her physically attractive, Tucker? CARLSON: I‘m not going to answer that, because the answer, I don‘t want to hurt anybody‘s feelings. That‘s not the point. MATTHEWS: Positively. COSBY: Don‘t ask me that question. MATTHEWS: Mike, do you want to weigh in here as an older fellow. Do you find her to be a physically attractive woman? BARNICLE: I‘m too old to be doing that. I had enough fights in my life. MATTHEWS: OK, Rita, do you find her to be a physically attractive woman? COSBY: I‘ll throw it back to you, Chris, do you find her...