Tucker Carlson
166 quotes
Biography
"Children born with Down Syndrome are not vegetables, nor are their lives demonstrably not worth living."
"I thought I'd be ragged for writing a puffy piece. My wife said people are going to think you're hunting for a job in the Bush campaign."
"The wonderful thing is we're allowed to say what we think . . . Your stories can be more true, more honest, more direct. If a person at a press conference says something I think is ludicrous, I get to say it's ludicrous . . . You try not to distort the truth because someone you're profiling you think is on the right side of abortion or trade or any other issue. That would be dishonest."
"I have a lot of trouble writing or doing anything unless the pressure is on . . . If left to my own devices, I'd spend a lot of time playing with my kids and my dogs."
"It's a good thing Al Gore has an unappealing demeanor, or George W. Bush would be in real trouble. Bush delivered a mediocre performance at the first presidential debate in Boston. For the first half an hour he appeared nervous. Several times he seemed to lose his train of thought in mid-sentence. Though he relaxed as the night progressed, his remarks often lacked focus. He left Gore's endless attacks on the "wealthiest one percent of Americans" essentially unchallenged. He offered no defense of his own pro-life views, allowing Gore, a genuine extremist on abortion, to sound like the candidate with the mainstream position. He even let Gore interrupt him, repeatedly. Bush was not impressive. Happily for Republicans, Gore was far worse. If George W. Bush is elected president, it will be to a great extent because millions of undecided voters entered the voting booth, considered the phrase "President Gore," and shuddered."
"Racial solidarity wasn't a working concept in my southern-California hometown. Most people barely had last names, much less ethnic identities. I grew up feeling about as much connection to nineteenth-century slave owners as I did to bus drivers in Helsinki or astronomers in Tirana. We're all capable of getting sunburned. That's it."
"Most of the time you can beat a woman in an argument. But what do you win? Nothing. You get short-term pleasure followed by a lot of pain."
"I think it’s a total nightmare and disaster, and I’m ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting [the Iraq War]. It’s something I’ll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who’s smarter than I am, and I shouldn’t have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I’m enraged by it, actually."
"But the real story here is an 85-year-old grandmother is attempting to start a class action suit, a frivolous lawsuit, against this video game manufacturer. I thought the elderly were immune from embarrassing behavior like starting frivolous class action lawsuits but they’re not, are they?"
"[T]he idea that if you buy some creepy video game for your grandson knowing it’s a creepy video game, it turns out to be even creepier than you thought, then you’re owed thousands by the people who made it? Ah, no!"
"Anybody with any ambition at all, or intelligence, has left Canada and is now living in New York . . . Canada is a sweet country. It is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he’s nice but you don't take him seriously. That's Canada."
"It only eggs them on. Canada is essentially a stalker, stalking the United States, right? Canada has little pictures of us in its bedroom, right?"
"Politics deserves more color. The legislative process needs more people like Don Young. Young, the Republican congressman from Alaska, once used a walrus penis bone as a prop during a congressional hearing. As Mollie Beatty, then the director of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, spoke about the need to protect endangered species from hunting, Young angrily slapped the eighteen-inch bone against his hand."
"It was Jack Oliver, the deputy finance chairman of the Bush campaign. He was upset—so upset, I couldn't make out his words at first. "You fucked us!" he yelled. "I can't believe you did that. We gave you all this access, and you fucked us in return." Bush hadn't liked the piece at all. In fact, I later heard from someone who was with him at the time, he was wounded by it."
"I had just gotten off the Crossfire set when one of our producers handed me a stack of mail. On the way to the elevator, I glanced at it. On top of the pile was a registered letter from a law firm. It got my attention immediately. I've never had a pleasant letter from a lawyer. This one was worse than most. It was written by an attorney in Indiana named Paul M. Blanton. Blanton wanted to let me know that his client, a woman named Kimberly Carter, was planning to file criminal sex charges against me in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. "Ms. Carter has informed me that she was raped by you," Blanton wrote. "If you should have any questions or concerns about any of the aforementioned, please do not hesitate to contact me." Should I have any questions or concerns? I didn't know where to begin. Rape? Kentucky? Criminal charges? I knew I hadn't raped anyone. I didn't think I'd ever even been to Kentucky."
"Nuts or not, Kimberly Carter had a lot of chutzpah. Six months later, she wrote me again. This time she sent a clock radio with my name on it, along with a note apologizing "for the misunderstanding." A few months after that I got an Easter card from "Your Biggest Fan!" Her next card had five exclamation points, which I took as a sign of escalating mania."
"Carlson: I think they are. On the other hand, you know, the bottom line is the issue of security — who's going to protect the country against, you know, the Muslim lunatics who want to hurt us — is the only thing the Republicans have left. They can't claim that they're, you know, the party of fiscal restraint anymore. They're big spenders, and that's obvious. But that one argument, “Vote for us, we'll protect you,” that still works, because on — you know, let's be totally real. Nancy Pelosi's going to keep you safe while you sleep? I don't think so. She's not."
"Bubba the Love Sponge: So — so, now listen, can the Democrats not — in the nine, or 10, or eight, or however many months there is — can they not regroup or get a strategy going with, "Listen, we need to — the only thing that these Republicans have is to keep you guys safe." Can they not, you know, responsibly come up with some type of game plan where they can make us feel — make people feel safe as well?"
"Carlson: I think if they're — Oh, they could, absolutely. If there were a Democrat to come out in the 2008 election and say, “You know what the problem is? It’s Islamic extremism. It's not terror, it's not some, you know, indefinable threat out there. It's these lunatic Muslims who are behaving like animals, and I'm going to kill as many of them as I can if you elect me.” If a Democrat were to say that, he would be elected king, OK?"
"Bubba: Let's get into a couple things. One, this whole Duke issue. I mean, is this not, honest to God, Tucker, in my opinion, and tell me what you think, I think these guys are innocent."
"Carlson: Well, I think they could get railroaded. I mean, you know, look, here's the bottom line. And I said this the other day and there was all this outrage and, “How could you say that,” but I mean, this woman sells sex for a living. OK? I'm not attacking that — I'm merely noting it. She sells sex for a living. If she's accusing other people of nonconsensual sex, it's a little more complicated than if some, you know, housewife claims she was pulled off the street and raped. It's just not the same thing. It's harder to determine what's consensual and what's not. And to act like, you know, these guys absolutely did it because she's this oppressed stripper, pardon me, adult dancer or exotic dancer, whatever the hell they're calling her, is ridiculous. I mean, these kids, maybe they did do something wrong, I don't know. But, I mean, you got to give them the benefit of the doubt."
"Co-Host: Alexa Stewart, we run into her all the time."
"Carlson: She seems like a — she seems awful —"
"Co-Host: Yeah, she is awful."
"Bubba: They're very cunty."