On a Lighter Note: Tucker Carlson and the 20-20 Rule

Remember the Tucker Carlson controversy about what he said on the radio?  This seems like a good opportunity to apply Kevin Drum's 20/20 rule:  Bad conduct over 20 years ago or before the age of 20 is forgivable provided that (1) the conduct is not too serious, (2) the person in question has since reformed and (3) the person in question honestly faces up to past mistakes.  That last is usually the sticking point.  The Tucker Carlson controversy seems to be adding another condition: sometimes the search for past bad behavior is so intrusive and offensive as to run into a sort of exclusionary evidence rule. 

But to move on.

First of all, the remarks were made between 2006 and 2011, when Carlson was a grown man, so Drum's statute of limitations doesn't apply anyhow.  But maybe the statute of limitations should be shorter, so let's move on.

How serious was the conduct?  Well, let's start with the obvious.  It was a zero out of ten on the illegality scale.  But everyone seems to agree that, although a crime is need to actually prosecute, legal but offensive behavior can be sufficient to end a career.  So how bad was it on the offensiveness scale?

Well, let me compare to Ralph Northam's blackface.  Minstrel show blackface and Ku Klux Klan together are really bad.  But there is nothing actually inciting hate or violence, so I would not give it a ten out of ten, maybe nine.  Take off one point for the utterly innocuous caption and another point because everyone seems to have been doing it at Virginia Military Institute.  So, 7/10 on the offensiveness scale for Northam.  And for what it is worth, I would say wearing dark makeup to dress as Michael Jackson while doing his song and dance routine would be 2/10 -- something one could do innocently without knowing it was offensive.  Add one point for using shoe polish instead of more conventional makeup and I would give it a 3/10.  Going in blackface to play a rapper I would make closer to a 5/10 -- more stereotyped, less a case of honoring an idol.

As for Carlson, he called Iraq "a crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know, semiliterate primitive monkeys" who didn't "behave like human beings" and "don't use toilet paper or forks" and "they can just shut the fuck up and obey, is my view."*  Highly offensive and a clearly an expression of hate, but not actual incitement, so 9/10.  Minus one point for being on a shock jock show where the host is doing his best to provoke, so I would say 8/10 on the offensiveness scale -- serious enough to lose a job, unless accompanied by serious reform and remorse.

As for reform, clearly no.  Brett Kavenaugh was an obnoxious frat boy in high school and college, but his conduct toward women has been irreproachable during his legal and judicial career.  Ralph Northam was racially insensitive in medical school, but committed to racial equality in his political career, especially compared to the Republicans he was running against.  Tucker Carlson continues to pander to bigotry, he is just a little more discrete.

And as for honestly owning up, this is what sinks so many people in Drum's eyes, certainly including both Kavenaugh and Northam.  Tucker Carlson has not even discussed the underlying conduct, just argued that the investigation was so offensive and intrusive as to invoke the sort of exclusionary evidence rule.

When it comes to that rule, I personally think that searching Brett Kavenaugh's high school year book crosses the line, or at least comes up very close to it, but apparently I am overruled on that.  And certainly Democrats, after search Brett Kavenaugh's school year book, have no business complaining about a search of Ralph Northram's medical school year book.  But here we are talking about what Carlson broadcast over the radio.  Broadcasts over the radio are fair game -- certainly more so than year books.

Recap:  This is within Kevin's statute of limitations, it was perfectly legal but offensive enough to end a career, Tucker has continued a milder version of this ever since, refuses to own up in any way, and fair game as a public broadcast.  No forgiveness.

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*Probably more revealing, he also said that Republicans could no longer claim to be the party of fiscal restraint and should instead run:

I mean, not someone who’s like a Klansman or anything, but someone who's totally unbound by P.C. rules, who will just say whatever the hell he wants. 

You know, someone who really will -- and everyone claims, "Oh, I say it like it is." But nobody actually does. The guy who does, who says, "I'm unabashedly pro-American. Fuck the French. Who cares what they think? The Belgians? They don’t like it, they can pound sand.” You know what I mean? That guy is going to get elected.

It seems remarkably prophetic.