On December 15, the night that the Biden administration released some of the remaining JFK files while withholding others with another half-assed excuse, Tucker Carlson, the most-watched cable news television host, delivered a monologue about the JFK assassination. It garnered a great deal of attention.
Although I don’t watch Carlson’s television show, I received messages from many friends and colleagues, people I highly respect, about his monologue’s great significance, so I watched that episode. And then I watched it many more times.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a man whom I hold in the highest esteem, tweeted that it was “the most courageous newscast in 60 years. The CIA’s murder of my uncle was a successful coup d’état from which our democracy has never recovered.”
While I completely agree with his second sentence, I was underwhelmed by Carlson’s words, to put it mildly. I thought it was clearly “a limited hangout,” as described by the former CIA agent Victor Marchetti:
Spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting, sometimes even volunteering, some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further.
Or listens carefully.
Carlson surely said some things that were true, and, as my friends and many others have insisted, he was the first mainstream corporate journalist to say that “the CIA was involved in the assassination of the president.”
But “involved” is a word worthy of a lawyer, a public relations expert, or the CIA itself because it can mean something significant or nothing. Or a little of both. It is a weasel word.
And the source for Carlson’s claim was an anonymous source, someone who he said “had access” to the JFK files that were never released. We know, of course, that when The New York Times and its ilk cite “anonymous sources,” claiming that they have told them this or that, this raises eyebrows. Or should. Anyone who closely follows that paper’s claims knows that it is a CIA conduit, but now, those who know this are embracing Tucker Carlson as if he were the prophet of truth, as if a Rupert Murdock-owned Fox TV host who is paid many millions of dollars, has become the Julian Assange of corporate journalism.
In a 2010 radio interview, Mr. Carlson said, “ I am 100 % his bitch. Whatever Mr. Murdoch says, I do.”
The obvious question is: Why would Fox News allow Carlson to say now what many hear as shocking news about the JFK assassination?
So let me run down exactly what Carlson did say.
For five minutes of the 7:28 minute monologue, he said things that are obviously true: that Jack Ruby killed Oswald and that the claim that both acted alone is weird and beyond any odds; that the Warren Commission was shoddy; that the CIA weaponized the term “conspiracy theory” in 1967 according to Lance De Haven-Smith’s book Conspiracy Theory in America; that the CIA’s brainwashing specialist psychiatrist Louis Jolyon West visited Jack Ruby in jail and declared him insane, contrary to all other assessments of Ruby’s mental state; and that the 1976 House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that there was probably a conspiracy in the president’s assassination.
All of this is true but not news to those knowledgeable about the assassination. Nevertheless, it was perhaps news to Carlson’s audience and therefore good to hear on a corporate news site.
But then, the next few minutes – the key part of his report, the part that drew all the attention – got tricky.
Carlson said that just that day – December 15, 2022 – when all the JFK documents were due to be released but many were withheld, “we spoke to someone who had access to these still hidden CIA documents.” Who would have such access, and how, is left unaddressed, but it is implied that it is a CIA source, but maybe not. It is strange to say the least.
Carlson then said he asked this person, “Did the CIA have a hand in the murder of John F. Kennedy?” And the answer was “I believe they were involved.” Carlson goes on to say, “And the answer we received was unequivocal. Yes, the CIA was involved in the assassination of the president.”
Note the words “hand,” “believe,” “involved,” and then “unequivocal.”
“Hand” can mean many things and is very vague. For example, in front of his wife, a man tells his friend, “I had a hand in preparing Christmas dinner.” To which his wife, laughing, replies, “Yes, he did, he put the napkins on the table.”
To “believe” something is very different from knowing it, as Dr. Martin Schotz, one of the most perceptive JFK assassination researchers, has written in his book, History Will Not Absolve Us: Orwellian Control, Public Denial, and the Murder of President Kennedy
On Belief Versus Knowledge
It is so important to understand that one of the primary means of immobilizing the American people politically today is to hold them in a state of confusion in which anything can be believed but nothing can be known, nothing of significance that is.
And the American people are more than willing to be held in this state because to know the truth — as opposed to only believe the truth — is to face an awful terror and to be no longer able to evade responsibility. It is precisely in moving from belief to knowledge that the citizen moves from irresponsibility to responsibility, from helplessness and hopelessness to action, with the ultimate aim of being empowered and confident in one’s rational powers.
“Involved,” like the word “hand,” can mean many things; it is vague, slippery, not definitive, and is used by tabloid gossip columnists to suggest scandals that may or not be true.
“Unequivocal” does not accurately describe the source’s statement, which was: “I believe.” That is, unless you take someone’s belief as evidence of the truth, or you wish to make it sound so.
Note that nowhere in Carlson’s report does he or his alleged source say clearly and definitively that the CIA/National Security State murdered President Kennedy, for which there has long been overwhelming evidence. Such beating-around-the-bush is quite common and tantalizes the audience to think the next explosive revelation will be dispositive. Yet no release of documents is needed to confirm that the CIA killed Kennedy, as if the national security state would allow itself to be pinned for the murder.
Waiting for the documents is like waiting for Godot; and to promote some hidden smoking gun, some great revelation is to engage in a pseudo-debate without end. It is to do the killers’ bidding for them. And it is quite common. There are many well-known “dissident” writers who continue to claim that there is not enough evidence to conclude that the CIA/national security state killed the president. And this is so for those who question the official story. Furthermore, there are many more pundits who maintain that Oswald did the deed alone, as the Warren Report concluded and the mainstream corporate media trumpet. This group is led by Noam Chomsky, whose acolytes bow to their master’s ignorant conclusions.
Maybe we’ll know the truth in 2063.
While it is true that some people change dramatically, Tucker Carlson, the Fox Television celebrity, would be a very unlikely candidate. He defended Eliot Abrams and praised Oliver North; supported the Contras against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua; went to Nicaragua to support those Contras; smeared the great journalist Gary Webb while defending the CIA; supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq; and much more. Alan MacLeod chronicled all this in February of this year for those who have known nothing of Carlson’s past, including his father’s work as a U.S. intelligence operative as director of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), the body that oversees government-funded media, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio and TV Martí and Voice of America – all U.S. propaganda outlets.
Now we are being asked to accept that Carlson is out to show how the CIA is “involved” in the murder of JFK. Why would so many fall for such rhetoric?
No doubt any crumb of national news coverage about the CIA and the assassination by a major corporate player elicits an enthusiastic response from those who have tried for many years to tell the truth about JFK’s murder. One’s first response is excitement. But such reactions need to tempered by sober analyses of exactly what has been said, which is what I am doing here. I, too, wish it were a breakthrough but think it is more of the same. Much ado about nothing. A way to continue to foster uncertainty, not knowledge, about the crime.
I see it as a game of false binaries in the same way the Democrats and Republicans are portrayed as mortal enemies. Yes, there are some differences, but all-in-all they are one party, the War Party, who agree on the essential tenets of U.S. imperial policy. They both represent the interests of the upper classes and are financed by them. They both work within the same frame of reference. They both support what Ray McGovern, the former CIA analyst, rightly calls the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT).
If one asks a dedicated believer in the truthfulness of The New York Times Corporation or NPR, for example, what they think of Tucker Carlson, they will generally dismiss him with disdain as a right-wing charlatan. This, of course, works in reverse if you ask Carlson’s followers what they think of the Times or NPR. Yet for those who think outside the frame – and they are all non-mainstream – a different picture emerges. But sometimes they are taken in by those whose equivocations are extremely lawyerly but appeal to what they wish to hear. This is exactly what a “limited hangout” is. Snagged by some actual truths, they bite on the bait of nuances that don’t mean what they think they do.
Left vs. right, Fox TV vs. The New York Times, NPR, etc.: Just as Carlson’s father Dick Carlson ran the CIA-created U.S. overseas radio propaganda under Reagan and George H. W. Bush, so too the present head of National Public Radio, John Lansing, did the same under Barack Obama. See my piece, Will NPR Now Change its Name to National Propaganda Radio. Birds of a feather disguised as hawks and sparrows in a game meant to confuse and create scrambled brains.
Lastly, let me mention an odd “coincidence.” On December 6 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., nine days before the partial JFK files release and Tucker Carlson’s monologue, the Mary Ferrell Foundation, an organization devoted to JFK research, gave a presentation showcasing what was advertised as explosive new information about the Kennedy assassination. The key presenter was Jefferson Morley, a former Washington Post reporter and prominent JFK assassination researcher who has sued the CIA for documents involving Lee Harvey Oswald and CIA operative George Joannides.
On November 22 Morley had published an article titled “Yes, There is a JFK Smoking Gun.” It was subtitled: It will be found in 44 CIA documents that are still “Denied in Full.” The documents he was referring to allegedly concern contacts between Oswald and Joannides in the summer and fall of 1963 in New Orleans and in Mexico City. “They [the CIA] were running a psychological warfare operation, authorized in June 1963, that followed Oswald from New Orleans to Mexico City later that year,” wrote Morley.
Well, the “smoking gun” documents were not released on Dec 15, although on November 20 and then again at The National Press Club on December 6, Morley spoke of them as proving his point about the CIA’s involvement with Oswald, which has been obvious for a long time. Although he said he hadn’t seen these key documents but was awaiting their release, he added that even if they were not released that will still prove him correct. In other words, with this bit of legerdemain, he was saying: What I don’t know, and may not soon not know, supports what I’m claiming even though I don’t know it. And even if the files were released, he writes, “As for the conspiracy question, the massive withholding of documents makes it premature to draw any conclusions. The undisclosed Oswald operation was not necessarily part of a conspiracy. It might indicate CIA incompetence, not complicity. Again, only the CIA knows for sure.” So the smoking gun is not a smoking gun and the waters of uncertainty roll on and on into the receding future.
CIA incompetence, not complicity. Of course. It ain’t necessarily so. Or it is, or might be, or isn’t.
Morley is one of many who still cannot say that the CIA killed the president. Tucker Carlson can speak of its “involvement” just like Morley. We need more information, more files, etc. But even if we get them, we still won’t know. Maybe by 2063.
My question for Tucker Carlson: Who was your anonymous source? And did your source see the documents that were never disclosed? What specific documents are you referring to? And do they prove that the CIA killed Kennedy or just suggest “involvement”?
Finally, as I said before, even as there has long been a mountain of evidence for the CIA’s murder of JFK (and RFK as well, although that is never mentioned), many prominent people continue to play as if there is not. Listen to this video interview between Chris Hedges and former CIA officer John Kiriakou. It is all about the nefarious deeds of the CIA. Right toward the end of the interview (see minutes 32:30-33:19), Hedges says, “So I have to ask [since he has to answer] this question since I know Oliver Stone is convinced the CIA killed JFK … I’ve never seen any evidence that backs it up …” and they both share a mocking laugh at Stone as if he were the village idiot when he knows more about the JFK assassination than the two of them put together, and Kiriakou says he too has not seen such evidence. It’s a disgusting but typical display of arrogance and a “limited hangout.” Criticize the CIA only to make sure you whitewash them for one of their greatest achievements: the murder of President John F. Kennedy. This is straight from Chomsky’s playbook.
Beware double-talkers and the games they play. They come in different flavors.
I don’t understand the fuss about “Limited Hangout”. In general it’s a good thing because it reveals what they can no longer hide. From there it’s up to you, do you stop and go home or do you pull the thread and unroll more? Do you examine the bright shiny hangout to make sure it isn’t a drop to get you looking in the wrong direction by unrolling a thread that goes nowhere or merely a pretty distraction that leaves you in the same place.
Ed, if I may be permitted to make another comment here.
Had I been a journalistic fly on the wall in that conversation between Hedges and Kiriakou, I would have liked to ask the question, “What constitutes, in your view, evidence in support of that idea? What would it look like?”
Could it possibly look like the following (which we have known about since the late 1990s)?:
Less than a week after Oswald’s alleged visits to the Cuban consulate and Soviet embassy in Mexico City (Sept. 29 – Oct. 1, 1963), his security profile is _lowered_ at both the CIA and FBI, despite the supposed alarm this visit raised (the specter of which would reappear in the immediate aftermath of the assassination with the claim that Valery Kostikov, with whom he putatively met, was the head of ‘liquid operations’ for the KGB in the western hemisphere). This lowering was concomitant with the transmission of two discrepant memos, one to the FBI, Navy and State Dept. (which referred to a “Lee Henry Oswald” and which lacked any info more recent that 1962 on him), and one to the Mexico City station. The first of these memos, which originated in CI/SIG (Counterintelligence), was actually signed off on by Thomas Karamessines, Helms’ deputy at the Directorate of Plans (so why in the world was that necessary?). Finally, the removal at FBI of the FLASH on Oswald’s file––which had been there from the time of his trip to the Soviet Union in 1959––also meant that he would not be placed on the Security Index for the Dallas trip, and so the Secret Service would not have needed to remove him from the parade route. Oswald applied for a job at the TSBD on October 15, about five days later. [One can read further about this in several of John Newman’s articles and books, particularly the 2008 version of _Oswald and the CIA_.]
Is this not enough to warrant such suspicions?
And if not, then why does Mr. Hedge’s editor at Scheerpost, Robert Scheer, as late as 2016 (https://www.kennedysandking.com/robert-f-kennedy-articles/robert-scheer-can-t-help-himself), think it worth regurgitating the phony story that JFK and RFK were responsible for the Castro assassination plots (or even knew of them, either before 1962––when RFK was informed about them and was furious––or afterwards––when the Attorney General was lied to by CIA, who asserted they had been stopped), a story which has had such long legs, but which is actually traceable back to a single CIA source (Hal Hendrix, JM/WAVE-friendly journalist who knew David Atlee Phillips), and which was moreover denied even by the 1967 report by the CIA Inspector General, much to Richard Helms’ disappointment? Is that the kind of “evidence” which we should consider legitimate and corroborative? What hypocrisy.
Sorry to clutter up your comments with this, but I get particularly peeved by this willful obtuseness on the part of some journalists who otherwise tend to write things I agree with. This blindspot on the Left has always galled me.
In the interest of precision, I would like to emend what I wrote above. First, I said “for sure”, which might be a hasty judgment. For sure, it is a possibility. And that was my initial impression. But I agree with Ed that the questions, “Who was your anonymous source? And did your source see the documents that were never disclosed? What specific documents are you referring to? And do they prove that the CIA killed Kennedy or just suggest ‘involvement’?” need to be asked.
Second, “planted” was my illation, but from the context it sounds like I am attributing this to Caitlin. She did not say this. She ends: “I don’t claim to know exactly how planned out this all is or who’s doing the planning, I only know that that’s the effect of what Carlson does. When someone very prominent does something very convenient for the most powerful people in the world, it’s probably not an accident.” The full statement can be read here: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-mcproxy-war-continues-notes-from –– fifth item down.
RE: “America is Indefensible” by Onyesonwu Chatoyer
Hitler literally came out and said the tactics of extermination the Nazis used during the Holocaust were inspired by American treatment of Natives in the US.
As John Toland writes in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Adolf Hitler: “Hitler’s concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America’s extermination—by starvation and uneven combat—of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity. He was very interested in the way the Indian population had rapidly declined due to epidemics and starvation when the United States government forced them to live on the reservations. He thought the American government’s forced migrations of the Indians over great distances to barren reservation land was a deliberate policy of extermination.”
And yet: when the capital h Holocaust happened Americans and Europeans (the white ones) reacted in shock. HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED, they said. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM.
Africans and Native peoples were not shocked. The colonized people of the third world were not shocked. We watched the West go to war with itself over who would have control of the darker nations with weariness and caution. We understood then, as we do now, the true nature of Western so-called civilization. No matter who won, we lost.
+–+
It’s in the Anglo Saxon blood, and the blood of ZIonists everywhere . . . . Murdering JFK, as if that is so difficult to believe? Come on . . . . That CIA, hmm . . . .
CIA Book of Dirty Tricks
“We’re not in the Boy Scouts,” Richard Helms was fond of saying when he ran the Central Intelligence Agency. He was correct, of course. Boy Scouts do not ordinarily bribe foreign politicians, invade other countries with secret armies, spread lies, conduct medical experiments, build stocks of poison, pass machine guns to people who plan to turn them on their leaders, or plot to kill men such as Lumumba or Castro or others who displeased Washington. The CIA did these things, and more, over a long span of years. On whose orders?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1979/08/inside-the-department-of-dirty-tricks/305460/
https://linksharing.samsungcloud.com/zfYdnFWEaQYO
………..hope that works
….In the past i would google your name and “Behind the Curtin” would come up first, second or third. Now i had to scroll down 29 spots to find your page!
Hi Ed, ….I pinned a screenshot of Morley during a recent interview with his book on Angelton distictly displayed on the bookshelf behind him. Do you think some folks would rather drop clues? Peter Janney, author of , Mary’s Mossaic” surely suspects Angelton to be behind Mary Meyers murder. Mary was JFK’s last lover and kept a diary. How could Morely write a book on Angelton and not know? ( i didnt read the book )……Maybe it’s a strategy. Like the guy who writes the LBJ books. He is writing number five now. If he drops the full load on Johnson he doesnt get interviewed…..doesnt get read. Maybe he figures that in presenting such a dark portrait of the man people will fill in the dots for the rest???
It seems should I be slanderous, “trite” when the cabal that rules and has for at least 5,000 years and gaining ground with each war they create (large or small) continues. As they manipulate nations and their populations regardless of purported constitutions, laws and ideological ruling governance.
Yes, the murder of JFK was a horrific moment, but it’s past as have most of the population alive and cognizant of that day, that event and those that followed.
It just seems we expect something that isn’t. As if this arrangement has ever been different. That somehow we made a deal, “you protect us and we’ll keep our collective mouths shut”.
I liken it to a heart attack, each one does more damage than the last…and somehow the attacks have come with greater frequency over the last 20 years or so.
Carlson’s statement is a bit worse than you said, Ed. After quoting the source as saying yes, I believe the CIA was involved in the JFKA, he circled back to repeat the point. While the quote was still on the screen he said yes, they were involved, eliminating “I believe”, which he characterized as an unequivocal statement.
I don’t much care about that. Carlson was obviously seeking attention for what he wanted to say. Claiming a source and playing with the statement was his way of doing that. It worked. Virtually everyone, including you, Ed, has focused on that source and his statement, leading to all kinds discussion in the MSM about the JFKA, and eluding the MSM gatekeepers in the process.
Carson’s main point, imo, was not that the CIA murdered JFK. That has been debated for years. Rather it was what the murder unleashed on society afterward, and which continues to this day. After all, getting to the bottom of the murder is not just about correcting the history books; it’s about dealing with that aftermath. It’s about confronting Ray McGovern’s MICIMATT to try to establish something better (the Military, Industrial Congressional, Intelligence Media, Academia, Think Tank complex).
Carlson made that point eloquently. He ended with this: the existence of the CIA we now have mocks the very concept of democracy as a core value.
You never mentioned this part of what Carlson said, and neither have most other responders. But it’s necessary to truly evaluated what he said.
The perfect is the enemy of the good
I appeared on Carlson on the 16th. Before I agreed to appear, I asked a number of questions to the senior producer and Tucker designed to determine the extent Carlson truly believed what he said and was not simply trying to politicize the issue. I was satisfied with their response and as a lawyer, I have experience vetting potential clients, witnesses, etc.
As further ground truthing, I insisted on the right to say what I wanted to say without any editorial interference, and was given carte blanch on the content of my presentation.
So I suggest folks suspend their disbelief right now. The ultimate goal is to get a House oversight hearing and Tucker has a direct line to the incoming chair. Backchannels have already been established. Seeds have been planted and are being watered. stay tuned.
It’s genius, really, such great knowledge of basic human psychology: suspect everything, but be sure of nothing and thereby be hesitant and inactive. Worthy of Mr. Bernays himself, this …
Where I have a quibble or two with Ed’s argument above is, however, re two things. One, while the Kennedy assassination is always newsworthy for some of us, Carlson did not have to talk about it … it is not a big issue on people’s minds currently. Wouldn’t the technique to cut out the main point be more appropriate for a story that’s getting out of hand and needs to be controlled?
Second, this is not the first time Carlson has been talking about the malfeasance of the Mil-Sec establishment lately. I realize Ed hasn’t been watching the show; but he’s been talking about these issues repeatedly over the past few months.
So, I’m not sure what this is … perhaps the egregious actions of the deep state against Trump have unnerved the right enough that they truly feel threatened and want to start over? Who knows …
Lastly, back to the psychological point above, why is it that uncertainty leads to lack of action? I mean, many, perhaps most people realize the national sec state had something to do with the assassination. Instead of uncertainty and inaction, why doesn’t this lead to a determination that this level of secrecy is untenable in a purported democracy and therefore all facts must be immediately released and that lack of same is admission of guilt (this last was stated by Carlson) and should lead to immediate termination of the agency?
If anyone is interested – https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/search?q=JFK&max-results=20&by-date=false&m=1 – a list of headnotes to a JFK word search in DaLimbraw Library archive since 2015. You’ll be reading for days!
I just spit out my humble pie when I read: “he was the first mainstream corporate journalist to say that ‘the CIA was involved in the assassination of the president.’”
You know he isn’t even close to being a journalist say like Jonathan Pilger or, well, just your local small town newspaper reporter covering city council, school board, murders, traffic violations, planning and zoning, rose club, local wrestling conferences, weather, features on dorymen and dorywomen, and such.
We sure know how to celebtiy cultize these misanthropes. Multi-millionaires. Big bags of wind. Incable of judging a community college debate, let alone debate someone in 11th grade high school.
But alas, Reagan was a great communicator, the Neocons are not from a well spring of Jewish intellectuals and even “liberals,” and sure, war is peace.
This BIden is more than a hald century of murder incorporated’s henchman: fill the prisons with black and brown folk; more wars and proxies; get that Anita Hill Good; Strom THurman love child; Mister CitiBank Boy; the Ukraine’s best asset next to Hunter; accused rapist; and King Kong of Plagiarism.
But much much worse.
So here you go: Real Journalism! “Biden Protects CIA By Withholding 5,000 Critical Documents on JFK Assassination”
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/12/27/biden-protects-cia-by-withholding-5000-critical-documents-on-jfk-assassination/
And, I highly recommend Matthew Ehret:
https://youtu.be/ZKQnaPAkunU
https://youtu.be/SZJ8hmvOrp4
Later, Haeder
Chomsky, & Hedges are sharp thinkers whose life experiences have nonetheless trapped them in certain bad habits of observation & analysis that we would normally just call ‘ruts’ IF we weren’t so casually dependent on dumping our own critical thinking work their way, using them as cheap intellectual labor to tidy up the political landscape .
Kiriakou is no dummy either , but his blithe assurance that he hasn’t seen any evidence (yet ) shows that we’d best not take long naps when he’s posted on lookout duty !
Yes….too many words….little being said !
That was a good read. Thank you for those thoughts and observations.
I was four years old watching the presidential cavalcade on a black and white television set in my parents living room when John was shot. My Grandmother, an American, really loved John so when I saw him go down I knew this was a bad thing.
I’ve read most of Jim Garrison’s interviews and press, watched the Zapruder film (pretty much what I saw on TV, only in colour) and tried to keep up with ‘conspiracy theory’ (the new truth) in my search for the culprits, so your observations on the FOX information release, and on Tucker Carlson, are a balm.
This is the first time I’ve been to your blog but certainly not the first time I’ve read your thoughts in writing. Please keep up the great work.
Much Respect
Hedges did the same thing to people who questioned the official story on 9/11.
I remember his condescending referral to some 9/11 Truth protesters as being in tee shirts and dirty jeans ,”you know the type” he sneered.
Didn’t Kennedy call for Israel to register w/ FARA only days before his death? Also, much union/pension funds were on the line for military contracts, which would not do well after the Krulak/Mendenhall fact finding mission to VietNam. Totally agree on Chomsky- ANTHROPROCENE- no dinosaur gets to name their epoch 🙂
Ed, thank you for this necessary call to sobriety. You have articulated with precision and clarity my own original and vaguer “gut” reaction.
I also think some remarks by Caitlin Johnstone from several days ago are germane in this regard:
“Hard proof could emerge of the CIA directly assassinating JFK and as long as it was only covered by Tucker Carlson it would have zero meaningful impact. Carlson now plays the role of Alex Jones: make sure he’s the only one talking about an inconvenient truth and it makes it look like a right wing crackpot conspiracy theory. Only difference is Carlson has a much larger audience and therefore kills the story much more effectively.”
For sure this is a limited hangout which ensnares through equivocation, hoping that the bait will be taken and then the stronger claim based on it exposed as a “misinterpretation.”
But I also agree, as Caitlin says, that the planting of this “revelation” by an (apocryphal?) source on Fox News furthers the phony right/left polarization, and reinforces the “Crimestop” that the likes of Hedges/Chomsky are guilty of when it comes to their analyses of the national security state.
I watched the show, immediately concluded Bobby Jr. source for Fox announcer; and, soon, we got the Tweet from him: “The CIA’s murder of my uncle was a successful coup d’état from which are [sic] democracy has never recovered.” He would soon enough correct his grammar: writing “our” and deleting “are”.
This was my sense; I D K with evidence the source used for that television broadcast.