"In June and July, Fox News was the highest-rated television channel in the prime-time hours of 8 to 11 p.m. Not just on cable."

"Not just among news networks. All of television. The average live Fox News viewership in those hours outstripped cable rivals like CNN, MSNBC and ESPN, as well as the broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC, according to Nielsen. That three-hour slot is a narrow but significant slice of TV real estate, and it is exceedingly rare for a basic-cable channel to outrank the Big Three broadcasters, which are available in more households and offer a wider variety of programming. Even the return of live sports did little to stop the momentum: The Fox News programs hosted by Mr. Carlson and Sean Hannity drew more live viewers than competing baseball and basketball games, including a Yankees-Nationals matchup on Opening Day.... MSNBC, whose liberal prime time is an ideological inverse to Fox News, has increased its audience from a year ago. But Rachel Maddow, once neck and neck with [Sean] Hannity at 9 p.m., has fallen behind all three of Fox News’s prime-time stars in total viewers. [Laura] Ingraham, who appears in the less desirable 10 p.m. slot, has drawn more viewers than Ms. Maddow for many months.... Major advertisers, including the Walt Disney Company, T-Mobile and Poshmark, boycotted [Tucker Carlson's show after he] denounced the protesters as violent anarchists. Later, the host called Senator Tammy Duckworth, a wounded veteran, a 'moron' and questioned her patriotism. In recent days, Mr. Carlson called former President Barack Obama a 'greasy politician' and wondered if [George] Floyd’s death had been caused by drug use rather than being pinned to the ground by a police officer. Mr. Carlson’s ratings have never been higher."

From "Boycotted. Criticized. But Fox News Leads the Pack in Prime Time" (NYT).

Whenever you talk about Tammy Duckworth, you must talk about her legs.

I wasn't going to blog this headline I saw this morning — "Tucker Carlson suggests Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost her legs in Iraq, hates America."

But then I saw this:

Does @TuckerCarlson want to walk a mile in my legs and then tell me whether or not I love America?

— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) July 7, 2020

From the WaPo article:

“You’re not supposed to criticize Tammy Duckworth in any way because she once served in the military,” Carlson said Monday night. That didn’t stop him from calling Duckworth, a contender to be presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, “a deeply silly and unimpressive person” and suggesting that she and other Democratic leaders “actually hate America.”...

Duckworth’s combat experience has helped her ascend a list of Biden’s potential running mates... In 2004, she lost her legs when insurgents shot down the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting with a rocket-propelled grenade....

It's terrible that she suffered this injury, and we owe her great respect and empathy, but if she's going to be the VP candidate, it better not be because we're not allowed to criticize her ideas and her political intentions.

Here's the entire Tucker Carlson monologue. The part about Duckworth begins at 11:45 as he notes, "You're not supposed to criticize Tammy Duckworth in any way because she once served in the military" (that is, he doesn't specify the grievous injury):



What Carlson holds up as "deeply silly" is Duckworth's answer to the question whether monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson should come down. Duckworth gives the bland answer: "We should start off by having a national dialogue on it." That's dull and maybe deceptive, but it's not "deeply silly" (or even shallowly silly).

Actually, I happened to watch that monologue on TV last night, and the next thing Carlson said made me imitate him and laugh and laugh: "They're not looking for any kind of colloquy. What they want is a soliloquy." Why did I find that so funny? It was just the sudden turn to elevated vocabulary and rhetoric. That came out of nowhere. Caused me to look up where Carlson went to college! (Answer: Trinity College (in Connecticut).)

"She’s a paragon of the values that Donald Trump, for all his practice as a performer, can’t even pantomime."

"She’s best described by words that are musty relics in his venal and vainglorious circle: 'sacrifice,' 'honor,' 'humility.' More than any of the many extraordinary women on Biden’s list of potential vice-presidential nominees, she’s the anti-Trump, the antidote to the ugliness he revels in and the cynicism he stokes. Americans can feel good — no, wonderful — about voting for a ticket with [Tammy] Duckworth on it. And we’re beyond hungry for that. We’re starving. That ache transcends all of the other variables that attend Biden’s deliberations as he appraises Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Val Demings and others: race, age, experience, exact position on the spectrum from progressive to moderate. Duckworth, a former Army lieutenant colonel who lost both of her legs during combat duty in Iraq, is a choice that makes exquisite emotional and moral sense...."

From "Biden’s Best Veep Pick Is Obvious/She, more than anyone, can get under Trump’s skin" by Frank Bruni (NYT).

By the way, I'm so tired of hearing about "getting under Trump's skin." But it's not Bruni's phrase. It's only in the headline.

"I can’t technically take maternity leave. Because if I take maternity leave, then I won’t be allowed to sponsor legislation or vote during that time period."

Says Tammy Duckworth, the pregnant Senator.

Key word, "technically." When Senators want personal time, don't they just take it? I can understand a politician wanting to purport to exemplify problems that everyday people have, but Duckworth doesn't have the problem of needing authorization to take time off from work to deal with childbirth and the care of a newborn.

There's also the breastfeeding question:

“You are not allowed to bring children onto the floor of the Senate at all,” Duckworth pointed out. “If I have to vote, and I’m breastfeeding my child, especially during my maternity leave period, what do I do? Leave her sitting outside?”

Obviously, you bring the baby onto the Senate floor and everyone loves it (or acts like they do). It's about like the way they'd deal with the no-dogs-on-the Senate floor rule if there were a blind Senator with a seeing-eye dog. Everyone would instantly and automatically understand that there was an implicit exception to the rule. This is like the first-year law-school problem of the sign that says "No motor vehicles in the park" and the question whether a paraplegic in an electric wheelchair can go in.

But I'd love to see a Senator try to bring an emotional support animal— perhaps a bichon frise — onto the Senate floor.