Tucker Carlson

Right wingers lie all the time. So why does each new barrage of bunk carry the shock of the new?

Tucker Carlson, far from the worst of his bad lot, spewed an impressive amount fertilizer on Bill Maher's program tonight:

1. He said that viagra saved the rhino, which was supposedly being hunted to extinction by Asians who consider rhino horns an aphrodisiac. But Asians don't really hold to that belief. Some Chinese traditionalists consider rhino horn a cure for fever.

2. Carlson emphatically said that there is no evidence that the levees were deliberately blown in New Orleans. In fact (as Spike Lee, also on the panel, should have pointed out) we have several named witnesses who claim that explosions did occur. Others counter that these witnesses were mistaken. We should recognize the difference between disputed evidence and no evidence.

3. He averred that Congress bears much of the blame for the Iraq war, since they voted for it. In fact, Congress authorized war only if Saddam Hussein refused inspections. But weapons inspectors did enter the country, and they did their work unhindered. From the start, this war was unauthorized, unconstitutional, and illegal.