A time-honored parlor game for political pundits is to expose the glaring hypocrisies of their opponents with pithy zingers, a tradition that has flourished in the 140-character universe of Twitter. The boilerplate is something like this: Party A is demanding X, but when the issue is Y, Party A demands the opposite! A liberal-friendly example:
And a conservative one, referring to President Obama's inaugural address:
These devastating juxtapositions have not, of course, led either side to reexamine its positions or forge a more conciliatory path forward. However, they at least possess the virtue of making a modicum of sense. It's hard to say the same of a recent attempt in the genre by Tucker Carlson, the editor-in-chief of the conservative Daily Caller. In response to the news that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta would lift a ban on women in combat, a subject upon which people can reasonably disagree, Carlson fired off this tweet:
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Critics, of course, pounced. Some have lectured Carlson as if he were a child…
…questioned his manhood...
…and attacked his sartorial pretensions.
Jonathan Chait at New Yorkcompared Carlson's powers of analogy to those of Lindsay Bluth, not exactly the brightest member of the Bluth family in Arrested Deveopment:
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This is a Lindsay Bluth–level retort. ("You know, we're not the only ones destroying trees. What about beavers? You call yourself an environmentalist, why don't you go club a few beavers?") Serving on combat is a choice citizens make, accepting risk in order to serve their country. [New York]
And Comedy Central's Indecision blog fears what else may be on Carlson's mind:
Thank goodness for Twitter's character limit or all of Carlson's comments would end with "and what are we going to do when their menstruation attracts bears??" [Comedy Central]
There's plenty more — even from Carlson, who is pretty clearly in no mood to back down. Here's his follow-up:
