During World War II, the Nazis had two English speaking propagandists, Lord Haw-Haw and Axis sally. The Japanese also had an English speaking one too. Their mission was to broadcast fake news to the Allied troops so that their claims would undermine their fighting morale.
For those who doubt the concept of reincarnation, one need only turn on Fox News to see that they are, once again, among us. I refer, of course to Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo.
Last month, Carlson, in his best Lord Haw-Haw fashion declared that Democrats believed that Americans had ‘a patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin’ and posed the question”What is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much?’”. He contends that Ukraine is not really a democracy describing it as a “pure client state of the United States State Department,” despite the fact that Trump tried to extort the newly elected President into opening an investigation into Hunter Biden in exchange for already pledged military assistance. He sought to frame the choice between supporting Ukrainian President Zalensky and Vladimir Putin by posing the question “…But will destroying the entire Russian economy make Putin less bad? Will it make Russian troops withdraw from Ukraine? And if it will, how exactly will that work and how long will it take? Or is the plan even bigger than that? If they did, we can force Vladimir Putin from office entirely. Okay. Will that work? And if it does work, what happens to Russia after Vladimir Putin leaves? “
The new “Axis Sally,” Laura Ingraham, tried to blame the invasion on the “weakness and the incompetence” of the Biden Administration and derides President Zalensky’s appeal to Putin to end the invasion as a “pathetic display.”
Not to be outdone by her two co-hosts, Maria Bartiromo aspiring to be the 21st century “Tokyo Rose,” suggested that Putin’s invasion was a “ruse” to divert attention from Hilary Clinton’s email and the ‘hoax over the Russian investigation.” As the invasion unfolded, she speculated that “It seems that there is a predetermined outcome here in place. And that this is a slow death to Ukraine and president Zalensky as the Russian forces continue to get closer. With all of these other fatalities that we’re talking about-and some people have told me over the weekend that they feel that. At the end of the day, this administration does not see Putin as the enemy, they see him as a partner on many issues. They see him as a partner on climate change. They see him as a partner on the Iran deal.” Putin as a partner. She may have outdone Alex Jones with this conspiracy theory.
Carlson in his “Lord Haw-Haw role, “has now expanded his audience to include the viewers of Russian state television. The publication Mother Jones reported that memos from the Kremlin ordered that Russian state television “feature tucker Carlson in their coverage of the #Ukraine war as much as possible” and quoted the memo which said “it is essential you use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News hos, Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally.”
Of late, such Republican intelligentsia as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn and Matt Gaetz, perhaps coveting a spot on Russian Television, have publicly echoed some of “Lord Haw-Haw’s” claims.
We can only be grateful that Carlson wasn’t born one-hundred years ago or we would have had to listen to him question whether Adolf Hitler’s successor would have been worse.