Look Again: Carlson Defeated Huckabee: It wasn’t even close.
by George Flesh and Charles Jacobs
The Huckabee-Carlson confrontation has been eclipsed by the war in Iran and may be mostly forgotten, but an analysis of the encounter offers critical lessons about how Huckabee could have demolished Carlson but failed to do so.
Many pro-Israel commentators wrote that Mike Huckabee defeated Tucker Carlson in their two-hour videotaped struggle session. But the sad fact is that Huckabee, with the best of intentions, lost to the defamer by a tactical knock out and inadvertently delivered a generous gift to the haters of Jews and Israel.
Contrary to what most college educated folks think, facts, history and logic matter very little–even for an educated audience. “Emotion decides, reason justifies,” as the aphorism teaches us. Once the target has been struck repeatedly with the stink bombs of calumny, slander and lies, defensive explanations have minimal effect. The method of defamers is not to win people over by an intellectual appeal to rational thought. The real battleground is fought in the guts, or kishkes, as our grandparents used to say.
Thus Huckabee could not prevail against the barrage of mud shots with his knowledgeable, calm, and logical refutations. The dishonesty of Carlson’s lies and distortions is irrelevant. Tucker is a skilled practitioner of the art of Joseph Goebbels, who understood that a lie repeated often enough becomes an accepted truth. Carlson’s “questions” in the debate were intended to raise suspicion, to spray a bad odor on Israel and the Jews. No proofs are required to produce doubt. Carlson’s repeated disingenuous “I’m just asking!” questions are in truth assaults: “When did you stop beating your wife?”
Just repeat often enough that the Jews committed genocide and mass starvation in Gaza and you have done real and lasting damage, even though these claims are proven over and over to be false. It is by the constant drip of lies and distortions that the New York Times has, over the years, undermined the Jewish state.
An analyst at Honest Reporting found that Carlson consumed 60% of the talking time, interrupted Huckabee 500 times, and advanced 35 verifiably false claims attacking Israel. He’s a mud-slinging machine gun. A few examples: Herzog visited Epstein’s “pedo island.” Israel shields child molesters from US justice. Huckabee’s “red line” is criticism of Israel. The U.S. government will always side with Israel over Americans. Netanyahu’s parents did not speak Hebrew or live in the region. Qatar has more Christians than Israel. Israel has a higher standard of living than the U.S. Israel prohibits West Bank Christians from visiting Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Netanyahu says anyone who disagrees with Israel must be destroyed. U.S. fought the Iraq war for Israel. Israel has a lot of resources/has no resources.
It doesn’t matter that these are all falsehoods. The vast majority of people are not familiar with the topic, and they will instinctively believe that “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” And many would think: “why would anyone just make up a bunch of absolute lies? And we’ve heard them from other sources too. Must be something to it.”
Instead of “debating” Carlson, Huckabee could have refused to lend a platform for a known bigot and liar, stating the reasons that Carlson does not deserve the implied respect of a public debate.
But once Huckabee agreed to a videotaped interview, he should have launched an unyielding aggressive offensive against Carlson from the first minute.
“Tucker, let me understand you: As a Christian, why are you focusing your fire on Israel instead of jihadists who have murdered and enslaved tens of thousands of Christians over centuries and still do it today in Nigeria, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt? Of course you know that Israel is the only place in the region where the Christian population is growing, where Christians can worship freely, where Christians feel safe. And surely you know that Muslims have driven most Christians out of Bethlehem.
Tucker, tell me this: Why has Qatar invested billions of dollars to buy influence in American universities? You just bought a house there. Why in Qatar of all places? Have they paid you to say absurd things such as Islamism has not killed Americans? You know how Christians in Qatar are confined to a ghetto where churches are not allowed to display a cross outside and where not a single Christian is allowed to be a citizen. Tucker, I’m just asking: Are you being paid to cover this up and bash the Jews? Did anybody pay you to give airtime and praise to a slimebag Holocaust denier like Darryl Cooper? How much did it cost to have you disgrace yourself as a Christian when you hosted a Jew hater like Nick Fuentes? Have you no shame?”
If Mike Huckabee had taken this approach, he could have eviscerated Carlson. And he would have taught America’s Jews how to get off their back foot and demolish their defamers.
A few lessons are salient here. First, do not lend a megaphone to the enemies of Israel in the hope that you can defeat them with logic and facts. Second, if you are forced into a confrontation or you choose to engage, you can win only through relentless preemptive attack. Do not explain. Just push your antagonists up against the wall.
As George Washington wrote in 1799, offensive operations are “the surest means of defense.” Israel and its friends must, like the new philosophy of the IDF, engage our cunning enemies with maximum aggression. Do not wait as they prepare to fire their missiles first. And do not think you can defeat them with a polite gentlemanly debate.