Tucker Carlson consults a private eye about the pandemic

Tucker Carlson consults a private eye about the pandemic

Washington Post

Opinion by 

Alexandra Petri

Columnist

May 17, 2021 at 10:10 p.m. GMT+9

Fox News host Tucker Carlson speaks during the National Review Institute's Ideas Summit at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in D.C. on March 29, 2019. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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I was sitting at my desk watching the ceiling fan spin and drinking black coffee when he walked in. He looked like trouble, if trouble was Episcopalian.

He said his name was Tucker Carlson and he wanted someone to investigate something. He looked like the sort of man who had worn a bow tie for years and probably would again. He said he had a case for me, but only if I had guts. I had plenty of guts and told him so.

“What’s the case?” I said.

Tucker helped himself to a seat at my desk. “A lot of unprecedented things happening, but honestly, not all of them are shocking,” he said. Tucker squinted when he talked, as if he was trying to read something printed in a small font that was just a little too far away for absolute comfort.

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“I’m not sure I follow,” I said. It was hot. I loosened my collar. A fly was ascending the frosted glass door slowly, climbing up from the nameplate like Sisyphus on the return trek. The TV one room over was blasting, and I could hear voices on it shouting about the need to buy gas.

Tucker heard it, too. “Well, you know,” Tucker said. “On some level, let’s be honest about it, the White House approves of this disaster.” He squinted when he talked, like someone who had placed a very specific and confusing order in a restaurant and was now scrutinizing it with the hope that the waiter had gotten one small, particular detail wrong so that he could make things unpleasant for that waiter.

“Listen,” I said, “I’m a private eye, and I’m prepared to take on a case, if you can tell me what I’ll be taking on. If you’ve got something you want investigated, I’m happy to investigate it. Just say the word. But you need to say the word.”

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He said he had a case. He said he would get to it. I urged him to do so. The ceiling fan spun lazily overhead. The fly began its trek up the frosted glass of the door once again, like a metaphor for the conversation. “The question is: why?”

“Why what?” I asked.

He nodded. “Why?” He squinted when he talked, like he had just seen someone immigrate to America voluntarily and was confused why they had bothered.

“Listen,” I said, “Tucker, it may not look like it, but my time has value. If you have a case for me, I’ll take it, but you need to tell me what you want looked into. Not just vague insinuations that something’s going on, somewhere.”

“Get ready for a lifetime of filthy wet cotton covering your mouth, reduced oxygen flow to your brain, and a world where every stranger looks the same because no one has a face,” Tucker said.

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I sighed. The prose was a little much even for me.

“In a masked world, human beings never really touch each other. Is that public health?”

“Is that your question?” I said. “Your question is, ‘Is wearing masks public health?’”

“No, it’s not public health,” Tucker said. He squinted when he talked, like he was mad at the sun and didn’t trust it. “It’s a kind of punishment. Tony Fauci is punishing the country — you, us, everyone. The question is..."

“Yes?” I said. “What’s the question?”

“Why is he doing that?” He squinted when he talked, like he was looking for a question to ask that was not purely rhetorical in nature, but not looking very hard.

“Your question is ‘Why is Tony Fauci punishing the country?’” I said. I was starting to get impatient with this man.

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“Maybe he likes it, that’s possible,” Tucker said.

“So that isn’t your question.”

“But you’ve got to think," Tucker continued, unruffled, "that at least part of Fauci’s authoritarian germ hysteria is a cover for something else.”

“Do I?” I said. “Have I got to think that?” It was another one of those rhetorical questions that he liked so much, but he ignored it. The fly had given up and was just sitting on the glass now, rubbing its spindly legs together like it had a plan that was coming to fruition.

“Could it be that Tony Fauci is trying to divert attention from himself and his own role in the covid-19 pandemic?”

“Do you know about Google?” I said. Now we were just asking each other rhetorical questions that no one had interest in answering. That could take a lot of time, if we let it. I loosened my collar. “I’ve got a question for you, pal. Is it true that a judge stated that there was no point accusing you of slander, because, as your own Fox lawyers argued, ‘the “general tenor” of the show should ... inform a viewer that you were not “stating actual facts” about the topics you discussed and were instead engaging in “exaggeration” and “non-literal commentary”’? And before you say anything, the answer is ‘yes.’”

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“The question is,” he said. “Why?” He squinted when he talked, like he knew people were listening to what he had to say, and he was trying to understand why.

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