The Washington Post reports this about the “scandal” that was reported by the Daily Caller:
An escort who appeared on a video claiming that Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) paid her for sex has told Dominican authorities that she was instead paid to make up the claims and has never met or seen the senator, according to court documents and two people briefed on her claim.
The woman said a local lawyer had approached her and a fellow escort and asked them to help frame Menendez and a top donor, Salomon Melgen, according to affidavits obtained by The Washington Post.
[…] Daily Caller Editor Tucker Carlson did not reply to phone calls and e-mails requesting comment.
The Caller’s response is that the Post got the wrong prostitutes, and this:
WaPo might have saved itself the embarrassment if they’d bothered to call us before running their stupid piece.
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 5, 2013
The Caller’s piece was published a little after midnight this morning. The Post’s was out in yesterday’s edition, which means it was out sometime before midnight on Sunday. In other words, it took almost a full day for Tucker and his boys to gin up a new set of almost comically bad lies. By the middle of the Caller’s story, they’re drilling down into Orly Taitz-style bullshit like the batteries on the translator’s laptop dying.
As usual with these “scandals”, the thing lives on in the right-wing media long after the plot is lost. Since prostitution is legal in the Dominican Republic, the supposed scandal was that the prostitute Menendez hired was underage at the time. The latest Caller story doesn’t even make that allegation about the new hookers that they’ve found, so what’s the crime here? Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than willing to believe that Menendez did something wrong, but the Caller is so hung up on the supposed naughtiness of hiring prostitutes that they can’t even fabricate a real crime, much less provide credible evidence of one.
TR
In Tucker’s defense, if you’re going to run a stupid piece, you absolutely should check with him first. I mean, he *really* does stupid well.
Mark S.
This is going to totally destroy Tucker’s credibility.
Oh wait.
the Conster
Tucker then went on to say “I know you are but what am I?” farted, then chuckled to himself while he flicked a booger.
Chris
Huh, why do I find that entirely plausible? Too bad Andrew Breitbart isn’t around to milk it…
Odie Hugh Manatee
@the Conster:
You left out some minor detail.
cmorenc
Apparently, if you’re a Democratic Senator from New Jersey and while on a trip to the Dominican Republic, allegedly hire a prostitute (where prostitution is legal)…it’s a scandal that calls into question his worthiness to hold office. If you’re a Republican Senator from Louisiana and while in D.C. hires a prostitute…that’s an insufficient scandal to merit his dismissal from office. That’s true even though in the Democratic Senator’s case, he vehemently denies doing so, and the woman on whose allegation the story is based repudiates the story and says she was hired to frame him, while in the Republican Senator’s case, he openly admits doing so, and the prostitute’s escort agency’s business records confirm it.
How deliciously fitting it would be for Tucker Carlson to get caught in a call-girl scandal where his fetish was having a prostitute tie bow-ties around his weenie.
the Conster
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
LOL. I’m sure he’s a booger eater, not a flicker, too.
I’m going to go get sick now.
Zifnab25
I can’t wait to hear the wall-to-wall coverage of this major turn-around in the Menendez story. I bet it gets all the same coverage the original story got.
Also, I look forward to all the mea culpas from Republican pundits screaming about how morally debased their Democratic rivals are. /checks watch
Any minute now.
NonyNony
@Mark S.:
You know, part of me would be willing to believe that this was all a big conspiracy to destroy Tucker Carlson’s reputation by planting a false story for his rag to pick up which could be easily debunked by someone doing real news. It’s a bit overly convoluted, but someone with some money and a need for revenge might think of it.
But then I remember that sending a character assassin against Tucker Carlson is like sending a kid out on a snipe hunt. So probably not.
Zam
@cmorenc: If you say God forgives you everything is ok, I’m not even sure why we have trials anymore when we can just ask for God’s forgiveness.
PeakVT
I hope the deception can be traced to Carlson and will put his Daily Shitshow out of business.
YellowJournalism
@NonyNony: I bet the hooker is really Jon Stewart in drag.
nemesis
Right below this story is an ad for FEMA coffins.
Why wasnt I notified that we are a full go operationally?
Frankly, I cant even get excited about donning my Reeducation Camp uniform, since this months Soros check has yet to arrive. Plus, my Obamaphone needs charging and the idjits at the WH sent out phones without chargers.
Why cant gummit do anything right?
Snarki, child of Loki
@Chris: “Too bad Andrew Breitbart isn’t around to milk it…”
You forget: the Dominican Republic shares an island with HAITI.
Zombie Breitbart rides again…
cmorenc
@PeakVT:
Did irrefutably proven deception put Breitbart out of business? Not even Breitbart’s own death has put Breitbart out of business. And Tucker Carlson has the additional fact going for him that it’s hard to put a clown out of business for being ridiculous.
Walker
I know that libel is next to impossible when a public figure is involved, but would this count?
quannlace
Hmmm, first ‘Friends of Hamas’ and now this. No wonder Carlson is oh-so prickly.
jibeaux
@quannlace: Maybe the prostitute was in Friends of Hamas!
maus
I’m sure the Daily Caller has similar opinions of other sex tourists like Limbaugh. Surely.
Scott S.
@Walker: Only if Carlson knew it wasn’t true.
bg
@Walker: For a public figure, “Actual malice” is required. Paying someone to lie probably could satisfy that. Problem would be tying Bowtie Man or whoever to the payment
Patricia Kayden
“As usual with these “scandals”, the thing lives on in the right-wing media long after the plot is lost.”
Why would anyone take anything Rightwingers say seriously? All they do is lie. Look at the Liar who ran for President on their behalf last year.
Davis X. Machina
@Patricia Kayden:
The hookers in Benghazi are amazing….
NonyNony
@PeakVT:
Feh. See @cmorenc above.
But if the deception could be traced to Carlson he might feel some blowback from the DC cocktail crowd that might be painful to him. They don’t have a problem hanging around with a scandal-monger, but one so incompetent that he gets tagged with a fake scandal?
Poor Tucker. He might have to retire in disgrace to sleep on giant pillows made out of Swanson Frozen Foods money. (Why won’t this man go away – he’s rich, he comes from a rich family. This whole “news commentator” schtick is a vanity project for him. He could go off and be a dilettante traveler through Europe and maybe sit on the boards of a few charitable organizations and the world would be a better place for it, even with one more ugly American tromping around Europe.)
Suffern ACE
@NonyNony: except the story first broke late in a campaign. I know menendez was never threatened, but it seems kind of risky to put that underage teen sex story out there to fuck with Tucker.
Mr Stagger Lee
Isn’t the Dominican Republic the same place Rush Limpballs came from with his stash of viagra, when he went there? Crickets from the conservatives when you mention that. (and some say that was a rent a cabana boy thing)
Bobby Thomson
@the Conster: Fifty bucks says the
SmailsCarlson kid picks his nose. Double or nothing says he eats it.GregB
Drudge has trumped the phony John Kerry affair story, the phony girl with a backward B carved onto her face by an enraged black man/Obama supporter and one other phony baloney story about a budget memo and yet he is still Mark Halperin’s and DC’s assignment editor.
It doesn’t matter.
Villago Delenda Est
Fucker Carlson needs to be staked down nude over a fire ant colony and honey poured over him.
What a vile sack of worthless shit he is. He’s a compelling argument for 100% inheritance taxes.
Roger Moore
@Walker:
It depends on who you’re talking about. The key difference between defamation of a private citizen and a public figure is that it’s enough to show that what you said about a private citizen is untrue, while what you say about a public figure has to be something known to be untrue. So the person who hired the prostitutes to lie would certainly be guilty of defamation, but somebody who simply reported on their story without bothering to check the facts carefully wouldn’t be. The obvious question is whether they’re one and the same.
hitchhiker
Shouldn’t the crack Daily Caller team be out trying to figure out who paid that woman to make up shit about the senator? That’s the story, Mr Carlson. Go work it.
Villago Delenda Est
@hitchhiker:
Fucker Carlson doesn’t do “work”.
Roger Moore
@hitchhiker:
Only if they were actually a new organization interested in getting out the truth. As a propaganda organization only interested in advancing the interests of the very wealthy, they have no interest in doing so. Especially considering that they probably don’t have to look beyond their own checkbook for evidence.
Howlin Wolfe
@NonyNony: Right. It’s like the “soul searching” the Republicans do, when they have no soul to begin with. You can’t kill what’s already dead or non-existent.
moda31
To quote a wise internet commenter elsewhere:
moda31
To quote a wise internet commenter elsewhere:
joeyess
Of course we always have this to bludgeon the Bow-Tied One with.
The internets. They truly are forever.
Jay in Oregon
I know we told Tucker Carlson that he should lose the bow tie because it makes him look like a smarmy shitweasel, but we were wrong.
He still looks like a smarmy shitweasel without it.
Ash Can
So let me get this straight — the WaPo tries but can’t get hold of Carlson on Sunday, then Carlson whines late Sunday night that the WaPo didn’t try to contact him? I’d say it’s a good bet that the folks at the WaPo, at least, are now convinced Carlson’s an amateur hack.
White Trash Liberal
@Ash Can: If the WaPo has decided he is an amateur hack, the next step is to give him a weekly column on the editorial page.