Tell me why you lie.
Back in the day, we had family friends who told us an interesting story. They were on a direct Chicago-Düsseldorf Lufthansa flight. As they were approaching their destination, the plane went into a deep descent. The passengers started to get nervous as looking straight ahead showed their shoes. As the ground was coming closer, the plane leveled off and began to circle the destination airport. As those in the back of the plane began once again to breathe, the pilot came on over the intercom, with his German-accented English: “Had we been given permission to land, we would have set a record time for this flight!”
Every person, knowingly or otherwise, acts according to goals. One NBA star spent an entire season working toward the “triple-double” record and to this day, he has no NBA championship ring; meanwhile, others in the league worked to win it all and some of them did. We all set goals in our lives and many of our actions reflect the goals that we have chosen to make. Oftentimes, there are things in life that seem very similar but really aren’t. Think about a restaurant. The owner can either provide cheap food in order to maximize profit or serve very high-quality food and make less money, but feel good about the product he is providing. For those in the crowd, they might not notice the difference: in both cases, the food is OK and the price is acceptable. But there are cases where such is not the case. A grandson of the Reese’s Cup inventor claims that Nestle is using neither real chocolate nor peanut butter. If his claim is correct, then profit over quality is the driver for such a state of affairs.
Keeping the above in mind, one could ask why Candace Owens is tormenting Erika Kirk and why Tucker Carlson is claiming that Israel is forcing a war that both President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have suggested may be required to prevent Iran from harming the US. Is the goal honesty or eyeballs? Let’s say that they can make a lot more money by selling certain stories or positions, or they can give what we might describe as the objective truth and have fewer viewers. And let’s say that the former brings a lot more money and recognition than the latter. So what do you do? We are often treated to former stars getting in the news for drunk driving or fighting or destroying property. Why? In the world of show business, there is no such thing as bad publicity. If you have spent your entire life with a camera in your face and then it is no longer there, you might make every effort to get that camera back, even if it means playing the fool or committing a minor crime in the process.
While I do not pretend to know much about Erika Kirk, her life with Charlie seemed to be one dedicated to bringing up a family and spreading TPUSA’s message as far and wide as possible. We generally do not know the private lives of others, so one cannot say with complete confidence that a person is as pure as the driven snow. But, using the evidence that is publicly available, it would seem to be beyond a stretch to suggest that the grieving widow of such a young and successful man had some role in her husband’s death. Maybe I am dense, but the fellow who was arrested, who admitted to his buddy that he did the deed and who had in his possession the rifle used in the murder seems to be the actual killer. I have never seen any suggestion that he and Mrs. Kirk had any contact, relation, or common activities. While some crimes are extremely complex and nuanced, this particular assassination would appear to involve a reasonably good marksman shooting from an unguarded position that immediately overlooked the position of Charlie Kirk when he spoke. Any suggestion that his wife was involved seems ghoulish and disconnected from the publicly-available evidence. Can’t this young woman grieve in peace? She has two small children who will grow up without the guidance and love of their father. Why torment her? Just leave her alone and report on aliens.
Tucker Carlson is a tough one to understand. At Fox, he never suggested that he hates Jews or Israel. I found his characterization of Zelensky during the early phase of the war as having antisemitic overtones, the Ukrainian president being described as a rat. But since going solo, he has gone fully anti-Israel and quite anti-Jew. He says that Israel is a terribly violent country. “Israel is so violent. Constantly bragging about murdering people and blowing up kids with pagers, leveling Gaza...the most violent country in the world by far, per capita,” he recently claimed. He believes that any war with Iran is for Israel’s benefit and that Bibi Netanyahu somehow controls Donald Trump. He said that anyone suggesting making war with Iran is a “shill for Israel”. Donald Trump and Marco Rubio have made it clear that a nuclear weapon and continued ballistic missile development are direct threats to the United States. Why would Tucker lie about Israel and claim that Donald Trump is a Bibi-controlled shill for the only democracy in the Middle East?
Some have suggested Qatari money, and he certainly seemed to have a good time recently in Doha, going so far as to suggest that he wanted to buy a house there. Can a Christian own a house in Qatar or are they all bundled into the foreign workers camps, where hundreds of thousands of Christians all live as non-citizens? Some have suggested that his brand of Christianity does not allow for a vibrant, successful and growing Jewish state, that Christianity has replaced Judaism and Jewish presence in the Holy Land is a direct affront to his beliefs. He would not answer Ambassador Mike Huckabee as to Israel’s legitimacy or the right of Jews to live in the land of Israel. He obfuscated and danced around definitions, as he did when presented with a five-fold growth in Israel’s Christian population since 1948 until today. Whatever his reason for trashing Israel and impugning American Jews as having some fake dual loyalty, his approach is working. There are plenty of people who hate Jews and dislike Israel. He has millions of followers on X, and they dig his kooky guests with ahistorical reads on the world. If you make a horrible-tasting pie but have sales through the roof, do you change your recipe? Tucker has his lane of Jew-hating losers whose History Channel subscription ended in 1967 with the attack on the USS Liberty. The ship was warned by the NSA five times to move from its position, and the Israelis provided aid after the mistake was realized. Israel also paid reparations. We’re still waiting for the Palestinian Authority to pay us for trying to kill us in 2002.
A well-known author once pointed out to an interviewer that he is a “best-selling” and not “best-writing” author. What if one has to choose between telling the truth and making a lot of money? What if one has to choose between being honest or having millions of similarly weird people as one's fans? People loved the thuggish Detroit Pistons for their aggressive and violent style of play. Personally, I believe that Erika Kirk is a good person, one who should be left alone to grieve and continue her husband’s work. I also believe that the Iranian threat directly affects the US, if not today, then in a few years. I have 70 people following me on X, but you know what: I might actually be right.