Tough guy Tucker boasts of bathroom brawl

August 29, 2007

This has been making the rounds today, and it’s just too odd to ignore.

On the August 28 edition of MSBNC Live, hosted by MSNBC general manager Dan Abrams, Tucker Carlson, host of MSNBC’s Tucker, asserted, “Having sex in a public men’s room is outrageous. It’s also really common. I’ve been bothered in men’s rooms.” Carlson continued, “I’ve been bothered in Georgetown Park,” in Washington, D.C., “when I was in high school.” When Abrams asked how Carlson responded to being “bothered,” Carlson asserted, “I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the — you know, and grabbed him, and … hit him against the stall with his head, actually.”

You’ll have to watch the clip to appreciate the full exchange — Carlson’s MSNBC colleagues seemed to think the anecdote was hilarious — but the whole thing is bizarre. On the one hand, Carlson says, “I’m not anti-gay in the slightest” and “I’m the least anti-gay right-winger you’ll ever meet.” On the other hand, Carlson seems to be bragging about helping to beat up a gay guy who allegedly hit on him in a bathroom.

Steve Clemons, Brad Plumer, and Atrios, among others, have interesting takes on the subject.

I’d just add one more question to the mix: how is it possible that Tucker Carlson keeps ended up in racy and dangerous bathrooms?

Consider these quotes from the MSNBC exchange:

* “Having sex in a public men’s room is outrageous. It’s also really common.”

* “I’m not anti-gay in the slightest, but that’s really common, and the gay rights groups ought to disavow that kind of crap because, you know, that actually does bother people who didn’t ask for being bothered.”

* “I do think doing this in men’s rooms appears to be common. It’s totally wrong, and they should knock it off.”

* “I can’t bring my son to the men’s room at the park where he plays soccer because of all these creepy guys hanging around in there. I actually think it’s a problem.”

Now, I lived in DC for quite a while, and I’d never heard of this phenomenon. To hear Tucker Carlson tell, the greater Washington area is suffering from an epidemic of public bathroom sex, so much so that it’s now “really common.”

Is Carlson just remarkably unlucky, or is he wildly exaggerating?

Heavens! Does that Fuc . . . uh . . . I mean . . . Tucker guy set off anyone elses’ gaydar?

Methinks he doth protest to much . . . not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  • Tucker “not gay” Carlson says: “…Whether [senator Craig is] gay or not actually is not our business, and I do think it’s indefensible that the newspaper in Idaho spent a year interviewing 300 people to answer the question, Is he gay? That’s none of your business…”

    Sorry, Schmucker, when someone in power goes around bashing gay people and tries to make sure gay people are denied fundamental rights, when they constantly play the “morality card”, and it turns out they’re gay, it’s not the media’s business?

    Only in Tuckerland.

  • Craig’s bathroom sex is just more intolerable than Vitter’s anal sex with 14y/o hookers because Craig would be replaced by another republican but Vitter would be replaced by a democrat.

    Did Tucker go back with a friend and beat up hookers when they propositioned him? So, it’s just gay people? ” Carlson says, “I’m not anti-gay in the slightest” and “I’m the least anti-gay right-winger you’ll ever meet.” On the other hand,…” Yeah, on the other hand I’ll beat the crap out of a guy who propositions me but not a woman, but I got nothing against gays…hahahahahah!

  • “What’s wrong with National Socialism if you remove the “holocaust’?”

    No answer?

    National Socialism was more than a mere reaction to the communist degeneracy which plagued the German people in the 1920s. It was no reaction to unemployment as the greed barons like to recite. NS had an essentially spiritual nature and that is why its enemies fear it so much. Christian yahoos can be easily controlled but National Socialists, never. NS represents what is essentially the spirit of the Western Europe.

    Blacks especially are victims for they have been lied to about their expectations and they lash out in anger. Integration has produced black rage. Preferential treatment is given to blacks in an attempt to produce something which God never intended. From this preferential treatment, whites develop anger and more than not, they direct it at themselves by taking drugs, drinking binges, the MTV route or by imitating those of another race. It’s all escapism and it always catches up with you, sometime, somewhere. What you sow, you will reap.

    We lost our position and it will be a very hard road back to the top. If you want to regain you position at the top, then your whole psyche will need a new paint job. The most difficult task is to admit to yourself that all’s not right in America and all’s not right with you. We CAN change American if we have the guts to change ourselves. We cannot win by playing according to the rules which caused us to lose in the first place. Strength begins at home and as a first step I ask that you spend some time honestly thinking about what life means to you and what kind of world you’d REALLY like to live in — a world full of liars, money hungry corporate thieves, rock band racket, sex addicts, etc.

    Pull the plug on your TV set as a gigantic step. It’s so niggerized that it can only cause you depression and generate anger. TV is not the real world. It’s only a propaganda machine run by people who don’t like white folks very much. If you can start to get your white act together, you will be on the threshold of meeting comrades for the first time in your life. It will be a grand experience. Be warned: as your individual substance grows and improves, the more you will be envied and eventually, hated. A man is always defined by the enemies he has.

  • I haven’t seen the clip, but my initial take on this was to wonder if he had made up the whole thing just so he could establish some kind of macho cred. I always thought he was gay, and remember being shocked to find out he’s married with children.

    Assuming it even happened – which I have doubts about – why does Carlson feel the need to personalize this? Does he think he can’t have an opinion unless it’s happened to him? Or does he fear that he will sound like one more gay guy masquerading as a straight one if he doesn’t add his own macho response to being approached?

    What made me laugh, though, was the part about him having to go get someone else to go back with him and deal with the guy – kinda takes the whole macho thing down more than a few pegs, doesn’t it?

  • I suspect Tucker IS the least anti-gay right-winger around.

    “I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the — you know, and grabbed him, and … hit him against the stall with his head, actually.”

    If he grabbed a fellow by the “you know” and was knocking him against the stall using only the head,… well, let’s just say I think Tucker could make some money in cinema! Such enthusiasm!

    You go, gurl!

  • So Tucker (and probably Beck) will be outed soon, but only because one (or both) of them got “caught red-handed” in some bathroom somewhere.

  • There was a young fellow called Skinner
    Who asked a young girl to dinner
    At half-past nine they sat down to dine
    At half-past ten it was in her
    — Not Skinner, the dinner.

    There was a young fellow called Tucker
    Who took a young girl to supper
    At half-past nine they sat down to dine
    At half-past ten it was up her
    — Not Tucker, some other f*cker called Skinner.

    He’s not gay but he likes poetry. Apparently.

  • I don’t know much about this subject (toe tapping signals? WTF?), but may I suggest a possibility?
    Those creepy guys around the bathrooms have actually followed him there, having been lured by his “bow tie” signal.
    Or maybe he wears his leather chaps to the park. It could be any number of things.

  • In Craig’s case I’m not suggesting it was entrapment, but I do suspect that an undercover vice cop knows how to show a blip on someobody’s gaydar. He knows how to look, stand, etc so that he would attract a Craig to initiate a contact.

    On the other hand these guys that follow Tucker to the bathroom probably know more about Tucker than Tucker does.

  • “how is it possible that Tucker Carlson keeps ended (sic) up in racy and dangerous bathrooms?”

    His bowtie.

  • …went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the — you know…

    I’m struggling to figure out what part of the anatomy Tucker is implying he grabbed.

  • I think our KKK troll has returned and co-opted another user’s psuedonym

  • #7 former dan – I immediately thought of that Onion piece too! The Bush/DeLay/Hastert/Frist era has really been giving the Onion a run for its satirical money lately – very hard for them to stay ahead of reality.

    Carpetbagger – I know you don’t like to moderate comments, but neonazis like #9 should really be deleted/banned.

  • Is Carlson just remarkably unlucky, or is he wildly exaggerating?

    Maybe he’s just extremely busy in those bathrooms.

  • I’ve lived in the DC area for 30 years. Back in the 70s, I had a hooker jump over the door one night when I had the top down on 13th Street (the old LeMans didn’t have AC) but never have I been accosted in a men’s bathroom — except for that one time a guy sneaked up behind me and asked if I’d accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Couldn’t finish peeing after that.

  • How could even the gayest gay guy find Tucker Carlson sufficiently attractive to come on to him? An ugly soul shows through.

  • Glad to see I’m not the only one who thought of the Onion.

    Is Carlson just remarkably unlucky, or is he wildly exaggerating?

    Or wishing someone would hit on him? Talk about sour “grapes.”

    I wish someone would point out that he’s a complete puss for needing to fetch “someone he knew” (daddy?) to help him administer the alleged beating.

    But for now, all I need to know is MSNBC employs a violent homophobe. Time for a nasty letter to the CEO. If I watched TV I could boycott.

  • “…how is it possible that Tucker Carlson keeps ending up in racy and dangerous bathrooms?”

    How is it possible Tucker Carlson keeps ending up on TV?

    I find it amusing, but not surprising, that Carlson’s mano a mano with a gay guy required another mano’s help.

    My favorite Tucker – Gay combat was on CNN’s defunct “Crossfire” a few years ago. Openly and proudly gay Gore Vidal sliced Carlson (whom he called “Bowtie Boy”) into little pieces. At one point, when Carlson asked Gore to explain the meaning of some quote, Vidal replied (with a sigh) that he didn’t have time in a short TV segment to tutor Carlson in remedial reading.

    Vidal knew exactly what he was doing and relished it. If you didn’t see the show, it’s a pity because it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see someone with Vidal’s stature and exquisite sarcasm squash pissant Tucker like a bug.


  • Basilisc: Carpetbagger – I know you don’t like to moderate comments, but neonazis like #9 should really be deleted/banned.

    Where do you prefer your cockroaches, in your cupboards or in the middle of the kitchen floor with the light on?

    SPLAT!

    Just sayin’ s’all.

  • Interview MSNBC w/Bathroom Anon Cruiser Politico-Junkie Who Sucked Larry’s Cock In Union Station (Thank You all for ‘coming out-lol)

  • I don’t watch Tucker, and I won’t because he is obviously one of the stupidest people to walk on the planet. To wear such obvious homophobia on his sleeve as a badge of courage is so ridiculous as to be instant fodder for late-night comedians. I want to hear Jon Stewart on *ucker Carlson.

    Decades ago, when homosexuality was far more hidden, and being ‘out’ was far less common public toilets were in fact ‘tea rooms’, as they were called. where homosex frequently took place, or people met each other and went somewhere else to have sex. There were elaborate signals, and some acquired reputations as places to go for for man-man sex, but all this is an anachronism. All the old ways guys used to find other guys for sex have essentially been replaced by the internet, and gay venues where people don’t have to tap their feet. Carlson and Craig are living on some other planet.

    The whole story Carlson tells is highly improbable, and to suggest that public toilets are dens of homosex is absolutely laughable. That someone approached for sex in a men’s room wouldn’t just say ‘no thank you’, or just complain to whatever authority is responsible for the men’s room, and would go and get a friend to go back and beat up the miscreant, who most likely wouldn’t be there by then, beggars credulity. Just like he isn’t a homophobe. Carlson is plainly full of shit, and a disgusting hypocrite.

  • Let’s see Tucker responds to a man making a pass at him by bringing in a friend and they both put their hands on the man’s genitals. This is a rather odd way to indicate that you are turned off by the prospect of having personal contact with someone else’s erogenous zones.

    Isn’t it?

    Are we sure the guy in the girl’s tie is straight?

  • Well, Tucker may be a homophobe, but he is right about some public restrooms being unsafe.

    In PDX they took the doors off of them so that drugs and stuff would be discouraged – they couldn’t hide in the expected privacy – but that generally scared off others and just meant drug deals needed extra muscle to tell people the stalls were ‘busy’.

    Anyhow, I personally haven’t seen a place like that in ten years.

  • Tucker seems to be trying just a little bit too hard to be another gay-bashing righty, as if somehow that takes him off the “I bet he’s gay too” list. Larry Craig and Ted Haggard both publicly bashed gays when it could certify them as being part of the straight crowd. By making such an absurd point of it, Tucker just acts like he’s working overtime to deflect any suggestion of his sexuality. In poker that’s called a tell.

  • Is it clear from the story that Tucker wasn’t physically assaulted in that bathroom? Because you’re right, if someone just asked if he was interested, his reaction was unconscionable. Though I’m glad in women’s bathrooms that we’re less exposed.

    And I think everyone is overreacting in protesting this doesn’t really happen in bathrooms. Of course it does occasionally. He’s only mentioning one such occasion. Hey, when I was a teenager some man hanging out in the kids section at the library started up a conversation with me and stood way too close as I was looking through books, before I was sure what was going on and ran downstairs and found a schoolmate to escort me home. That doesn’t mean it happens all the time at libraries, but it’s still a fact.

  • Anne said:

    I haven’t seen the clip, but my initial take on this was to wonder if he had made up the whole thing just so he could establish some kind of macho cred.

    It never happened. He started the stupid story and cornered himself with his being “hit on”. Anything less than violence against the conveniently imagined perp would have indicated ambivalence on Tucker’s part. The red light went off in his talking head brain stem and warned him that he’d better kick some ass soon or he would catch more hell. No way to prove anything but I’d bet none of it is true.

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