Amanda Marcotte, a blogger over at Raw Story, wrote this really hilarious column about Tucker Carlson’s recent assertion that somehow smoking is “masculine.”

What sparked Carlson’s bizarre comments was a “test run” of a new CGI cartoon of Popeye with no corncob pipe. Now, keep in mind, this was a “test run,” so it’s entirely possible that Popeye’s pipe will be added later (and equally possible they made a conscious decision to remove his pipe). Anyway, Carlson and some other Fox News dweeb had some ridiculous meltdown over it that this was somehow all the fault of liberals “wussifying” our culture by stamping out smoking. Carlson said something to the effect that liberals would rather have birth control pills in cartoons than tobacco because liberals are terrified of tobacco (Gee, not because it kills 400,000 Americans a year or anything, Carlson.).

One thing I would like to point out to Carlson, something I didn’t think of off the bat — so smoking makes you more masculine, huh? Well, Tucker, one of the myriad side effects of cigarette smoking, you douche, is MALE IMPOTENCE! That doesn’t exactly make you more masculine.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, Marcotte, who often writes about women’s issues, had this to say about Tucker Carlson’s nonsense:

So advertising tobacco to 4th graders is good and advertising the pill to them is bad.  Is it because the pill is bad for you and tobacco is good for you? Well, no. I mean, tobacco causes cancer, normally understood as a negative thing, whereas the pill prevents unintended pregnancy, which is normally understood as a positive thing (except in the eyes of misogynists, a not insignificant number of Americans, sadly).

Marcotte adds:

One of the hosts pointed out, you know, that maybe it’s actually a responsible thing to not glamorize smoking tobacco for little kids. You know, because cancer. ““No child has ever smoked a pipe because of Popeye,” Carlson replied.

So, let’s follow here: Somehow Carlson believes that images of contraception (which no one, I repeat no one, is actually putting in a Popeye cartoon) onscreen could poison children’s minds, but somehow images of tobacco wouldn’t work that way. Because manly man man man don’t ask questions it’s all about the manly man he-man man stuff.

Carlson and Fox News dweeb Clayton Morris also complained that the new Wonder Woman is wearing pants rather than a tight little leotard. Carlson somehow claimed that this was an “Islamic” point because liberals (I guess) want to keep women covered up.

Marcotte writes:

Okay, so let’s follow here. Contraception is bad, because it might give kids the idea that sex is okay. However, putting pants on Wonder Woman is bad because we need to be teaching kids that sex is okay.

Just kidding, it’s not a contradiction. It makes perfect sense if you employ the double standard. Contraception is bad because it makes women believe that sex is okay, and women should always feel ashamed and dirty about wanting to have sex. But Wonder Woman is obliged to always be wearing short shorts because men need to be told, every second of every day, that their sexual desires are gallant, important, and so critical that they can never be ignored or set aside for even a second.