Greenpeace complained to the FCC today for Carlson's on-air statements praising the bombing of the environmental group's vessel "The Rainbow Warrior." The bombing killed, in an especially horrible manner, a photographer with two small children. New Zealand considers the bombing the country's first terrorist attack.
"'Terrorists do not need any further encouragement to commit their horrific acts,' John Passacantando, Greenpeace USA's executive director, wrote to the FCC. 'This violent act against the Rainbow Warrior did not just destroy property. It took the life of Fernando Pereira, the ship's photographer, who drowned below deck, leaving behind two young children.'"
"On his June 22 and July 15 'Situation' broadcasts, Carlson praised French agents' July 10, 1985 attack on Greenpeace's 'Rainbow Warrior,' in New Zealand's Auckland Harbor.
"Carlson said he was 'objectively pro-France. You know, France blew up the Rainbow Warrior, that Greenpeace ship in Auckland Harbor in the '80s. ... It won me over.' At another point, Carlson called the mining of the ship 'a bold and good thing to do.'"
Hey, Tucker, kneejerk anti-environmentalism went out of vogue in fashionable Republican circles in the mid-90's. "Kill the whales" and "I love animals--they're delicious"--all that stuff was mildly amusing back then. But you're not even doing that outmoded routine right. Congratulations--you're now officially as tough as all the monsters in the world who make their point with explosive devices from a distance. A terrorist act that kills innocents isn't "a bold and good thing to do." Apologizing to Fernando Pereira's children on your show would be.
