I messed up and defended Tucker Carlson at Sage Hana’s site

And quickly found out why I was 'gullible" and ‘Power’ is ‘laughing at me.’

Tucker makes my Substack again.

Sage Hana and I got into a posting fight yesterday in her Reader Comments section. What ignited the verbal brawl was my comment that Tucker Carlson had done a good thing by highlighting many of the Covid issues “our side” cares about.

I had no idea this observation would provoke so much ire in Sage … but, boy did it.

The article now has more than 360 comments and spawned another follow-up piece by Sage on the “Tucker issue” where I was again portrayed as the poster boy for stupidity.

Sage’s description of me was not terribly flattering. An edited-for-space synopsis:

“This is comic book shit … You are gullible, Bill. You are exactly how the Op is supposed to work.

(“Tucker Carlson Tonight”) is a limited hangout to make sure the Bill Rice's feel like something is happening …. I find you incredibly naive. I find that you make Heroes out of people, that you grasp for straws.”

“… They know how to play you, Bill. You are being exploited with your "Golly, Tucker is speaking for me!”

“You just keep telling yourself that Tucker is on it, Bill. You just keep cutting that slack. All the way off the cliff.”

“… Power laughs at you. Power keeps going. All they have to do is trot out millionaire Tucker Carlson and Plucky Bill Rice down South says, SEEEEEEEEE???? IT'S HEBBBBEEENNNNNIIIIINNGGG

“… I cannot talk you down off the cliff. Off you go.”

“… WHAT YOU FAIL TO SEE THAT WHAT TUCKER "ADVOCATES" FOR DOES NOT FUCKING MATTER.

AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL.

IT IS JUST THEATER TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER TO SEE GLEAMING MAN ON TV AND THEN YOU CAN GO BACK TO SLEEP AND WATCH FOOOOTTBBAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.”

(When someone hits the CapsLock key to fire back at you, you know you’ve touched a nerve.)

So I decided to respond …

FIRST COMMENT: Well at least Sage spelled my name correctly.

In way of rebuttal, I’ll start with my “bottom-line” Covid arguments:

Crimes against humanity have occurred. People are dying and becoming gravely injured. Great economic harms have also occurred. Personal liberties have been stolen. All of this must come to an end. Anything or anyone that might make this result happen sooner rather than later is doing a good thing. Tucker is doing such a good thing.

While Sage labels me a Tucker “hero-worshipper,” I don’t accept this as an accurate description.  I admit I am a fan of Tucker’s (because I think he’s a talented writer and he routinely produces original commentary that nobody else on TV is producing).

In 74 days as a Substack author, I’ve written two pieces about Carlson. In both articles, I thanked him for being the first person on network TV to say the things he did. But in both articles I also made clear he should have done this much earlier.

In my short time on Substack, I was thinking I was fighting the good fight for our cause and was speaking truth to power only to learn (from a person with “Sage” in her name)  that “power” itself is “laughing at me.” As it turns out, I am being “played,” and am tremendously “gullible” and “naive.”

In her follow-up article, Sage apologized for being “mean” to me, but the nasty words didn’t hurt me; they amused me.

The main reason I decided to write an answer is I think Sage Hana is completely wrong on the Tucker issue … and this issue is actually quite important.

In my opinion, if we are going to achieve the results we both want to achieve, we need a lot more Tucker Carlsons producing the type monologues and news segments he’s now producing.

I think this is why Sage Hana doesn’t like Tucker ….

As best I can tell, one of the main reasons Sage detests Tucker Carlson is that he waited way too late to join the Covid critic choir.

On this point, we agree. But I don’t agree with the rest of her argument, which I think is this:

Tucker is captured too. All he cares about is money. Gullible people like Bill Rice, Jr. are taking his scathing monologues at face value, but Tucker has really penned these words to placate and neutralize his viewers. He doesn’t really mean any of these things. This makes us think “something is being done,” which in turn has caused us to throttle back on our own criticisms of Pfizer, BlackRock, Fauci, et al.

Furthermore, Sage (who is enlightened) gets this, but people like myself clearly do not. This makes people like myself part of the problem too.

A major flaw in Sage’s take-down effort is that I have NOT throttled back on my criticism of all of the above villains. I have not been neutralized or placated.

For what it’s worth, I do NOT think I am being “naive” or “gullible” for arguing that if you want to change a slough of false narratives, you’ve got to fish where the fish are.

Like it or not, the largest pool of fish are getting their news from the mainstream media. Sage is the one who is being naive if she thinks any of the changes she wants to happen can happen without the loud and influential voices of people like Tucker Carlson.

Sage tells her readers that Tucker produces contrarian Covid commentaries about once every month, which is also false and tells me she hasn’t been watching his show.  I watch his show  almost every night, and for months I’ve been pleasantly dumbfounded that someone of Tucker’s stature is now routinely attacking Big Pharma, Fauci and all the false Covid narratives.

Sage also points out that Tucker isn’t the real boss. That BlackRock, and the Big Media executives are really calling the shots, a point with which I largely agree.

However, Sage misses the real news here. Yes, the real Powers that Be are no doubt calling the shots behind the curtain  … but, still, the highest profile TV journalist in America is now routinely attacking all the main Covid villains. This in itself qualifies as news.

If the Powers that Be do control everything the mainstream media talking heads say, why are they now letting Tucker go off on them on an almost nightly basis?

Said differently, if the monologues Tucker is delivering require no real courage, why isn’t every other Talking Head emulating Tucker’s ratings-winning formula? Why is everyone else letting Tucker have a monopoly on the scathing critiques?

Sage’s theory/answer is that Tucker and his bosses are just giving the masses a little bit of what they want - as one of Sage’s posters put it, letting people like myself “blow off steam.” This keeps millions of Americans from getting really pissed off and coming after the Bad Guys even harder.

It’s all 3-D chess and double-reverse psych ops, but somehow these scathing monologues are actually protecting the Bad Guys, which is preventing us from getting the solutions we want and need.

Nobody in the mainstream press thought the right things early on …

Another “logical” take-away to this psychological operation is that we shouldn’t trust anyone in the mainstream media - now or in the future - because they ALL went along with the deadly ruse from the very beginning.

But if we accept Sage’s mantra, we should ignore the statements of anyone who belatedly saw the light.

Some of my favorite Covid heroes once drank the Kool Aid themselves. Steve Kirsch was vaccinated. So was Naomi Wolf. Ron DeSantis supported the lockdowns for months.

Tucker, according to Sage’s sources, advised Donald Trump to support the lockdowns.

Tucker might have done this, but what’s he saying now? Does he still think lockdowns were a great idea? Heck no, he doesn’t. By now, Tucker must have said 150 times that the Covid response was a catastrophe for America and its citizens.

If we are charting metrics, this is 150 times more commentaries than any other Talking Head on any other network.

The key to Tucker’s success is probably sincerity …

Sage obviously doesn’t believe this, but I think Tucker does believe the things he writes and says on his show. This, in fact, is why his show became the No. 1-rated news show in North America.

People can tell that he believes the things he writes and says on his show. The reason he draws 10 million viewers in a month is people like the fact he’s saying things nobody else on TV is courageous enough to say.

Can such a person be criticized because he didn’t use his platform soon enough to save more lives? Yes, of course.

But when a high-profile media figure comes around and begins to consistently produce commentary that IS “changing the narrative,” I say cut the man some slack for his past “transgressions.”

Here’s the ‘metric’ that matters most …

Sage’s follow-up article mentions various “metrics” seeking to prove that Tucker is a fraud … … and can’t ever be part of the “solution,” etc.

But she didn’t cite one metric she could have used. From what I’ve read, about 90 percent of Americans have decided to take a pass on the Covid “boosters.”

Once upon a time, almost 80 percent of Americans were lining up and clamoring to get the earlier version of these shots, which they all thought were “safe and effective.”

That “safe and effective” narrative has now been blown up thanks to heavy doses of contrarian reporting and commentary, commentary  that largely originated from the “alternative media” (and somehow got past the censors).

The narrative on these scam boosters certainly didn’t change because of reporting from CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS or The New York Times. Every one of their employees are still pushing the boosters and the false narratives.

But this is NOT the case at Fox News. About four or five months ago, led by Tucker Carlson, this network’s on-air personalities started challenging the vaccine narrative in a conspicuous and impossible-to-miss way.

Since Fox News (by a wide margin) has the largest audience of any cable news network, this was not a trivial development.

Sage can challenge this statement if she wants, but I think it must be the truth:  A lot fewer people are now getting these vaccine boosters because of the commentaries and news segments aired by one Tucker Carlson.

This is a great result. If Tucker didn’t do everything he could have to save lives earlier, he is now. His words have certainly saved a lot more lives than my words have … or Sage’s words have.

Nor do I get the impression that Tucker Carlson is going to stop railing about Big Pharma and all the Covid atrocities. He’s a smart man and he gets that he’s on the right side of history.

I say more power to Tucker. While Sage will continue to say I’m being “led off a cliff,” I’m going keep highlighting the words of anyone in the mainstream media who is now passionately telling the truth (three years late or not).

For her part, Sage will keep bashing Carlson and making fun of people like me who support his important critiques, words that are changing the way many people think and are no doubt saving lives.

When she does this, I can’t help but think she’s making a lot of executives at Pfizer, the NIH and BlackRock very happy.

So who’s really been played?