As I said, there are nuances, and a man can hold one opinion we agree with AND one that we think he’s nuts to hold. I think all of the speech that reduces any one man to “just stupid” or “pure evil” to be expressing unintelligent thought, thought that hates acknowledging complications, lazy thought. I imagine most here probably have no conflict with Fuentes’ view on pornography, for example. In that case, admitting he is right about that would be a good start to seeing a whole, if somewhat mistaken human being rather than a caricature to be treated purely as an enemy.
I think Tucker is a bit off the rails on UFOs, for example. I also think he has gone too soft on too many of his interviewees, listening, and not challenging nearly enough. But he is right to a great extent on some aspects of both Russia and Israel, if not sufficiently informed on others. (I could say a LOT more about him and Russia.) The interview with the Iranian president was never going to work, as he seems to not know what taqiyya is, or how that would certainly be used against him in such an interview. Anyone who calls him an ”antisemite” is simply falling for propaganda. That’s what the term was invented for, the term is nonsense in that Semites also includes Arabs and other peoples; it represents a lack of thought about what things are; “anti-Jew” would be shorter, more honest, and more direct, and that’s what I myself say instead of “antisemite”.
Tucker has made it quite clear on many occasions that he is neutral towards Israel, that he only opposes the extent of support that shuts down all questioning of it, and that other sides should be considered. Sometimes he goes too far in THAT direction. I’m not trying to derail the thread, and don’t expect 100% agreement from everyone, but to point out that these people are complicated. I could equally turn the guns, so to speak, on Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Andrew Klavan, etc, and state both where I think them right and where I think them wrong without condemning them on the whole as “bad people”. And if you look at the Left, I think you’ll find that quite a few of them are going to occasionally express ideas we actually agree with, even though we disagree on so many of the big issues. Again, this is not about Tucker as such but about how we refuse to sift through the ideas and fairly weigh each one on its own merits.
Oh, and I do acknowledge that Chesterton here is right, that Fr Josiah probably did vet Fuentes and decided that both his stand on pornography and his reach were worth letting him speak about pornography.