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Carlson: White House Should Have Been Smearing Fitzgerald Months Ago

Tonight on MSNBC, Tucker Carlson shared his true disappointment with the White House response to the CIA leak scandal.

It’s not the dishonesty, or the months of stonewalling. It’s that the Bush administration didn’t start smearing the special prosecutor early enough:

I think politically [the Bush administration] did very much the wrong thing by saying nice things about Patrick Fitzgerald some months ago — “he’s a man of integrity,” “he’s a good guy,” “we have complete confidence he’s going do the right thing,” etc., etc. — making it now almost impossible for the White House, even on background, to attack the guy.

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Full transcript below:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Do you think the President would be well-advised to go this route with Kay Bailey Hutchinson, to try and minimize the importance of some of these middle-level charges?

TUCKER CARLSON: He should have done that a long time ago. I think this White House made a tactical error — maybe not a moral error, maybe the White House did the right thing — but I think politically they did very much the wrong thing by saying nice things about Patrick Fitzgerald some months ago — “he’s a man of integrity,” “he’s a good guy,” “we have complete confidence he’s going do the right thing,” etc., etc. — making it now almost impossible for the White House, even on background, to attack the guy. And, who knows, we’ll find out in a couple of days, but it’s possible that attacks on him are warranted. Maybe he’s doing the wrong thing. But they can hardly say that at this point. So I don’t know what they do other than accept the resignations of those who are implicated in whatever he submits and sort of apologize and move on. But I think they should have at least kept the option open to attack him and I just don’t see they have that.