Media Matters’ campaign to take down Tucker Carlson is cute, in its own stupid way, but it’s not really going anywhere. What they’ve been missing, you see, is gravitas. The kind of gravitas that Sam Donaldson brings to the table:

"This is vulgarity. This is hate speech. This is homophobic speech," former ABC News anchor Sam Donaldson says of audio tapes of Fox News' Tucker Carlson. "This is the kind of speech that, if left unchecked, will change this country forever." https://t.co/ZK2uoifw6J pic.twitter.com/rl8tTfJ6oi — CNN (@CNN) March 13, 2019

First of all, Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose are hardly choirboys. They may not have said crass things to a shock jock, but they got busted for doing crass things to women. So maybe Sam should leave them out of this thought exercise. Also, oddly enough, we don’t recall Sam complaining about the “hate speech” in Joy Reid’s blog posts. Or MMFA president Angelo Carusone’s, for that matter.

In short, Sam’s a drama queen who’s absolutely full of it.

That’s just ridiculous — Truthseeker (@Thestraightstuf) March 13, 2019

This is speech that was broadcast OVER THE AIR on FM!!!!!! Many people heard it at the time and it made NO NEWS. — Faustyno Wilson (@Faustynowilson) March 13, 2019

2019: A *journalist* saying that speech (no matter how vile) must be controlled. ? — Karl Temple (@ktemple9) March 13, 2019

I’m not a Tucker fan & I don’t doubt he said rotten things. But this was a “shock jock,” & to hear a newsman say “This is the kind of speech that, *if left unchecked*…” is something I can’t applaud. Someone whose mission -not just job- is about protected speech should rethink. — Mike McGee – Writer (@MMcGeeWriter) March 13, 2019

To rethink, one must think in the first place. And Sam Donaldson’s clearly uninterested in doing that.