Tucker Carlson had to go because he was having way too much fun at others' expense

Anyone who spouts their strong opinions on national television for one hour every night is overexposed.

No matter how many people you amuse, you eventually will tip the benefits-to-liabilities scale in the wrong direction and poof!

Just like that, Tucker Carlson is gone.

He knew that day was coming. He told friends and podcasts his day of destruction was only a matter of time.

And so for making his program the top-rated on Fox News and all cable news, for being the workhorse that pulled the plow, he was let go with this: “We thank him for his service.”

No garlands. No high-stepping musical tributes. No five-tiered cakes decorated with “Farewell!”

Carlson must've loved the parting insults

No matter.

He had his tributes aplenty on Monday, his ticker-tape parade, if you will.

And I promise you he relished all of it.

They came from all the people who hate him, jostling and shoving to be first in line to spit on his grave. They came from the other networks, the big newspapers, the halls of Congress, the news magazines and websites.

Carlson was a bigot, a sexist, a racist – of course, a racist – what conservative isn’t? What white person isn’t? The whole flyover is a teeming mass of coned hoods and burning crosses.

In Manhattan, the women on ABC’s “The View” did the wave to kiss him off, and I wish I could have seen him laugh when he first saw that.

I wish I could have heard the Carlson cackle that ranges somewhere between exuberant and maniacal, and then heard him admit he had it coming for gleaning so much great material from such a panel of blunderbusses.

There's a reason so many watched him

Tucker Carlson wasn’t a newsman at Fox, he was a storyteller.

His job was to take all the daily bits of news in our politics and culture and thread them together into a seamless narrative.

This is what the opinion hosts do at CNN and MSNBC, only he did it better. And from the right.

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He was the best because his foundation was words. He was a writer first and could weave the words better than any of his peers on the networks.

His show was fresh where the others were stale.

He was also better than any of his Fox peers, so much so that conservatives were no longer tuning into Fox News.

They were setting their clocks to “Tucker Time.”

He picked up the mic comedians dropped

In a country in which our governing mandarins are liberals increasingly determined to control speech and control us, Carlson played the important role of puncturing their pieties.

Normally this is a job for comedians, but the comedians are AWOL in modern America. They won’t afflict the comfortable. They fear them.

So Carlson took the job.

The powers that be will tell you Carlson was irresponsible, that he drifted into the dangerous shoals of xenophobia and bigotry, that he’s a modern-day Father Coughlin – the Irish-Catholic bigot who once dominated radio in the ‘30s.

Hooey.

Coughlin was a pious old prune. Carlson is a wise cracking, fun-loving balloon popper.

Tucker Carlson had fun at the left's expense

Some will say this was about the near-billion payout Fox made to Dominion for slandering their voting machines.

But you can watch the clip of Carlson reaming out Donald Trump’s attorney, Sidney Powell, for bringing no evidence that the election was stolen.

Or you could have watched his rivals on Monday at CNN admitting Carlson was a bit player in the Dominion lawsuit.

If the left hates Carlson today, it’s not because he is dangerous. It’s not because he played “stop the steal.”

It’s because he had too much fun at their expense. He’s on to them. He’s always on to them.

Meanwhile, AOC pretends she slayed his dragon

When public-health officials told freedom marchers they were super-spreaders in the pandemic, then turned and told Black Lives Matter marchers they were A-OK, Carlson committed the most grievous of sins.

He noticed.

He also noticed when the left erupted with outrage during the attack on the U.S. Capitol after sitting on its hands for a summer that devolved into riots in many of America’s major cities.

And he noticed when three Minneapolis City Council members bent on defunding the police protected their own hides with private security funded by the city.

Other media looked at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and saw the gritty ethnic bartender turned congresswoman.

Carlson looked and saw “Sandy Cortez,” who grew up in the suburbs with wealthy parents and contoured shrubs.

That same AOC on Monday was pushing her way to the front of the line to hock and spit at the freshly buried Carlson.

She made a little video that tried to take credit for his demise.

“Deplatforming works and is important. Good things can happen,” she said with a mischievous smile.

Somewhere, Fox boss Rupert Murdoch is furious that she gave away their little secret.

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist with The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Tucker Carlson left Fox because he had too much fun at others' expense