ROGER KIMBALL: Examining the Controversy Surrounding Tucker Carlson’s Interview with Putin.

I wonder if there is a central clearing office that issues regular updates about what nasty dictators one is allowed to engage with and which ones, for this week anyway, one must avoid.

It was okay for Gavin Newsom to remove the feces and the homeless from the streets of San Francisco in order to fête Xi Jinping. Likewise, it was just fine for CNN and the BBC to interview the leader of Hamas. And of course CNN’s Erin Burnett was on the case with Volodymyr Zelensky in her 2023 interview with the former comedian and crossdressing performance artist (though the soundtrack to this version of Burnett’s love fest is—special).

It was okay to interview or publish Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, and Sirajuddin Haqqani, deputy leader of the Taliban.  It was even okay, once upon a time, for journalists—well, some journalists—to interview Vladimir Putin.

But just let Tucker Carlson travel to Moscow to interview the Russian dictator, and pow!, the media and its minders go nuts. Did you know that Tucker Carlson is a “right-wing conspiracy,” a faux-journalist, and (according to Hillary Clinton) “a useful idiot.”  Really, the clip is just as amusing as those compilations of important people explaining why Donald Trump could not win in 2016 (“Take it to the bank,” said Nancy Pelosi). I watched the entire 2-hour-long interview and the 2-part, 10-minute post-mortem Tucker conducted in an ante-room of the Kremlin and then back at his hotel. I thought both were fascinating.

Related: “Putin walks away with propaganda victory after Tucker Carlson’s softball interview,” CNN’s Oliver Darcy writes, apparently forgetting how many propaganda victories leftist totalitarians have walked away with after appearing on CNN: The Mote in CNN’s Mini-Cam.