Carolyn Parrish confesses she's not sorry to see him go. At the same time, she admits, "he did me a lot of good -- he saved my reputation in quite a few corners."
Canada's most famous former Liberal MP was speaking of Tucker Carlson, the bow-tie-wearing conservative commentator, who was told on Wednesday by CNN, the pioneering U.S.-based 24/7 all-news channel, that it was cancelling its long-running Crossfire, on which Carlson was a key player.
CNN president Jonathan Klein said this week that Carlson's departure, and the demise, after 22 years, of Crossfire as a standalone feature --elements of it may be incorporated into another program, Inside Politics -- are part of a change of direction for the network, which has seen its ratings tumble in competition with Fox News and MSNBC.
Viewers need "useful information in a dangerous world," Klein said in an interview with The Washington Post. "A bunch of guys screaming at each other simply doesn't accomplish that" -- an obvious reference to Crossfire's formula of pitting Carlson and fellow conservative Robert Novak against Democratic strategists Paul Begala and James Carville.
Parrish, the now-independent MP for the Toronto-area riding of Mississauga-Erindale, had her own televised encounter with Carlson, 35, in early December, during U.S. President George W. Bush's first official visit to Canada. Guesting with Parrish on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports, Carlson came on like Rick Mercer's worst nightmare (or dream come true), declaring that "without the U.S., Canada is essentially Honduras, but colder and much less interesting" and "in the grip of a national insecurity complex."
The California-born, boarding-school-educated Carlson also evoked Canada's mythic status as the Great White North when he proclaimed, "I don't think all Canadians are dog-sledding at all times, but I do think there's a lot of dog-sledding in Canada."
Parrish deftly and wittily ("There's a lot of dog-walking, my friend") parried Carlson's attacks. After her turn on CNN, Parrish, 58, said she received 600 e-mails, more than 90 per cent of them applauding her performance -- and this after her controversial appearance on CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes crushing a George Bush doll underfoot.
Speaking this week from her office in Ottawa, the MP admitted Carlson didn't impress her much. "He wore a bow tie and was a smart-ass," she says.
"It was show biz rather than news -- very glib."
But it gave her an indication of the "shocking" reach of CNN into Canada, an indication reinforced by an episode at a recent lunch she had with three or four supporters.
An elderly woman was dining nearby and Parrish noted "she was heavily eavesdropping on our conversation." Afterward, the woman came up to Parrish and said, "You know, I thought you were an idiot. Then I saw [Carlson] and he's a real idiot."
Following this week's news, Carlson told The New York Times that he hadn't lost his job with CNN but, in fact, had resigned in April of last year.
He said that at that time he had agreed to stay with CNN until his contract expired in December. In recent months, it's been heavily rumoured that Carlson will now set up shop at MSNBC where he'll host a prime-time program in a slot currently fronted by Deborah Norville.
However, on Thursday, MSNBC wasn't revealing much. Said a publicist at the news service's headquarters in New Jersey: "We're not even commenting on or confirming anything with Tucker Carlson. And we won't comment on or confirm anything as to when we might comment on or confirm anything, like a date or something like that."
Fired or not, Carlson will continue to be a presence in the U.S. media universe.
He still has his weekly talk show on PBS, Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered, not to mention book-publishing deals and numerous speaking engagements, as well as writing gigs, both regular and occasional, with The Weekly Standard, Esquire, The Wall Street Journal and Reader's Digest, among others.
Besides, even if Tucker's departure wasn't voluntary, Parrish says he ought to look on the sunny side. "There's life after being fired. I should know. I got fired by the Prime Minister, and I'm having a ball. Tucker should just keep his chin up."