Here’s why Tucker Carlson’s ‘ignorance about the military’ is so dangerous

Fox News personality Tucker Carlson was the focus of a brutal analysis published by the military news site Task and Purpose.

Pentagon reporter Jeff Schogol began his ferocious analogy: "Whenever I watch Fox News personality Tucker Carlson attempt to explain how the U.S. military works, I am reminded of retired Army Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf's famous description of Saddam Hussein: 'He is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier.'"

"Carlson is a professional demagogue. That does not mean he is dumb," he explained. "He didn't become the brightest star in the universe of misinformation by being dimwitted. He is an expert in trafficking falsehoods masquerading as facts. Even Fox News' own attorneys have argued he should not be taken seriously."

Schogol ridiculed Carlson's ignorance, writing, "your average seventh grader knows more about civil-military relations than he does, as evidenced by what he passes off as insight on his nightly airing of grievances."

He noted Carlson falsely believes Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is in command of the U.S. military.

"Milley isn't actually in command of the military. In fact, he's not in command of anything," he explained. "Milley's actual role is to serve as the president's military adviser, not as a commander of combatant forces. There is ample legislation that explains what the Joint Chiefs of Staff do."

Schogol interviewed Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University in North Carolina.

"It is saying that: We will only show respect to the military if they are fully embracing our partisan agenda," Feaver said. "Then you have dragged the military into the partisan fight – and the military is supposed to be outside of that partisan fight because they had to serve Trump and then they have to serve Biden, and in the future, they may have to serve another Republican president."

Read the full analysis.