Tucker Carlson's website publishes vicious, sexist rant against new 'Crossfire' host

Tucker Carlson's online publication The Daily Caller published a review of the new version of Carlson's old show "Crossfire" on Tuesday that went beyond a bad review and veered into a viciously personal attack against co-host Stephanie Cutter. The review -- written by the Caller's Patrick Howley -- called Cutter, variously, a "sociopath," a "treadmill-stomping, Starbucks-chugging monument to modern self-absorption" and an "unmitigated monster."

"A loathsome creature like Stephanie Cutter, the roots jutting out from her blonde dye job as black as the recesses of her soul, can push her way onto national television to sit next to a former Speaker of the House and two sitting U.S. senators," bemoaned Howley. "A charmless, dead-eyed, tacky sociopath with no sense of ethics, an empty shell spewing her flat-throated bile without the slightest trace of self-awareness, can beat all of us to the front of the Darwinian line."

The piece's title, "Crossfire Review No.1," implies that there will be more reviews to come. "Crossfire" was hosted by Daily Caller editor Carlson and Paul Begala in 2004 when "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart appeared as a guest and notoriously took Carlson and Begala to task for "hurting America" with their tedious back and forth and reduction of every issue to a left-right binary.

The show's already diminished audience fled and CNN mothballed "Crossfire" until this fall, when the show was rebooted with hosts Cutter and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

"A figure of hatred and dishonesty, a person devoid of any pleasantness or redeeming human value, a treadmill-stomping, Starbucks-chugging monument to modern self-absorption, someone incapable of appreciating good art, fine food, or the love or kidness (sic) of her fellow man, can shove and kick and lie her way ahead of the rest of us in this misbegotten society," Howley continued. "This unmitigated monster can appear before us, talentless, grating, fraudulently tanned, thrusting in our faces the career trophies she earned simply because we didn’t care enough to stop her from getting them."

The columnist called Cutter "feminism mutated into grotesque cartoon," comparing her to"Carrie Bradshaw without the literacy," "Chelsea Handler without the punch lines" and "Kirsten Powers without the prettiness."

"She leaves us exhausted in our discomfort," he continued, and demanded to know why Cutter got the job. He was asking, he said, on behalf of "every cute, shy, intelligent young woman rejected by sororities at the fuchsia nails of clipboard-toting middle managers like Cutter," as well as "every hardworking man forced to report to vaguely qualified female 'corporate consultants' in a post-Anita Hill world."

Cutter was the deputy campaign manager for Pres. Barack Obama's winning 2012 re-election campaign. She attended Smith University and graduated from Georgetown University School of Law. She has worked at the Environmental Protection Agency, at the White House during Pres. Bill Clinton's term of office and for former Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA).

[image of Tucker Carlson via Flickr user Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons licensed]