In a particularly morbid series of posts, the prolifically low-level “satire” blog The Last Line of Defense (LLOD) tried to push the idea that right-wing broadaster Tucker Carlson was killed under suspicious circumstances.
Like the original version of the blog, the three posts promoting Carlson’s “death” have been scrubbed. According to remaining transcripts, the series led off with the “news” that the Fox presenter was in an auto accident with another car that had suspicious extra safety features; according to LLOD:
The car that crossed the median and struck Carlson had a reinforced bumper and the steering wheel was covered with foam to provide the driver extra protection from a crash. It’s obvious that someone wanted to do harm to another human being on purpose. Whether or not Carlson was specifically targeted or just in the wrong place at the wrong time remains unknown. The perpetrator fled the scene. The Ford Explorer he was driving had no plates or VIN numbers. Police have impounded it as evidence.
The follow-up post upped the lurid ante, saying that Carlson had died:
Fox News superstar Tucker Carlson succumbed to his injuries and died overnight after being hit head-on while driving home. The Ford Explorer that crossed the median to slam into him was stolen, reinforced to sustain a head-on collision without killing the driver and left at the scene. After a preliminary investigation, police have ruled out an accident and Carlson’s cause of death has been ruled a homicide.
The final part of the “trilogy” was published after the first two posts were debunked, so like many disinformation purveyors and other wrongdoers, LLOD engaged in DARVO and cast itself as the fact-checking site:
If you’ve seen the reports coming out of such reputable hack sites as Dailyusaupdate.com, redbox.com and many others, you might think that Tucker Carlson had died. The truth is, Tucker Carlson, who the report said was murdered in an intentional hit and run Friday night after a Fox broadcast in New York, is alive and well and living in Washington DC.
Carlson is still alive and broadcasting on Fox, where he has continued to indulge right-wing conspiracy theories like former United States President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him — even as he allegedly knew that Trump was lying and “hated” him for doing so.
Update 3/9/2023, 10:48 p.m. PST: This article has been revamped and updated. You can review the original here. — ag