In a recent New Republic cover story on the liberal-leaning cable news network, Rebecca Dana wrote: "In 2005, Tucker Carlson’s team brought Rachel Maddow into the network based on a tape her agent sent them. Maddow wasn’t Griffin’s style—she didn’t look like a Fox blonde—but Carlson insisted that she stay on, and Maddow quickly proved herself to be erudite and winning on-air."

Surprising, considering that Carlson is now the editor in chief of the conservative Daily Caller and seems like a natural fit at "Fox and Friends." But, Maddow told Salon via email, there's truth to it:

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I wasn’t going to write about it, not because I hate Breitbart – I didn’t, and don’t – but because, sadly, it’s kind of slight. It doesn’t do justice to its outsize subject, however much it worships him. But the Carlson news juxtaposed with the documentary reminded me how much more talented Breitbart was than the pale imitators he left behind – as well as how much his rage-fueled, by-any-means-necessary character assassination posing as journalism lives on, albeit ineptly.

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Last night, the Drudge Report and the Daily Caller were hyping a sex scandal involving a "powerful" U.S. senator. It turns out, the story involved two Dominican women who claim Menendez paid them for sex. The evidence is pretty flimsy, relying on testimony from the two women, who identified a client as Menendez by looking at a picture. Nor does the Caller have any evidence that Menendez was definitely in the Dominican Republic at the time. From the Caller:

"When shown a photograph of Sen. Menendez, the women said they recognized him as the man with whom they’d had sexual relations at Casa de Campo this spring. Both said they were brought to the resort with the understanding they would be paid for sex.

Neither knew the identity of the man at the time. Both claimed to recognize him later as Sen. Menendez.

'He called him[self] "Bob,"' said one."

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He added that the hurricane could help Mitt Romney next week, because it "adds to the sort of general feeling that things are amiss in America."

When pressed by host Bret Baier on that comment, Carlson elaborated: "I'm in no sense suggesting that people are rationally going to conclude that Obama is responsible for the hurricane, of course not. But if you are looking at the incumbent and asking, 'am I happy with the state of the country right now,' it's possible, on the margins, to effect the tiny group of undecided voters at this stage, that the fact there's a hurricane, and ugly pictures on television, will add to the cumulative effect that America's not going in the right direction."

Watch:

Via MediaMatters.

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The subtle appeals to racism, reminiscent of President Nixon's "Southern Strategy," help pave the way for the more outrageous forms of blatant racism.

From the coded appeals to the blatant manifestations, here are 9 racist things that have happened during the 2012 election campaign.

1. Wisconsin Senate Candidate's Son: We Can Send Obama ‘Back to Kenya’

The website Buzzfeed reports that yesterday morning, Jason Thompson told a crowd of supporters at a brunch that “we have the opportunity to send President Obama back to Chicago — or Kenya.” Thompson is the son of former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, who is now running for Senate. In attendance at the brunch was Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee.

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Hannity pointed to Obama's cadence, what he later referred to as "Al Gore preacher mode," and which he thinks is different from Obama's normal style because of the audience: "You notice the change in the way he delivers this speech before a predominantly African-American audience," Hannity said.

Carlson agreed: "This accent is absurd. This is not the way Obama talks...he is telling a predominantly black audience something very clear. the federal government doesnt like you because you are black."

Watch:

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* This week, the conservative site put out a four-part series on a 1995 mortgage discrimination lawsuit against Citibank that trumps up Obama's role defending 186 African-American clients, when he was an associate at a law firm in the '90s. Most of the plaintiffs in the case were ultimately foreclosed on, the Caller reported. The Caller, in other words, wants the takeaway to be that Obama was totally responsible for precipitating the mortgage bubble. But then it admits that maybe Obama was ultimately not very involved after all. From the Caller, emphasis ours: "The Chicago Sun-Times reported in 1998 that Obama claimed $23,000 in billable hours for his role in the lawsuit. That role was limited, partly because he was networking his way toward his 1996 election to the Illinois Senate. But he stayed with the firm until 2004, and it was his lawsuit."

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The Daily Caller, the site he launched with a promise to offer a new model for conservative journalism, is primarily a catalog of sleazy traffic-baiting aggregated Web garbage ("Top 10: Most beautiful ‘most beautiful’ women [SLIDESHOW]"), ancient relics of online commentary with nowhere else left to publish (Ann Coulter, Mickey Kaus), and overblown scandal-mongering headlines that promise much more than they can deliver. In other words it is like a mean-spirited parody of a conservative version of the pre-AOL Huffington Post, with a healthy dose, recently, of attention-grabbing race baiting. This is not the sort of thing Carlson used to be known for.

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Pat Caddell (Last year: Number 27.)

The fake Democratic pollster is repeating himself, and somehow it just gets dumber every time.

Jonah Goldberg (Last year: Number 7.)

In March Jonah Goldberg literally wrote "meh" instead of rebutting an argument, in his nationally syndicated political column.

Thomas Friedman (Last year: Number 3.)

Thomas Friedman continued to, domestically, demand a centrist third party that acted exactly like our current centrist Democratic party. But his best work, as always, concerned foreign lands. What other columnist would have the balls to go to the scene of a popular revolution and "quote" a native pleading with the wise American columnist to explain what he thinks is going on in her country?

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The Caller claimed to have learned that the EPA was planning to hire "230,000 new bureaucrats — at a cost of $21 billion" to implement new greenhouse gas regulations. That was the scoop. $21 billion and 230,000 new EPA bureaucrats! That is false. It's based on a misreading of a Justice Department brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals DC circuit, which presents the "$21 billion" figure as an example of what the EPA would need to regulate emissions if the rule they're going to court to defend is blocked.

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Here's the story: Michele Bachmann suffers from migraines. Here's the way the Caller played it: Michele Bachmann is constantly incapacitated by debilitating and mysterious "headaches" and she pops pills like candy!

The headline is, "Stress-related condition 'incapacitates' Bachmann; heavy pill use alleged." Again, the "condition" is generally called "migraines." And "heavy pill use" certainly sounds like an allegation of a prescription painkiller addiction, though the article does not once name any of the specific medications Bachmann supposedly takes.

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The DMs are not that outrageous or shocking, because we already all know that Palin and her inner-circle are paranoid and petty. It's news that they hate Mitt Romney? The fact that Palin's operation is an unprofessional cult of personality is public knowledge. But they're still entertaining for anyone fascinated by Palin and her camp.

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While that video -- a supposed exposé of NPR's fundraising practices -- was produced by a regular Breitbart associate, it was first published and promoted by Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller, for reasons unknown (perhaps because it was shoddier than some of O'Keefe's other work, and the Caller, being more desperate for traffic, had slightly lower standards).

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The Caller was writing up the story of how Sarah Palin's reality show received a generous tax credit thanks to legislation signed into law by Sarah Palin. (That was strike one!) After explaining where the story came from and quoting some critics (strike two!), the story goes on to quote -- for three full paragraphs -- Palin's responses to the criticism and her defense of the program that subsidizes filming in Alaska. I think, if I'm reading Sarah Palin's ferocious Facebook response to the story correctly, that was strike three.

The Caller's Chris Moody, author of the story, is obviously a sexist Palin-hater. Look at how he ended his article:

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She has been hired by Tucker Carlson's "The Daily Caller," a web magazine that seeks to answer the question, "will people read literally any bullshit at all if we call it 'conservative' and occasionally throw in some sexism and homophobia?" Thomas will be a "special correspondent" for the Caller, which means she will "interview key political and community leaders -- from high-profile politicians to grassroots activists -- with a focus on listening to those outside the Beltway."

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At the 2009 CPAC, Carlson was actually booed for saying that the journalists at the New York Times care about accuracy, because everyone knows that the MSM is full of lying liberals, and also because activist conservatives are basically hostile to the idea that facts exist.

Since then, Carlson has launched his own news website, and he learned that in order to get attention, "accuracy" must sometimes take a backseat to "telling people that what they wish to be true is true," and also "stupid stunts." (Don't get me wrong -- I love stupid stunts.) Here is a Daily Caller headline that I just saw two minutes ago: "UFO drops flare-like objects over Utah [VIDEO]." (Again, don't get me wrong -- I also love UFO news.)

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What we don't know: Who sent Strong the story? Why did the Caller spend a week trying to confirm it when a cursory reading of the stories in question would've disproved the plagiarism accusation, and the authors who were reportedly borrowed from both agreed that their work wasn't improperly used? Who then sent the story to the New York Post's Keith Kelly, and did his reporting lead Tucker Carlson to spike the piece, which was apparently ready to go up?

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Someone -- I won't speculate as to who, though Kelly surely knows -- handed Strong a story: Mayer plagiarized blogger Lee Fang for her Koch piece! Except Fang himself said: "Jane Mayer properly credited me in her story. She clearly did a ton of her own research. I have nothing but admiration for her integrity as a journalist." But there was more! A 2002 Mayer piece on the SEC had stolen from a 2000 BusinessWeek story! Except the author of that piece said, "I remember reading her story at the time, and I think she did a good job."

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Rehyansky also said he was fine with lesbians serving, because they're less diseased than the gay men and he wants to give "straight male GIs a fair shot at converting lesbians and bringing them into the mainstream."

That line, about converting lesbians, was removed from the column by Daily Caller editors after people began talking about how awful it was.

Today, Daily Caller editor Peter Tucci defends Rehyansky from those awful liberal bloggers and their horrible liberal readers. They are disrespecting a veteran! A bigoted, crazy old veteran!

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