Marines Backtrack After Firestorm Erupts Over Tweet Calling Fox News Host Tucker Carlson A ‘Boomer’
Michael Cantrell
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The U.S. Marine Corps is now backtracking a social media post that verbally attacked Fox News host Tucker Carlson after he criticized military leadership last week on his program.
On Thursday, Carlson called into question the Pentagon’s priorities after an announcement was made concerning the creation of flight suits for pregnant women as tensions between the U.S. and China continue to ratchet up. The II Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group then responded to Carlson in a series of Twitter posts that have now been deleted.
“What it looks like in today’s armed forces @TuckerCarlson. Get right before you get left, boomer,” the II MEF IG posted along with a photo of a female soldier carrying another, according to The Washington Examiner. In another post responding to a critical Twitter user, the unit’s official account said, “come back when you’ve served and been pregnant.”
The U.S. Marine Corps later walked back the posts after taking heat for launching “political attacks” against a civilian and media figure.
“The unit is currently reviewing their internal procedures for social media posts. While the post was intended to show support for women in the military, it was not executed according to the standards of decorum expected on the Marine Corps’ social media platforms,” a spokesperson for the Marines told the Examiner.
Over the weekend, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz demanded to have a meeting with the commandant of the Marine Corps concerning these attempts to intimidate Carlson. Cruz penned a letter that was then sent to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin condemning the comments made against Carlson.
“I am deeply troubled that the commitments you made, and the military’s broader obligation to avoid political endorsements or controversy, are being systematically undermined for the sake of leftwing ideology and political expediency,” Cruz said to Austin in the letter. “The last week has seen the Pentagon mobilize systematic, public attacks against television host Tucker Carlson that in substance tone and political resonance are inexplicably inappropriate.”
“This spectacle risks politicizing the military after several centuries of efforts to keep military officials out of domestic affairs, undermining civil-military relations by having the military take a side in a contentious cultural dispute, and the perception that military leaders are happily weaponizing the institution against political critics of the sitting administration,” Cruz went on to say. “This kind of behavior, while perhaps typical in a military-controlled Third World country, is completely unacceptable in the United States of America.”
“I cannot imagine how … [the] behavior can be explained, and I am deeply concerned about what it portends for the direction that you and [President Joe Biden] intend to move the military,” he continued.
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