I suspect they hired Roberts because he had a previous history as an administrator. Trouble is, he has no policy chops. And, as we can see, he doesn’t think on his feet well.

— Art Deco

The thing is that Heritage, and most of the other think tanks and the like, Left, Right, and Other, are all part of the Washington political/social Establishment, to one degree or another. The people they hire to run them are, as AD notes, mostly professional administrators and the like. Like the rest of the whole apparat, they transcend elections, they stay and operate regardless of election wins and losses (at least for the moment).

Heritage and Brookings may be ideological opponents, but it’s a good bet their staff members routinely socialize and trade names and boost each other’s careers, ditto the rest of the power structure.

They have scripts they more or less read from.

I’m not saying there’s no sincerity, but it’s still a script, to some degree a ‘kabuki dance’. Fuentes doesn’t fit the script so they don’t know how to react. Trump produces the same effect to some degree, or did before they began to adjust their scripts for him. Bernie Sanders would disrupt their scripts if he ever actually managed to win.

Always remember the script is there.

As I’ve explained many times, cancellation of Carlson is not the issue in terms of what people are wanting from Roberts. He didn’t even criticize Carlson, although he should have; not even for Carlson saying he (Carlson) detests Christian Zionists. Nor did Roberts do his homework; instead, he read words from a script.

And some of Roberts’ own words were anti-Semitic tropes such as [emphasis mine]:

… we will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda …

… The venomous coalition attacking [Carlson] are sowing division …

The first part of the quote indicates that the people Carlson enraged are loyal to some other entity – like Israel – rather than to America or truth. That’s an extremely common accusation against Jews. Which is pretty funny considering that it’s Tucker who has been peddling lies about Israel for years. Roberts also calls the entire group venomous (Jews and those who defend them), and says it is they who are sowing division, while Roberts remained silent on the division Carlson himself sowed by his foul remarks about detesting Christian Zionists and calling them heretics.

The entire thing was an extraordinary statement by Roberts that wasn’t even necessary to preserve his “friendship” with Carlson because all Roberts had to do was keep his mouth shut – or, failing that, leave out all the nastiness about Carlson’s critics. In fact, he could have even tossed in a bit of criticism of Carlson – can we not criticize friends at all when they err?

Roberts did nothing of the sort; au contraire. Friendship with Carlson is no excuse whatsoever. Friendship is a private matter but both of these men are public figures. Carlson spoke as a public figure and so did Roberts, and in addition Roberts was speaking in his capacity as head of the Heritage Foundation, not as an individual. He should resign if his friendship gets in the way of doing what is clearly right.

And his excuse was about as sorry an admission I’ve ever heard: that he is so lazy and irresponsible he doesn’t even check the facts before he opens up his mouth in an enforced error. He needs to resign, pronto, but he’s already done an enormous amount of damage to the institution he heads.

It seems some would like to cancel Roberts for him not cancelling Carlson.
But friendships are sometimes subtle and complicated relationships, often more valuable and rare than we might like to admit. Two people that seem to have “hit it off” for whatever reason or rationale might well be loath to toss that aside for “light or transient causes”. We already have had major discussions on this site about family and friends separating because of TDS or related Leftist idiocy or insanity. Roberts may end up distancing himself from Carlson, or try to avoid that and preserve their friendship. Roberts may even feel he owes it to Carlson to be one who might persuade Carlson to alter his views*. Perhaps Walsh or Kelly or others are hoping they can play that role, too.

*In reference to antisemitism, I have never understood how or why that viewpoint has any validity whatever, whether blaming a larger population of Jews for the crowd that said “give us Barabbas” or the logical desire to return to Judea/Samaria and reestablish their homeland [recognizing that all homelands have been established either by force or migration and settlement of relatively empty areas – or both.]

Agreed. Even the most benign interpretation of this speaks to staggering inadequacy in preparation and diligence. If I were him I would try to engineer a quick face saving piece and appeals to get some old members in before demoting myself in favor of say one of the Antisemitism Task Force members (so while demoted j would still be in Heritage), but if he fails to do that he should go entirely.

When Rockwell, then head of the American Nazi party, came to speak at Michigan State and warn us of how we were being cheated by Jews because Heinze had to pay a rabbi to certify the ketchup was kosher and the cost was passed on to us, the campus turned out in support of Jews and Israel. I think Rockwell had other issues, too, but that one sticks. Many of us had Stars of David arm bands. We assured our Jewish friends we had their six.

Nothing, nothing within light years of the immense, nearly infinite reservoirs of hate like that which followed the Oct 7 massacre. (How do you hate victims of a massacre? Is that new or have I missed something?)

Many of us were sons and/or niece/nephews of WW II veterans. Those who weren’t had grown up surrounded by them and had classmates with such background. So we had a kind of more-or-less informed view and were impressed with the Six-Day War. Why did it actually last six days? Said a Lebanese friend; “The Jews rented their tanks from U-Haul and got a discount if they returned them in less than a week.” Good for a laugh.
I shudder to think what would have happened on our campus if any version of the Free Palestine or Death to Israel crowd had shown up. There were not enough police to separate us.
Consider this happened during the thickest of the anti-Viet Nam era.

What in the world has has changed?

Which brings us to applying the question to Owens and Carlson as well.

Roberts: Tell us you’re an empty suit acting as an empty figurehead for Heritage without actually saying so. But did/does Heritage know this?

What happened when I wasn’t looking?

You write:

I will take issue with neo’s argument that Roberts’s citing cancellation is “a strawman”. I’m sorry, but the line “You have freedom of speech but not freedom from consequences” was a standard play of the left in closing down debates on colleges.

And your argument is also a strawman. Do you know what that word means? If not, I’ll explain (definition from Google AI):

A straw man argument is a logical fallacy where someone misrepresents an opponent’s position to make it seem weaker, more extreme, or ridiculous, and then attacks this distorted version instead of the actual argument. This creates the illusion of having “refuted” the opponent while avoiding engagement with their real points.

Roberts’ talk of “cancellation” is a strawman because – as I’ve written several times – criticizing is not cancellation. People were asking Carlson to have CRITICIZED Fuentes more during the interview, rather than to have SHOWCASED Fuentes with a softball interview that didn’t bring up a gazillion horrible things Fuentes has said he believes and didn’t even refute some horrible things Fuentes said during the interview itself (he admires Stalin, and Carlson said he’d “circle back” to discuss that further and NEVER DID). Plus, they were criticizing Carlson for things Carlson himself said about detesting Christian Zionists above all else. Heritage is – or used to be – full of Christian Zionists.

Those caps are for clarity and emphasis. Because your own strawman argument was this: that Carlson’s critics on the right are trying to close down debate. No; they are demanding debate, a debate Carlson did not have. If you’re going to interview Fuentes at all, critique him properly or risk being thought to be on his side. And if Carlson is on his side, then Carlson himself isn’t someone they should be platforming or praising. They are free to critique him, and should, and this does not step on Carlson’s right to free speech.

What’s more, no one has a right to be platformed or to be part of any organization or group. If I run a group like Heritage, I can certainly break the group’s association with Nazis. That’s not the same as telling people to harass them, kill them, beat them, harm their family, silence them, or throw them into jail. nor does it mean you are telling anyone else not to employ them.

Each person makes his or her own decision about whom to associate with, and so does each organization.

Also, Ace has some interesting thoughts about cancellation here.

As to where this is going, well if you have a hard time deciding whether to stick with Carlson, um, Megyn and Matt, well I now know two not to bother with.

I will take issue with neo’s argument that Roberts’s citing cancellation is “a strawman”. I’m sorry, but the line “You have freedom of speech but not freedom from consequences” was a standard play of the left in closing down debates on colleges.

I also dislike the widening gyre here.

– Fuentes is terrible. – Granted. I couldn’t watch much of the interview, as he varied between boring and annoying.

-Tucker is terrible – Well, he does show signs of that. The trouble is the softball treatment he gives crazies, but not pro-Israel people. If he were truly evenhanded (like Rogan) his guests wouldn’t matter.

-Roberts is terrible – This because he defended Tucker. ??? It have to draw the line here.

– Megyn Kelly and Matt Walsh are terrible – Because they defended Roberts. ??? Can’t others see where this is headed?

To my mind the one person who came out well from all this was Mollie Hemingway. She pointed out that Tucker actually hurt Fuentes in her case, as she’d not seen him. Now she knew she disliked him. I doubt she’s alone.