We could also get off his back about whether he's snorted coke. He didn't pull a Clinton and say he didn't inhale. George W. admits to being a bad boy in his youth, but he's reformed. Bill Clinton's legacy may come down to requiring presidential candidates to be penitent confessors, and the public to play forgiving priest. No, a plea for a little discrimination of the right kind.
Content is important, too.
Some of the four-letter words sprinkled through Tucker Carlson's interview are of a piece with earthy Texas parlor talk. What's impressive about the texture of the interview is the easygoing rapport between interviewer and interviewee. It won't always work to the candidate's benefit. But his bluntness was on behalf of outrage for the victims, rather than sentimentality for the murderer. The tone nevertheless didn't serve the candidate well.