So FOX News has decided to replace Tucker Carlson with Bill O'Reilly's one-time man-on-the-street interviewer, Jesse Watters — someone whose gravitas rating hovers in the same abysmal neighborhood as the network's late-night darling, Greg Gutfeld.

What attracted folks like me to Tucker's program was his unpredictability, his willingness to let guests talk, his repeated calls to spend time with family and loved ones, and his apparent devotion to a moral vision rooted in religious tradition — all of which informed his tagline opposition to "lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink."  The "group think" moniker wasn't limited to the multitude of woke idiocies, but also extended to third-rail GOP topics, most conspicuously to opinions about the war in Ukraine.  Republicans like Lindsey Graham who are welcomed on Hannity's program frequently found themselves targets of Carlson's anti-neocon open border criticism. 

A Mediaite analysis of prime-time ratings showed that FOX News lost a million viewers after Tucker's firing, viewership going from an average of 2.6 million in the four weeks prior to Carlson's departure to a 1.6 million average in the four subsequent weeks.  The hemorrhage in Tucker's 8 P.M. Eastern time slot was even more dramatic, falling from 3.27 million to 1.49 million viewers — an outflow that continues to this day.

I doubt the network's brass expect to recover Tucker's audience with Watters at the helm, a broadcaster whose comic persona and intellectual shallowness (he wasn't sure Hawaii was the 50th state) detract significantly from the impact of his largely accurate but analogy-saturated critiques of leftist policies.  Indeed, one might argue that the Paul Ryan contingent on the network's board have a death wish for FOX News as a Trump-friendly conservative voice.  What else can explain Greg Gutfeld's ubiquitous presence as a regular host on The Five plus his own late-night show (soon to be at 10 P.M. Eastern and 7 P.M. on the West Coast)?  Gutfeld and his assortment of handpicked outcasts do provide unique perspectives, but perspectives largely communicated through the host's obsession with foul language, sexual deviancy, and scatology — all conjoined with an insult-spewing persona that makes Don Rickles look like Pat Boone.

Granted, Gutfeld excels at monologues that skewer woke idiocies, but unlike Tucker, one senses a yawning spiritual void at the heart of his tirades, a void not filled by the intoxicants he touts with conspicuous fervor.  In a recent Wall Street Journal piece about the "irreverent" "King of Late Night," Gutfeld mused about taking over Carlson's prime-time slot.  Apparently, replacing Tucker with a crude libertine who displays no discernible connection to faith, family, or activities cherished by ordinary Americans proved a bridge too far for network suits in prime time — but not at 10 P.M. (or 7 in the west).

Certainly there's no way Gutfeld's most regular panel member, Kat Timpf, could have taken Tucker's place, though for some reason FOX has allowed this intellectually vapid, morally challenged libertarian increasing time as a commentator, whose appearances culminated in a panel chair on Bret Baier's program.  Two on-point examples: Timpf ignores human, legal, financial, and social service disasters caused by an open border and instead regurgitates the unrealistic libertarian dogma that an open border would be fine were no welfare benefits available.  Similarly, she decries Governor Ron DeSantis's efforts to protect young schoolchildren from wildly inappropriate books with explicit sexual messages because such governmental action amounts to, in her mind, right-wing censorship.  Of course, Timpf ignores the fact that absent such intervention, one leaves in place governing school boards and curricula that facilitate the corruption of minors.  The months-long promotion of Timpf's gossipy, self-referential book (You Can't Joke About That), paired with the network's limiting promotional appearances for Judge Jeanine Pirro's substantive volume (Crimes against America: The Left's Takedown of Our Republic), provides more evidence that folks at FOX are working to eviscerate a once-conservative news outlet.

The assortment of temporary hosts who filled Tucker's time slot over the last few weeks were generally competent, but only Will Cain provided the kind of perspective and passionate delivery that rightly makes leftist heads explode, and only Joey Jones communicated the heartfelt compassion that Carlson also exuded.  If one could graft those two hosts together, FOX might have something that comes close to the Carlson standard, but then the globalist suits at the network would have to fire that broadcasting centaur as an unacceptable threat to the D.C. swamp.

Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?" is available on Kindle.

Image: Screen shot from Fox News video (edited) via YouTube.