Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on Sunday that he wasn't convinced that CBS News correspondent Lara Logan's alleged witness to the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi had been lying because "sometimes the best stories have flaky sources."
Speaking to Fox News media critic Howard Kurtz on Fox & Friends, Carlson complained that MSNBC had not fired host Martin Bashir over improper comment about Sarah Plain but Logan had been asked to take a leave of absence after several other media outlets determined that her primary source had lied about being at the U.S. mission in Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2011 terrorist attack.
And as Gawker reported, Logan also never disclosed that her husband was paid to plant positive stories about the U.S. military.
"Where's the justice?" the Fox News host asked.
"I suppose it might have something to do with the fact that the target is Sarah Palin, a conservative woman who is probably, you know, not very well liked by many of the people who watch MSNBC," Kurtz opined.
"Of course, the audience agrees completely," Carlson said. "Are we sure the Logan story was false?"
Kurtz pointed out that even 60 Minutes was now convinced that Logan's source, security contractor Dylan Davies, was not telling the truth and that the network never should have allowed Logan to use him in the the report.
"He told a different story to his bosses, he told a different story to the FBI," Kurtz noted. "At the very least, he has severe credibility problems, which makes me wonder how this story ever got on the air. And while I admire what Logan had done in the past, risking her life in war zones, this was a failure of journalistic effort."
"Yeah, well, you know as well as I, some of the best stories have flaky sources unfortunately," Carlson concluded.
Before Kurtz was hired by Fox News earlier this year, he had blasted Carlson's the Daily Caller website after a Dominican law enforcement official claimed that the publication had offered to pay prostitutes to make false claims about Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ).
Kurtz, a CNN host at the time, insisted that the Daily Caller "owes the senators and its readers an apology."
In 2011, there were calls for Carlson to be fired after he declared that football player Michael Vick "should've been executed" for his dog fighting conviction.
