Good magic tricks are both fun and entertaining to watch. Having a coin appear to be hidden behind a child’s ear can still be amusing, even when you have seen the trick before. 

So, you would think Fox “News” (Do not snicker at these words appearing beside each other) would at least be able to occasionally pass themselves off as more than a laughable mockery of actual reporting. Not so much. 

This week Tucker Carlson, the baby-faced Fox commentator with the largest Fox audience, mangled the massive video content of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol into a fantasyland portrayal of a picnic in the plaza or a tour among the statues. 

It was compelling theatre, but only if you and your lying eyes had never seen the actual violence that resulted in 150 Capitol Police injuries, deaths and destruction of the peoples’ property. 

And only if you remain unaware that the actual event was designed by an American president to overturn a free and fair election to remain in office at the price of ending our democracy. 

But, those facts aside, and at Fox and with Carlson, facts are always subject to mitigation and a final denouement of stunning dishonesty. The Fox story remains; no facts here, just entertainment 24/7. 

As a result of discovery in the $1.6 billion Dominion lawsuit against Fox, some actual facts have fallen through the cracks at Fox, revealing the obvious that Fox commentators always knew that Donald Trump lost the election. 

Yes, they all knew there were facts out there that proved Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. But Tucker, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and all their less famous fellows decided that their viewers could not handle, in true Jack Nicholson fashion, “the truth.” 

Apparently, poor Fox viewers still cannot handle the truth because there is something you still cannot find on Fox: Joe Biden won the 2020 election and is the U.S. president. Yes, it seems more than a little crazy that over two years later, millions of Americans are posing as if facts are fungible, truth is subjective and Fox is an actual news organization. 

It is time to set aside that childish innocence, because the people feeding you that coin-behind-the-ear foolishness knew better all the time, and you have simply been the petri dish sample that you can still fool some of the people all of the time. 

But you will not have to pay the full price for your willingness to set aside the fundamental nature of a free society, our leaders’ free and fair election. 

No, you can just accept the truth and go vote again in the next election. But, what do you do if you are Carlson and Fox News, as naked as the emperor, completely exposed as liars with no place to hide? Well, apparently, as Tucker has chosen to do with his edited, laughable video splicing, you just keep telling the lies as though the truth is not out there in front of all of us. 

Likewise, the new Republican House is setting out to investigate the “Deep State” that persecutes Republicans for their lies about the 2020 election and the actions of the Republican president to stay in office after losing the election. 

Good luck with that investigation, and may it demonstrate that our laws do, in fact, have a strong disregard for false claims and illegal acts in the commission of crimes. 

Jim Crawford is a retired educator and political enthusiast living here in the Tri-State.