The left desperately wants to drive Tucker Carlson off the air, for he is the most effective conservative commentator on the airwaves now that Rush Limbaugh has passed away.  The left also wants Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to be seen as a reasonable person, not some crazed radical spouting impractical and dangerous plans that would ruin the United States.  So I am guessing that Daily Beast contributing editor Justin Baragona saw an opportunity for a two-fer when he noticed a graphic of AOC used on Wednesday night's Tucker Carlson Tonight and figured he'd score with both the Fox-haters and the AOC lovers, two heavily overlapping leftist constituencies, only to realize after his first tweet went up that no exaggeration is necessary to make the former bartender look crazy:

Taking down this tweet as the image of AOC has been out there since at least May 2018.

Anyway, I'll take the L and the addition to the list @SirajAHashmi pic.twitter.com/BVvc8URssT

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) February 18, 2021

Ace quipped:

Daily Beast "journalist' accuses Tucker Carlson of giving AOC "googly eyes" — Tucker didn't do that, bad genes and mental ill-health did that — before bothering to do a two minute search for the image to see that it's not only a real image, but an old one[.]

It is really odd that Baragona hadn't already seen the googly eyes picture of AOC, since he describes himself this way:

Justin Baragona is the founder and publisher of Contemptor, a site focusing on the intersection of politics, culture and the media, and spends most of his waking hours consuming cable news. The St. Louis–based writer previously served as a cable-news correspondent and editor for Mediaite. You can send tips and hate mail to justin.baragona@gmail.com.

Evidently, he confines his cable news consumption mostly to MSNBC and CNN, as the AOC picture has appeared dozens of time on Fox News.

Incidentally, choosing a picture featuring a passing "crazy eyes" expression on someone the media outlet doesn't like is an old, old trick.  Ask Michele Bachmann about it.

Last night, Mark Steyn, guest-hosting for Tucker, did a hilarious send-up of Baragona, accusing him of making fun of the way AOC really looks.  

Graphic credit: Twitter.