Commentary: With Vladimir Putin interview, Tucker Carlson proves to be the Walter Duranty of our time

Watching Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin reminds me of the notorious reporting by former New York Times journalist Walter Duranty, who defended Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s policies and knowingly excused, covered up and lied about the mass murder and starvation in Ukraine deliberately fomented by Stalin’s policies in the 1930s.

Carlson’s willful and perhaps malign ignorance raises the specter of a Duranty in our times, who persists despite the many warnings that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

For Duranty, who headed the Times Moscow bureau from 1922 to 1936,