It didn't go well.

Tucker Carlson was on the scene to state what everyone was thinking:

Michael Jackson was spotted on live television over the weekend. pic.twitter.com/Y9Cc3J3A89

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 11, 2022

The left did not take it well.

Some creature at the Huffington Post put out this outraged headline:

Tucker Carlson Sinks To New Low With Attack On Nancy Pelosi's Appearance

The Twitter mob sprang into action, too.  MEAWW has a summary of the tweets:

One user slammed, "In search of a new low on a nightly basis, Tucker Carlson says that Nancy Pelosi looks like Michael Jackson." One person replied, "I would love to see both the Jackson family and Nancy Pelosi take you to court for this." Another responded, "I'll be the first to say that Nancy Pelosi is a dishonest, manipulative (insert word). But this is in poor taste, even for you bro. Resorting to physical appearance is lame af." One trolled, "Calling Tucker Carlson’s show a news program is about as absurd as suggesting Nancy Pelosi is Michael Jackson."

It was idiocy because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was not born with those unnatural looks — she chose to have those looks, through an unusual combination of wealth gained while in office and the money from it to pay for plastic surgery.

No getting older gracefully for her.  No "women can be attractive at any age," as the former supermodel Polina Porizhkova has favorably been received as declaring.  Just weird status-symbol plastic surgery, the kind that very wealthy women get to impress their social-X-ray friends out on the Pacific Heights cocktail circuit. 

No, it doesn't make her look better, but in her circles, who cares?  It isn't actually about looks.  It's about "hain't she got money to do it?"  That's what this kind of plastic surgery at this age projects: a sort of flinging of status symbols into the faces of the masses, to underline that she's of a very different class from the groundlings she claims to represent.

It's of a piece with her maskless visit to the Union Street beauty salon that caused such scandal, done as it was at the height of her party's COVID lockdowns.

Nancy does her part to support the spas, plastic surgeons, and artisan ice cream makers for herself while impoverishing the rest of us through inflation and high taxes to ensure that we never dare have the same.  And she'd like you to know, through the use of her face, as it were.

The picture we have now from this combination is a Dorian Gray–like expression of her true character.

There's not much to be done about people like this, but Tucker used his monologue to deal with Pelosi through the highly effective instrument of ridicule.

That was what outraged the HuffPo writer the most:

The star cable TV personality claimed Pelosi was actually the late singer Michael Jackson. Teeing up his "joke," Carlson told viewers they would have "had the shock of your life" to see the entertainer on CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

"Now let's be clear, this wasn't a video of Michael Jackson performing his hit songs of the 1990s," said Carlson. "This appeared to be a living version of the international pop star that news reports claimed died of a drug OD more than a dozen years ago. And yet despite those claims there he was, fully, undeniably Michael Jackson talking on television. How can that be? Honestly, we have no idea. We're not theologians here. This is merely a news program. We can only show you what we saw. Here it is."

...and...

"See? Michael Jackson. That was him," Carlson commented after the clip. "No 'Billie Jean.' Apparently, he's given up singing and is telling lies about politics. Same man. If you've ever seen Michael Jackson, you cannot forget the face — though admittedly, he's had a lot of work done since we saw him last."

Oh, the horror.  As if the left never made fun of people's looks who couldn't help it, and then pioneered that as a standard mode of leftist argument.

Ridicule, though, of this kind that Tucker engaged in, was what Tom Wolfe used to do — he specially targeted the status-seekers and social X-rays and other ostentatious displayers of wealth in the era when conspicuous consumption takes on disguised forms but nevertheless is there.  Tucker made fun of it through his Michael Jackson comparison.

Rather than recognize that, for the Wolfean comic technique that it was and tipping its hat to him for his skill, they took the whole thing literally, sliding down to just where Tucker wanted them, flailing in the mud and spewing rage at Tucker's dreadful social faux pas and tasteless attacks on looks.

Big deal.  Pelosi knew what she was doing with that weird plastic surgery show.  The reality is, Tucker did, too.