Tucker Carlson
Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson (born May 16, 1969 in San Francisco, California) is a conservative pundit who currently hosts Tucker on the cable news network MSNBC and is a contributor to two magazines, Esquire and the conservative Weekly Standard.
Carlson is perhaps best known as a former co-host for CNN's Crossfire, which has been off the air since 2005, where he represented the political right. Once known for his colorful bow ties (which he stopped wearing in 2006), Carlson is generally considered one of the most recognizable conservative personalities in American television. He also previously hosted PBS's Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered from 2004 to 2005.
Biography
Carlson is the son of Richard W. Carlson, who was president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from 1992 to 1997 and former U.S. Ambassador to the Seychelles. His stepmother is Patricia Carlson, heiress to the Swanson frozen-food fortune.
Education
Carlson completed private secondary education at the elite St. George's School, Newport, Rhode Island. He then attended Trinity College in Connecticut for four years, but dropped out without obtaining a degree. "After four years, I had met a lot of interesting people, gone to a couple of classes and restored a motorcycle, and that was it. And so I wasted my time at college," he has said.
Journalism career
Prior to his national television career, Carlson was a member of the editorial staff of Policy Review magazine, one of the country's leading conservative journals, and a staff writer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
He currently writes his own blog called "Untied" on MSNBC.com and has contributed articles to City Journal.
Aside from authoring numerous articles, Carlson has published a book and contributed an essay to another. In 2003, he wrote a book about his television news experiences, titled Politicians, Partisans and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News. In the book, Carlson described how he was falsely accused of rape by a woman he had never met in a city he had never visited. Charges against him were never brought, and it was later revealed that his accuser had a chronic mental disorder.
His essay recounting John McCain's campaign during the 2000 Presidential primaries was included in The Weekly Standard: A Reader: 1995-2005.
Political views
Partisan ambivalence
Carlson has stated that while he votes, and cares deeply about conservative ideas, he does not care about the success or failure of any political party. Carlson has said that George W. Bush is not a true conservative. These opinions are viewed as partisan ambivalence by some Republican political figures and movement conservatives [1].
During a Washington Post interview, Carlson further raised GOP question marks and indicated partisan ambivalence by responding to a question about his "displeasure with Bush". Asked Carlson in response, "Why do so many anti-war liberals give Kerry a pass when he adopts the Bush view on Iraq, as he has? The amount of team-playing on the left depresses me[2]."
In his Washington Post interview, Carlson summed his political stance: "I don't know what you consider conservative, but I'm not much of a liberal, as least as the word is currently defined. For instance, I'm utterly opposed to abortion, which I think is horrible and cruel. I think affirmative action is wrong. I'd like to slow immigration pretty dramatically. I hate all nanny-state regulations, such as selt belt laws and smoking bans. I'm not for big government. I think the U.S. ought to hesitate before interveneing abroad. I think these are conservative impulses. So by my criteria, Bush isn't much of a conservative[3]."
Party allegations of liberalism
Carlson has been accused at times by certain more extreme right-wing opinion-makers of secret liberalism. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, complained to the New York Post that Carlson was "not a real Republican". This accusation was later echoed by Carlson's initial co-host on CNN's Crossfire, Paul Begala precedessor Bob Novak. Conservative Republicans began making the liberalism allegations most aggressively following Carlson's public and private endorsement of former Presidential candidate John McCain. Speaking to Salon.com, Carlson explained, "I liked McCain. And I would have voted for McCain for president happily, not because I agree with his politics; I never took McCain's politics seriously enough even to have strong feelings about them. I don't think McCain has very strong politics. He's interested in ideas almost as little as George W. Bush is. McCain isn't intellectual, and doesn't have a strong ideology at all. He's wound up sort of as a liberal Republican because he's mad at other Republicans, not because he's a liberal.
"My attraction to John McCain had nothing to do with ideas at all, I just liked McCain very much as a man, and I was never embarrassed about saying that. And I think some people on the right took that as code for liberalism or something[4]."
In a 2006 speech addressed to University of California, Santa Barbara students, Carlson stated in direct terms, "I don't like FOX News, and I don't like the War in Iraq[5]." However, despite a stridently non-partisan stance on many issues, and occasionally ambivalent public statements, Carlson purports himself to be, and is generally considered by most journalists and politicians, a staunch conservative.
1999 interview with Bush
In 1999, during the 2000 Republican Presidential primary race, Carlson interviewed then-Governor George W. Bush for Talk Magazine. Carlson reported that Bush mocked soon-to-be-executed Texas death row inmate Karla Faye Tucker and "cursed like a sailor." Bush's communications director Karen Hughes publicly disputed this claim. Carlson did not vote in the 2004 election citing his disgust with the Iraq war and his disillusionment with the once small government Republican party.
Asked by Salon about the response to his article, Carlson characterized it as "very, very hostile. The reaction was: You betrayed us. Well, I was never there as a partisan to begin with. Then I heard that (on the campaign bus, Bush communications director) Karen Hughes accused me of lying. And so I called Karen and asked her why she was saying this, and she had this almost Orwellian rap that she laid on me about how things she'd heard -- that I watched her hear -- she in fact had never heard, and she'd never heard Bush use profanity ever. It was insane. I've obviously been lied to a lot by campaign operatives, but the striking thing about the way she lied was she knew I knew she was lying, and she did it anyway. There is no word in English that captures that. It almost crosses over from bravado into mental illness. They get carried away, consultants do, in the heat of the campaign, they're really invested in this. A lot of times they really like the candidate. That's all conventional. But on some level, you think, there's a hint of recognition that there is reality -- even if they don't recognize reality exists -- there is an objective truth. With Karen you didn't get that sense at all. A lot of people like her. A lot of people I know like her. I'm not one of them[6]."
On the war with Iraq
On the U.S. war with Iraq, Carlson says: "I think it’s a total nightmare and disaster, and I’m ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it. It’s something I’ll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who’s smarter than I am, and I shouldn’t have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I’m enraged by it, actually[7]."
On the Plum TV interview program Duff Talk, which aired on January 1, 2004, Carlson was asked again what his views were on the Iraq War. Carlson replied in depth: "I do make mistakes. I made a huge mistake in supporting the Iraq War. No doubt about it. And it wasn't just... I think it -- wars have consequences and reverberations for centuries. World War II -- World War I, even, you know, the ripples are still heading off towards the horizon, and we don't even know at this point what the long-term effects of World War II are. I'll tell you, one effect of this war in Iraq is going to be immigration of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of Iraqis, to this country. Maybe that's good, maybe it's bad. War always results in displacement. And not just refugees, but people move in the aftermath of a war. And, colonial powers -- I am not sure if we are a colonial power, but we are something close to it -- always end up accepting citizens from the countries they once occupied. You [addressing interviewer] once lived in Europe. You know exactly what I am talking about. Ten percent of France is Muslim. Why is that? Because of people from countries that France once occupied... that's one of the things I think we as a nation should have thought through, before we endorsed [the Iraq War]. [8]"
Critic of Norquist
While vocalizing conservative views, Carlson has not hesitated periodically to level criticism at fellow conservatives. Carlson has been a harsh critic of conservative activist Grover Norquist, for instance, calling Norquist a "mean-spirited, humorless, dishonest little creep ... an embarrassing anomaly, the leering, drunken uncle everyone else wishes would stay home...[he] is repulsive, granted, but there aren't nearly enough of him to start a purge trial." [9] According to American Politics Journal, Carlson went a step further, characterizing the combative Norquist as a "buffoon commissar who has misplaced his principles to the extent of accepting money to lobby on behalf of the Marxist government of the Seychelles[10]."
Confrontations only further escalated between the two men. Carlson allegedly dismissed Norquist's weekly Wednesday morning meetings as events "where conservative-movement activists, political strategists, congressional staffers, and conservative journalists who are deemed loyal (from rags like the National Review and Yhe Washington Times) gather to hash out the GOP party line." He then wrote a critical profile of Norquist. In a move widely rumored by Beltway insiders to have been retaliation for the profile, Norquist tried to convince media mogul Rupert Murdoch to abandon the Weekly Standard, for which Carlson was a writer. Conservative author David Brock alleged Carlson told him then House Speaker Newt Gingrich had become involved, and that Carlson's job was endangered. Norquist has since denied putting screw tactics to Tucker Carlson, but has admitted telephoning Murdoch insider Eric Breindel to discuss "alleged inaccuracies" in Carlson's piece[11].
Libertarian views
In his speech at the University of California, Santa Barbara in early 2006, Carlson freely admitted he was libertarian. "Of course I'm biased! That's my job! I am completely up-front about my political positions, about my political biases. I am a right-winger -- sort of the Libertarian right-winger -- but I am far out, and I make no secret of it. I mean, I am this close to stockpiling food and ammunition, and moving to Idaho. I mean I am... I'm on That Side. And I never make any bones about that; I never pretend to be, you know, a moderate, sensible guy. I never pretend, you know, that maybe we can sort of 'meet in the middle' here. No! I think what I think, and I say so[12]."
He continued, after a speech by his debate opponent The Nation columnist and "What Liberal Media?" author Eric Alterman, that "limited government", "lower taxation" and "individual liberty" were, in his opinion, "attractive"[13].
Reporting for the summer 1995 issue of City Journal about the decision of an East New York housing complex to hire its own privately-funded police force to watch nearby streets and neighborhoods, Carlson extolled Starrett City housing complex's successes lowering crime by having done so, and summed up his report, "All of this shows that poor neighborhoods can benefit from a strong order-keeping effort. It shows, too, that the benefits of private security needn't be exclusively for the wealthy."
Carlson has also been widely reported as not particularly interested in conservative touchstone issues such as the war on drugs, and has been cited as "against" government interference and legislation in the personal drug purchases and habits of individuals. In a 2006 Salon interview, Carlson said: "I'm not particularly anti-drug, and I'm opposed to the death penalty as I am adamantly opposed to abortion. Arnold Schwarzenegger is anti-drug, pro-death penalty, pro-abortion. So I guess we're both conservatives? I don't know. All I know is I can only represent my own views[14]."
On the HBO program Real Time, when asked by Bill Maher a hypothetical question of whether a president caught using drugs should face the same fate, namely incarceration, as other drug users, Carlson replied: "No! Look, if a responsible person who is not bothering anyone uses drugs you should leave them alone[15]."
Defending destruction of Rainbow Warrior
Carlson drew criticism from Greenpeace in July 2005 after repeatedly stating that he supported the French government's 1985 mining of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in a New Zealand port to prevent it from illegally interfering with a scheduled nuclear test. The ship sank, resulting in the drowning of a Greenpeace photographer and creating an international scandal. Carlson called the operation "a bold and good thing to do" on The Situation with Tucker Carlson, [16] and stated that it was "vandalism", not terrorism, because "it wasn't intended to kill anyone"[17].
Critique of Canada
Carlson has also drawn criticism from his opinions of Canada. "Anybody with any ambition at all, or intelligence, has left Canada and is now living in New York," he said. "Canada is a sweet country. It is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he's nice but you don't take him seriously. That's Canada"[18].
On gay marriage
Asked his thoughts about gay marriage, Carlson was non-partisan and ambivalent. He replied, "Marriage has been around since the begining of recorded history. The idea of gay marriage is about ten years old. I'd like to know what effect gay marriage will have on children. It's a question worth asking. Why does no one on the pro-gay marriage side seem to care?" Carlson added, however, that "people who say gay marriage will hurt marriage should explain how[19]."
On rape and women's safety issues
During an August 7, 2006, segment of his MSNBC program Tucker, Carlson confronted and challenged FOX News Channel pundit Bill O'Reilly's August 2, 2004 comments about an 18-year-old rape and homicide victim. O'Reilly was broadcast as stating: "She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at 2 in the morning."
In response to O'Reilly's comments on Tucker, Carlson responded: "So, she's got a halter top with a bare midriff and she's drunk; therefore, she gets raped and murdered, as if that's natural? That's what happens when you've got a bare midriff and you're loaded? Not in my America, buddy. Pretty low standards. I mean, I don't know if O'Reilly is attempting to blame her for luring this guy in or what, but the fact is, it's sick all the way around. You ought to be able to wear whatever you want on our streets and not get raped and murdered. Period[20]."
Confrontation with Jon Stewart
On Crossfire, prior to the 2004 Presidential Election, Carlson exchanged some heated words with Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show. Stewart criticized the format of shows like Crossfire, calling Carlson and co-host Paul Begala "partisan hacks". He asked the duo to "stop hurting America". He implied that shows like Crossfire were "dishonest" and further explained that these shows failed miserably in their responsibility to the public discourse.
Carlson responded by criticizing Stewart's July 2004 interview with U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry, accusing Stewart of "sniffing [Kerry's] throne" and "not asking tough questions." Stewart responded: "What is wrong with you? You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls." [21]." As the show closed, Carlson told Stewart: "I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion," to which Stewart replied: "Well, you're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show."
Stewart himself has since expressed vague unease and regret about his performance on the program[22]. Viacom executives also expressed discouragement over Stewart's performance, with Comedy Central executive Tony Fox's implication there was in fact network-level "regret" over Stewart's "vulgarity" during the broadcast[23].
The video clip of the interview became very popular among some viewers on the internet, as did Stewart's response on the Daily Show the next day, where he said: "Tomorrow, I'll go back to being funny, but your show will still blow"[24]. Carlson's response since then has been, "For the record, every single 'crackpot' thing that I said on Crossfire, I deeply believed, and still do"[25].
Shortly after the Stewart interview, CNN announced they were ending their relationship with Carlson and would soon cancel the long-running Crossfire program [26]. On Duff Talk, however, Carlson revealed he had already resigned from CNN and Crossfire long before Stewart was booked on the program as a guest, admitting to host Patricia Duff: "I resigned from Crossfire in April, many months before Jon Stewart came on our show, because I didn't like the partisanship, and I thought in some ways it was kind of a pointless conversation... each side coming out, you know, [raises fists] 'Here's my argument', and no one listening to anyone else. It was a frustrating place to work[27]."
Media cynicism
Ironically, despite the general venom of Stewart's fans towards him, Carlson actually appears to share at least one opinion with Stewart, that being the arguably precarious state of the U.S. television media today. Asked by Patricia Duff what his viewpoint was on the polarized, spin-zone state of TV news during Carlson's January 1, 2004 episode of Duff Talk, Carlson agreed with the interviewer that Americans "trusted the news much more during the Walter Cronkite days than they do today", then continued, "There were three networks then. Four more newspapers. But in electronic media, there were far fewer choices. And now that there are, exponentially, a larger number of choices, people are served better, I think. You have access to more news now than you did. When Walter Cronkite started, the news was fifteen minutes. Network news was fifteen minutes. That was it. On the other hand, I think we are approaching a place where people assume that there is no objective truth. 'That's just your version. That's FOX's version. That's CNN's version.' And ultimately that's not good for American society, because you can reach a state where we can't agree that anything really happened. It's all spin[28]."
Asked his personal views on the media by Duff, Carlson agreed with her suggestion "news is entertainment now", but quickly added, "But you know, it always was [29]." Carlson then related a boyhood anecdote in which his father Richard W. Carlson, former on-air news anchor and CEO of PBS from 1992-1997, revealed to him the depth to which news broadcasting had descended. Recalling the incident, Carlson stated: "There is no question [news has become about the sugar-coating]. I remember -- I will never forget -- when I was little, my father worked at ABC, and I remember every year he was anchoring in Los Angeles. Every year they would do "Breast Cancer Awareness Week". Now, no one is contesting the fact that breast cancer is a big deal, and a significant story. But the only reason they did Breast Cancer Awareness Week was to show breasts on TV. And I remember him complaining about that. The news director would say: 'Gotta get more tits on there!' My dad was like: 'My God, it's breast cancer!' 'No, no!' The whole point was to do a mammogram on television, so you could show women's breasts. I'm sorry, this is true[30]."
He added: "You know, [news has] always been that way. The press has an enormous amount of power, and you hope that they don't -- we don't -- misuse it. And we do sometimes, and that's a shame. Gary Condit," Carlson said, "[was] completely screwed. By us. Including me. The guy did not kill Chandra Levy, it turns out. We think we know who did, actually. He's now in jail. But whatever: Gary Condit clearly didn't kill her. But we, at CNN, for instance, spent eight months... implying that Gary Condit, this Congressman, this poor random Congressman from Modesto, California, had murdered this girl. Okay? And we never apologized for that. The only reason we did it was because it was good for ratings. We should apologize. And so, the press does overstep its bounds, and do ugly things[31]."
Carlson has criticized the media during speeches, and usually levels charges similarly as specific against the U.S. media as does Jon Stewart, but with less emotional rhetoric and from an opposite political standpoint. In an early 2006 speech at UCSB defending the right from "liberal" accusations of bias in the American media, Carlson stated: "Objectivity -- if not the reality, which is unattainable -- but at least the appearance of objectivity, at least the goal of objectivity, in news coverage, is essential; or else things fall apart. Well, I think the American press does a pretty good job. Having spent a lot of time abroad in the last fifteen years, whatever hang-ups I have, or whatever anger I feel toward news coverage, I try to compare that with things I have seen abroad. And I think we're doing a pretty good job by comparison, but we're still not living up, I think, to the standard we set up for ourselves in the press. And here is the standard: the standard," Carlson elucidated, "as I said a second ago, is not perfect objectivity[32]."
From CNN and PBS to MSNBC
While at CNN, Carlson also hosted his own show on PBS called Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered, a news and public affairs program. The program aired from June 18, 2004 to June 17, 2005.
On February 2, 2005, MSNBC announced that they had signed Carlson to develop and host a primetime (9 p.m. EST originally) MSNBC show, as a replacement for Deborah Norville. The Situation with Tucker Carlson premiered on June 13, 2005, with one of Carlson's first guests being Al Sharpton. The format of the show was loosely similar to that of the ESPN sports show, Pardon the Interruption, where issues are debated for defined amounts of time.
Carlson's show was moved to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. ET on July 10, 2006, with the title being shortened to Tucker. The show's formerly rigid, timed format has been abandoned, in favor of a more free-form mixture of news, opinion journalism, and guest analysis. The topic list was removed, as well as the segments with Max Kellerman and Rachel Maddow. Segments called "Beat the Press" and "Breaking the News" were added.
Carlson hosted a late afternoon weekday wrapup for MSNBC during the 2006 Winter Olympics, during which he attempted to 'learn' how to play various Olympic sports. In July 2006, he reported live for Tucker from Haifa, Israel, during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. While in the Middle East, he also hosted "MSNBC Special Report: Mideast Crisis", which aired at 10 p.m.
Sirius Satellite appearances
Carlson also appears as a regular weekly guest on the Bubba the Love Sponge radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio on Howard 101, every Tuesday at either 4:30 p.m. (EST) or 5:00 p.m. (EST).
Personal life
Personal
Carlson is married to Susan Andrews. The couple have three daughters and a son and reside in Madison, New Jersey. According to several Washington-insider columns published in June 2006, they have purchased a large, $4 million home in The Palisades section of Washington, D.C. [33].
Carlson is a practicing Episcopalian, but he recently expressed disdain towards the church's policies.
He stated in August of 2006 on the MSNBC program Tucker that he is an ardent fan of Grateful Dead and guitarist songwriter Jerry Garcia, and claims he attended more than fifty of the Grateful Dead's shows.
Bow ties
On April 11, 2006, Carlson (who is known for wearing bow-ties) announced on his MSNBC show that he would no longer be wearing a bow-tie, adding, "I just decided I wanted to give my neck a break. A little change is good once in a while, and I feel better already." Carlson had previously been widely mocked for his bow-ties, and the matter was often teasingly brought up in many interviews over the years.
Dancing with the Stars
On August 14, 2006, the ABC television network announced that Carlson would be a participant in its Fall 2006 Dancing with the Stars reality show.
As of August 17, 2006, Carlson is said to be taking four-hour-a-day ballroom dance classes in preparation for the competition, and mourned of "missed classes" during a recent show assignment in Lebanon[34]. "It's hard for me to remember the moves," he states[35]. When asked why he accepted ABC's invitation to perform, Carlson responded, "I'm not defending it as the smartest choice, but I think it's the most interesting. I think if you sat back and tried to plan my career, you might not choose this. But my only criterion is the interest level. I want to lead an interesting life." He concluded, "I'm 37. I've got four kids. I have a steady job. I don't do things that I'm not good at very often. I'm psyched to get to do that[36]."
External links
- Tucker Carlson web site, MSNBC.
- Tucker Carlson profile, NNDB.
- Clientplus biosketch.
- Tucker Carlson at IMDb.
- Tucker Carlson vs. Jon Stewart, CNN.
- Media Matters For America page.
- Tucker Carlson's political donations.
- Tucker Carlson Fan Site.
- Tucker Carlson LiveJournal Community.
- A Moderated Tucker Carlson LiveJournal Community.
- Carlson interview on Eric Kuhn's college radio show.
- Tucker Carlson to join MSNBC.
- Hillary Clinton has sweet revenge.