Andrew Sullivan on Tucker Carlson's Race-Baiting

Andrew Sullivan on Tucker Carlson's latest "scoop" recycling a fragment of an old video clip to try to demonstrate that President Obama is an angry black man:

All that Carlson did is clip it [i.e., a 2007 Obama speech] to get an "angry black man" in the minds of Americans. It's at once one of the most desperate and lame and vile plays of the race card I can remember - an obvious recognition that the 47 percent tape can only really be countered emotionally with race-baiting.   . . .  

Carlson used to be a brilliant writer. He's now a racist demagogue. He's a story in one person of how degenerate and disgusting much of American "conservatism" has become.

Yes.  But for me, it's quite a stretch to call Carlson a "brilliant writer" at any point in his career.

I've always found Carlson to be an overgrown and highly privileged frat boy.  I've observed him in action for years, since he began his journalistic career working for our statewide newspaper the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.  And I've never found him anything but condescending and oblivious to his privilege.

And then there's this: Carlson's juvenile boasting about finding a friend to help him beat up a man who, Carlson says, propositioned him in a men's room at Georgetown University.  What does that say--above all, his smug hilarity as he recounted this incident on Joe Scarborough's show--about Carlson's brilliance?  And maturity?  And humanity?

For my part, I'm not so sure that Carlson has ever been anything much than "degenerate and disgusting."  Rush Limbaugh with considerably more privilege in his background.  And more hair.