Tucker Carlson...how in the heck did this guy happen?

Has the most-watched cable-news show in TV history.

And the most-watched cable news show ever is … - Poynter

He does not tweet with any regularity and his monologues (largely unseen by me) stretch on for...a long time.

Some of this is just how Fox News works - you could put a seal in a MAGA hat on at 8 and get 2 million viewers. But if one remembers the sheer amount of attention and heat Bill O'Reilly used to get...I wouldn't have thought the guy who got dunked on by Jon Stewart was in that ballpark.

But he's in that ballpark.

 

He's one of the most intelligent commenters on television (not to mention one of the bravest).

And in the orbit of Fox News/CNN/MSNBC talking heads, he's probably the least partisan (in the sense of not blindly supporting or supporting something based on affiliation with a political party).

The fact that he largely ignores social media is further evidence that there's a whole 'nother world out there not inhabited by the 2 percent who use Twitter on a regular basis.

 

The Deplorables seem extra-impressed by him lately. I always gave him a little credit for putting Russian expert Stephen Cohen on semi-regularly when the other networks simply didn't want to hear what he had to say during the Trump-Russia brouhaha.

 

AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAH ... *takes deep breath* AHAHAHAAHAHAHAH ... *another deep breath* ... *wait, that wasn't enough* ... *can't breathe* ... ded

 

I rarely ever listen to a Tucker Carlson clip, but when I do, it's so outrageous it's hard to believe that anybody anywhere puts it on the air.

 

I'll say this: One of the few clips I've ever seen involved Max Boot, who I regard as a foreign policy clown, and I didn't mind Tucker Carlson getting in a snoot-fest with him.

 

I've never doubted that Carlson is a bright guy - knows how to reverse-engineer an argument to get the conclusion he wants, he also knows how to keep his head afloat having received paychecks from CNN, FOX and MSNBC and attends the right cocktail parties, ditched the bowties to appeal to Trumpers, - but hearing about a guy who went to boarding schools all his life, talk about "real Americans" (who aren't heirs to a frozen food fortune) is a bit much.

 

Tucker Carlson is who semi-intelligent GOPers watch when they can't bring themselves to watch Hannity.

 

He's been on an anti-Duke tear for a few weeks lol.

 

I agree with this.

And yet - people are watching.

 

Who do the intelligent GOPers get to claim? George Will? David Brooks?

David French is...OK. I think I'm supposed to like French more than I do. My conservative church friends think he's just great. I'm, eh.

 

Tucker Carlson is one of those guys who uses the term "conservative" when convenient as a cop-out to distance from anything the Republican Party does that fails. Talk radio is full of these clowns.