What an obnoxious, irresponsible, idiot. Worst of all, he’s made me agree with the hacks at “Above the Law”…
Here’s what Carlson said in his “opening statement” (pompous enough for you?) on his popular Fox News show two nights ago:
So is Ketanji Brown Jackson, a name that even Joe Biden has trouble pronouncing, one of the top legal minds in the entire country? We certainly hope so, it’s Biden’s right, appointing her is his one of his gravest constitutional duties. So it might be time for Joe Biden to let us know what Ketanji Brown Jackson’s LSAT score was. Wonder how she did on the LSATs, why won’t he tell us that? It would seem like Americans in a democracy have a right to know that and much more before giving her a lifetime appointment, but we didn’t hear that.”
Is Carlson trying to be an asshole who gives ammunition to those who want the public to believe that conservatives are racists, or just to just appeal to racist assholes? He can’t possibly be so stupid as to believe that an experienced judge’s LSAT scores have any relevance to her competence today to sit on the Supreme Court, can he? I know Tucker isn’t a lawyer and never took the LSATs, but still…really? It’s a standardized test that measures (supposedly) skills that will prove helpful in succeeding in law school, but that can’t possibly forecast whether a particular individual will develop into successful lawyer or judge. As even Above the Law could figure out,
This is so, so very fucking stupid…Really dude? What’s next? “Before we hand her the wheel to the judiciary, what score did she get on her driver’s license exam?”
The woman graduated with honors from Harvard Law School and edited the Law Review. She was accepted as a Supreme Court Justice’s law clerk, a job one cannot fudge or fake one’s way through. Nothing she did, no test she took or didn’t take, no grade, no essay or statement, that she made before entering the legal profession has any relevance to her qualifications to be a Supreme Court justice, and the suggestion that it does is indefensible. From ABTL:
And for posterity’s sake, I hope the soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Jackson’s LSAT score was dismal. The kind where you get your score and ask yourself if you should even be in the profession. That she weathered the storm and got into Harvard Law, surrounded by people whose entry test scores towered over hers. And that she overcame adversity like a Black lady-David, sling-shotting past her peers to make it on Harvard Law review and graduate with honors despite her initial setback.
Bingo. We have no idea what Clarence Darrow, John Adams, or Abe Lincoln would have scored on an LSAT, nor John Marshall, Felix Frankfurter, Cardozo, Brandeis, Scalia, Black or either Harlan, and it doesn’t matter. Moreover, neither Carlson nor anyone else thought Brett Kavanaugh’s LSAT scores, Amy Coney Barrett’s or Neil Gorsuch’s mattered either, because they didn’t, and don’t.
I object to contrived race-baiting, but boy, it’s hard not to sniff the stench of bigotry here. That is especially so after Carlson began with the sneer about Jackson’s name. “She really isn’t like us, is she?” was a Washington Post op-ed’s translation, and it is hard to disagree with that interpretation.
Carlson has become an albatross around the neck of conservatives and Republicans, a rich-kid show-off without accountability: if he gets fired, he lives off his trust fund. He’s not a spokesman or a leader, but because he’s so prominent from his perch on Fox, his routine assholery hands the propagandists of the Left tons of live ammunition to use on others. Paul Waldman, in the Post op-ed, wrote that conservatives and Republicans “are going right for the racist appeal to drum up opposition to Jackson. You will not be surprised that Fox News host Tucker Carlson is leading the charge.”
What “charge”? Nevertheless, if Republicans were…Ha! I almost wrote “smart”! Let me start again: Republicans need to rebuke Carlson and his offensive claim, and Fox would do well to send him home for a week to ponder what being an ethical pundit requires.
And, once again, there is no reason for the GOP Senators not to vote to confirm Jackson, if not unanimously, then at least overwhelmingly.
Ethics Alarms 
Oh no, there is a reason – the same reason not a single Dem voted for Kavanaugh or Barrett. 3 did break ranks to confirm Gorsuch. At this point it’s got to be made clear that whatever the other side does or did will be visited right back on it. Eventually maybe the Democratic Party will decide that payback’s a bitch, and stop spoiling for it.
Ugh. A directly unethical principle advocated on an ethics blog. Should the Republican dig up some addled woman with a baby-doll delivery who claims Jackson sexually assaulted her at some party somewhere that nobody can remember? Or maybe an ex law clerk who remembers a “pubic hair on a Coke can” joke at a staff meeting? Jeez…why is it just to punish Jackson for something she had nothing to do with?
It isn’t. These are unjust rules. Unfortunately, when the other side has shown themselves to be unjust and ruthless, sometimes you have to be more so in the name of survival. If one side only is shooting, the other side will soon be dead.
And nah, maybe instead they can did up pictures of her with a black beret armed with an assault rifle or something like that.
That’s how violence works, but not how public opinion works.
On the battlefield of public opinion, ruthlessness isn’t an advantage if people already hate you. And integrity isn’t a weakness if you know how to leverage it, which most humans never learn to do. The goal isn’t “interfere with anything that side tries to do” but rather “get people to appreciate and understand our side more and to be more skeptical of the side they already trust too much.”
With the right mindsets, honor doesn’t have to mean being stubborn and stupid.
Unfortunately, the Republicans have a self-imposed limitation: they, like the Democrats, can’t use ethical tactics because the voters won’t recognize their ethics and reward them for it. Neither party will educate their constituents on what ethics and other constructive principles mean because their business model relies on nobody holding them accountable for being constructive.
Ethics means negotiating with people in ways that make them stronger, and political parties want people weak so they can continue getting votes and money by making people afraid of the other party and granting a few ill-conceived wishes.
If voters understood principles and integrity, if they could recognize and walk away from hypocrisy, then the political parties would have to become useful and responsible, and put effort into doing substantial good. In order to survive as they are, political parties can only ever use propaganda techniques. Good and bad are what the party says they are, because otherwise the party has to get results that will ultimately make it obsolete.
That’s why I’m giving people a vocabulary that lets them see all the constructive options that have been hidden from them for so long. With an anti-Newspeak, they’ll be able to see just how shallow the political discourse has been all these decades, and then they’ll be able to replace it with collaboration to build a world we can all be proud of.
OK, Ambassador Kosh.
It really would be something if senators who saw things that way had the intellectual courage and intestinal fortitude to say, “We’re doing it because they did it first.” But, I suppose being more unjust and ruthless would require dishonesty as well.
I see now that Althouse reached essentially teh same conclusion on Tucker that I have. It’s a shame the Left tried to boycott Carlson for his legitimate opinions, because they would have no credibility doing the same over this. But he really needs to apologize, explain, something. Or Fix News does.
Abject stupidity from Carlson. His self-awareness is either zero, or he really is a bigot or appealing to bigotry for attention. Any of the above is shameful.
Regressive dem fascists do not care about their reputation because they do not have to. The MSM, the corporatocracy, academia, Hollywood, and those running social media all run interference. They have no honor or ethics alarms as their behavior confirms and neither does their base.
Carlson may be so angry and frustrated that he is resorting to an eye for an eye.
There is a way for him to salvage his reputation that would be wise and instructive. All he must do is explain how he is deliberately exhibiting the same behavior/tactics the radical Left fascists regularly employ against conservatives, and “how does it feel…”
This will stimulate quite a discussion and is a winning strategy.
Carlson is smart enough but perhaps not wise enough to take this tack. Hopefully someone he trusts is.
This is what affirmative action hath wrought. What highly educated and accomplished black person can ever escape the shadow cast by affirmative action policies? Is there an affirmative action track that works its way through all avenues of career advancement? I do not know.
Other than her graduating with honors, clerking for Breyer and serving as a judge, what is a her judicial history? How many of her rulings have been overturned, do her rulings suggest she is more likely to legislate from the bench or rule based on the law.
I am sure Erich Holder and Barack Obama scored well on tests and graduated highly but I would want neither on the SCOTUS.
If it is unethical to claim a person is not qualified based on low test scores – to which I agree- then it must be equally unethical to judge a person’s high grades and coveted collegiate and professional activities as proof of qualification.
How many of her rulings have been overturned…
That’s what I’d like to know about nominees, especially re cases that made their way to SCOTUS.
Did anyone ask that about the “Wise Latina”?