Prof. William Jacobson of Cornell oversees an excellent, well-researched conservative blog that often delves into the world of ethics, often from a legal perspective. One of his current posts is titled “What Happened to Tucker?,” as the Prof. laments what he sees as Carlson’s turn to the Dark Side. “He’s turned out not to be the person I thought he was,” Jacobson writes. “After leaving Fox News, he has done more to normalize Jew-hatred and bring it into the MAGA movement through the “woke right” than any other major ‘conservative’ personality…Something has gone very wrong. Maybe his true self finally was freed of the constraints of corporate news, or maybe something else influenced him. But now he is — in my estimation — a malign force and not just as to Jews and Israel, but also to the Trump agenda which he seems determined to undermine.”
You see Fredo above in his pathetic protestations of intellectual acumen from “Godfather II,” one of my favorite entries in the EA Hollywood Clip Archive, because in this instance, I was way ahead of Prof. Jacobson. Last December I issued this post, in which I quoted from an earlier “Why can’t everyone see that Carlson is an untrustworthy asshole?” essay that said in part,
“ [Tucker Carlson is] a smug, narcissistic, ethics-challenged, unprincipled, Machiavellian demagogue who helps pollute our civic discourse rather than enhance it.…since Fox News fired him (one more example of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons), several publications have noted that Carlson’s focus has descended into cheap tabloid territory as he desperately seeks publicity, clicks and eyeballs. Of course he has! Carlson doesn’t need the money (he’s a trust fund kid and has a net worth estimated at $30 million); he could easily maintain whatever integrity he had and present serious, useful analysis from the conservative side on whatever platform he used as he waits for his Fox contract to run out. Nah, he wants fame and power.”
How do I explain the fact that so many otherwise smart commentators were sucked in by this smug, self-serving charlatan? Carlson’s EA dossier is massive and about 95% damning (Bill Clinton’s is better), beginning with this post in which I registered my disgust at Carlson’s conservative news aggregator website smirking about “hot teachers” having sex with their teenage students. Ah, but Tucker was conservative, see, and a Republican, so the Cognitive Dissonance Scale
worked to his favor. For conservatives like Jacobson, that world view was high in positive territory on the scale, overwhelming all of the vibes Carlson gave off that had my ethics alarms, (Treacherous Creep Division), ringing from the start. Maybe it’s my work with lawyers that lets me see though phonies like Tucker. Maybe it was going to Harvard when all these rich kids were protesting the Vietnam war because they didn’t want to have to fight for their country…I’m not sure. Whatever it was, Tucker Carlson didn’t fool me for a second.
I read Prof. Jacobson’s blog. He needs to start reading mine.
Ethics Alarms 
I cannot argue with you.
I used to like Carlson, and I’ve watched any number of hours by Megyn Kelly who was a colleague and friend.
However, it’s disturbing to hear and hear about some of the interviews he’s done since leaving Fox.
As a student of history, I’ve been especially disturbed by his interviews with the Holocaust denier, and the “historian” he interviewed who essentially blamed Churchill for fomenting WWII, and excused the Nazis for deliberating starving to death millions of Soviet POWs and other people on the Eastern front.
I don’t know if he signed on to Candace Owens’ ‘revelation’ that the Moon landings were all a big hoax, but it would be of a piece with the rest (and Owens has taken a dark turn herself into anti-semitism and conspiracy theories).
If Legal Insurrection is only now tumbling to all this, I’m afraid they haven’t been paying enough attention (and I say that as a monthly supporter of LI).
Bill Jacobson, Hamilton College graduate. I asked him if he’d be willing to speak at our 50th class reunion. He asked whether the college would be okay with that, which kind of ended the discussion. I asked him if he’d serve as president of the college. He simply replied, “It’s too far gone.” An impressive guy. I’m amazed he’s allowed to do his thing in Ithaca at all.