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Tucker Carlson

Born:	May 16, 1969 San Francisco, CA, USA
Occupation:	News Anchor, Commentator, Pundit, and Columnist
Website:	>Tucker

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Education 1.2 Journalism career 1.2.1 Autobiography discusses rape allegation 2 National television career 2.1 CNN and PBS shows 2.1.1 2004 confrontation with Comedy Central's Jon Stewart 2.2 MSNBC's Tucker 3 Political views 3.1 Partisan ambivalence 3.2 Republican Party allegations of liberalism 3.3 1999 Bush interview 3.4 Supporting, then opposing, the U.S. war in Iraq 3.5 Critic of Norquist 3.5.1 Norquist retaliation? 3.6 Defending Rainbow Warrior mining 3.7 Canada, the "retarded cousin" 3.8 Gay marriage 4 Sirius Satellite appearances 5 Bow ties 6 Dancing with the Stars 7 Criticism 8 Personal life 9 Popular culture references 10 External links

Carlson is the son of Richard W. Carlson, a former affiliate-level ABC News anchor who was later president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from 1992 to 1997 and U.S. Ambassador to the Seychelles. His stepmother, Patricia Carlson, is an heiress to the Swanson frozen-food fortune[1].

Carlson attended high school at St. George's School, a prestigious private school in Newport, Rhode Island. He then attended Trinity College, a selective liberal arts school in Hartford, Connecticut, for four years but did not graduate. During his time at Trinity, Carlson was a dedicated member of the ping pong team. Classmates speculate that it was his strong desire to make the Olympic team that may have prevented him from graduating.

Carlson began his journalism career as a member of the editorial staff of Policy Review, a respected national conservative journal now published by the Hoover Institution. He later worked as a reporter at the regionally influential Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Carlson is the current host of the MSNBC program Tucker at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Carlson joined MSNBC in February 2005 from CNN, where he was the youngest anchor in the history of that network. At CNN, he hosted a number of shows and specials, including the network’s political debate program, Crossfire. During the same period, Carlson also hosted a weekly public affairs program on PBS, Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered." A longtime magazine and newspaper journalist, Carlson has reported from around the world, most recently from Iraq and Lebanon. He has been a columnist for New York and Reader's Digest. He currently writes for Esquire, The Weekly Standard and The New York Times Magazine.

In 2003, Carlson authored an autobiography, Politicians, Partisans and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News, about his television news experiences. One of the book's revelations was Carlson's description of how he was 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. Carlson wrote in the book that the incident was emotionally traumatic and strengthened his belief in the presumption of innocence, particularly on allegations of a sexual nature.

Prior to hosting Tucker on MSNBC, Carlson got his television start in 2000 as co-host of The Spin Room opposite Bill Press. He later was appointed co-host of CNN's Crossfire, where he represented the political right. He also previously hosted PBS's Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered from 2004 to 2005.

One of Carlson's most memorable appearances on Crossfire was his heated exchange with Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, prior to the 2004 Presidential Election. Stewart criticized the format of shows like Crossfire, calling Carlson and co-host Paul Begala "partisan hacks", and asked them to "stop hurting America". He implied that shows like Crossfire are "dishonest" because while they have the pretense of cutting through binary political spin, they actually perpetuate it, thus failing in their responsibility to the public discourse.

Carlson countered by criticizing Stewart's July 2004 interview with former U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry. He accused Stewart of "sniffing Kerry's throne" and "not asking tough questions." Stewart responded that his show is comedy, not serious politics: "You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making prank phone calls. What is wrong with you?" At one point, Carlson told Stewart: "I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion," to which Stewart replied: "You know what's interesting? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show."

The video clip of the interview became hugely popular on the internet, as was 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.", paraphrasing Churchill's remark.[2] 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." [3]

Carlson remained polite about Stewart after their televised confrontation, recalling that Stewart "stayed at CNN several hours after the show to discuss the issues that he raised on the air. It was heartfelt," stated Carlson in an interview about the episode. "He (Stewart) needed to do this." [4]

Shortly after the Stewart interview, CNN announced they were ending their relationship with Carlson and would soon cancel the long-running Crossfire program. CNN chief Jonathan Klein told Carlson on Jan. 4, 2005, that the network had decided not to renew his contract.[5] Carlson, however, claims he had already resigned from CNN and Crossfire long before Stewart was booked as a guest, telling 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. [CNN] was a frustrating place to work."[6]

On February 2, 2005, MSNBC announced that they had signed Carlson to develop and host a primetime (9 p.m. ET 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 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 but later removed. MSNBC continues to fine tune the show. 2007 brought a new format for the show with Tucker situated behind a desk and moderating a duo or trio of guests (reoccurring guests include A.B. Stoddard and Pat Buchanan) that discuss the major political stories of the day. Also included at the end of the show is a segment that covers lighter topics such as entertainment news or odd stories. The segment is narrated by Tucker senior producer Willie Geist.

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 Lebanon War 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. ET.

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. In addition, his definitions of "conservative" views often conflict with the partisan mainstream opinion. This has created tension between Carlson and staunch Republicans.

Carlson has stated that U.S. President George W. Bush is not a true conservative. Despite his general reputation as a political conservative, this and other views have been interpreted as partisan ambivalence by some Republican political figures and movement conservatives[7].

In an August 27, 2004 Washington Post interview, Carlson raised GOP question marks when he expressed his "displeasure with Bush". "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", Carlson said. [8]

"I don't know what you consider conservative", Carlson said, "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 seat belt laws and smoking bans. I'm not for big government. I think the U.S. ought to hesitate before intervening abroad. I think these are conservative impulses. So by my criteria, Bush isn't much of a conservative." [9]

Conservative Republicans have accused Carlson of not being sufficiently conservative. This first began following Carlson's public and private endorsement of former Presidential candidate John McCain. Speaking to Salon.com, Carlson responded: "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." [10]

In 1999, during the 2000 Republican Presidential primary race, Carlson interviewed then-Governor of Texas 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 on Bush, 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." [11]

Carlson initially supported the U.S. war with Iraq during its first year. A year into the war, after the discovery of a lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction, he began criticizing the war, telling the New York Observer: "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."[12]

Tucker has also been a critic of conservative activist Grover Norquist, 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." [13] According to American Politics Journal, Carlson went a step further, characterizing 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." [14]

Confrontations between Carlson and Norquist escalated, with Carlson dismissing Norquist's weekly conservative movement meetings as events "where conservative-movement activists, political strategists, Congressional staffers, and conservative journalists who are deemed loyal from rags like National Review and The Washington Times gather to hash out the GOP party line." Carlson then wrote a critical profile of Norquist.

In a move rumored by Beltway insiders to have been retaliation for the profile, Norquist tried to convince media mogul Rupert Murdoch to abandon financial support for the Weekly Standard, for which Carlson was a writer. Author David Brock alleged Carlson told him that then-U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich became involved in the feud, and that Carlson's job was endangered. Norquist has since denied putting screw tactics to Carlson, though he has admitted telephoning Murdoch insider Eric Breindel to discuss "alleged inaccuracies in Carlson's piece." [15]

Carlson drew criticism from Greenpeace in July 2005 after 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. Following the mining, 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 his MSNBC show [16], and stated that it was "vandalism", not terrorism, because "it wasn't intended to kill anyone." [17]

Carlson has also made polemic remarks about Canada, describing Canadians as being very "brittle." "Anybody with any ambition at all, or intelligence, has left Canada and is now living in New York," he has 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] Carlson later appeared on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's CBC News: The Hour, saying that while he had "nothing against Canada" his description accurately reflected how "a lot of Americans see you."

On gay marriage, Carlson has been ambivalent. He told The Washington Post: "Marriage has been around since the beginning 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]

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. (ET) or 5:00 p.m. (ET).

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." He now wears long ties on the air. Carlson had previously been mocked for his bow-ties, and the matter was often teasingly brought up in many interviews over the years.

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.

Carlson reportedly took four-hour-a-day ballroom dance classes in preparation for the competition, and mourned of "missed classes" during an MSNBC assignment in Lebanon. [20] "It's hard for me to remember the moves," he stated. [21] 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." [22]

The gambling site BetBet placed Carlson's odds of winning the competition at 15:1. [23] Jerry Springer was ranked as having the longest odds of winning, at 30:1.

Carlson was voted off on September 13. His performance on the previous night was the lowest ranked among the judges; the low score resulted from him spending much of the performance sitting down in a chair. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, at the end of his show that night, said of Carlson's performance: "Any dance a man spends part of which in a chair is, by definition, a lap dance!"

At the close of the show Carlson said: “Teaching me (to dance) is like Einstein teaching a slow child math.”

Carlson was ranked 93rd in the 2006 book 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America (ISBN 1-56025-875-6), by author Jack Huberman.

On the conservative Media Research Center-owned blog "Newsbusters", Carlson was called an "MSNBC conservative" explaining that: "Carlson is clearly the kind of conservative MSNBC could love - one who doesn't support the incumbent Republican president and opposes the cornerstone of his foreign policy. It's the same phenomenon that explains Pat Buchanan's ubiquity on MSNBC."[24]

Carlson is married to Susan Andrews, with whom he has three daughters, Lillie, Hopie and Dorothy, and a son, Buckley. Carlson also owns two dogs, one named "Bo Veaner" and a golden retriever named "Buckles". He has at least one tattoo, a small insignia on the inside of his wrist which is normally covered by long sleeves and a watch.

In August 2006, Carlson and Andrews moved from Madison, New Jersey to a large, $3.8 million home in the Kent section of Washington, D.C., where they now live. [25] Carlson is a practicing Episcopalian, though he recently has expressed disdain towards the church's policies. ([26])

He stated in August 2006 on MSNBC's Tucker that he is an ardent fan of Grateful Dead and late Grateful Dead guitarist and songwriter Jerry Garcia, and claims to have attended more than fifty of the Grateful Dead's shows. This puts him in the company of fellow conservative pundit Ann Coulter[27], liberal actor and activist Edward Norton, and politico via Saturday Night Live's Al Franken, all of whom also profess to being "Deadheads".

In December 2006, a politically active employee of a Washington, D.C.-area video store (who allegedly dislikes Carlson's politics) blogged about a brief encounter he had with Carlson in the store, referring disparagingly to Carlson's female companion and joking about not sending Carlson 10,000 copies of a book by Jon Stewart. According to the employee, Carlson returned to the store two weeks later and aggressively confronted the employee [28]. The video store employee was subsequently fired. Carlson asserted the employee had made implied threats to him and his family. [29]

• In the "The Bowtie" episode of the television series Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David is mockingly called "Tucker Carlson" for wearing a bowtie.
• Carlson and Chris Matthews played themselves in a fictional edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews seen in the 30 Rock episode "Hard Ball."

• Tucker Carlson's Official Web Site at MSNBC.
• Tucker Carlson profile at NNDB.
• Tucker Carlson profile at IMDB.
• Media Matters' page on Tucker Carlson.
• List of Tucker Carlson's political donations from NewsMeat.com.
• Tucker Carlson Unofficial Fan Site.
• Tucker Carlson Fan Community at LiveJournal.com.
• Members-Only LiveJournal.com Tucker Carlson Fan Site.
• "Hillary Clinton Has Sweet Revenge", CNN, July 9, 2003.
• Video of Tucker Carlson exchange with Jon Stewart on CNN's Crossfire, 2004.
• "Tucker Carlson to join MSNBC", MSNBC statement, February 2, 2005.
• MSNBC promotional video slot for Tucker.