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Joan Walsh

Wednesday, Jun 20, 2012 5:18 PM UTC

When spoiled kids whine

Saying the White House "can't not give us a pass," Tucker Carlson shows why we need a better class of rich people

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When spoiled kids whineTucker Carlson(Credit: AP)

Is there anything funnier than listening to Tucker Carlson whine about why the White House “can’t not give us a pass!” in the wake of Neil Munro’s prep-boy heckling of President Obama?

You can watch it below (h/t Crooks and Liars). “We’re bigger than the Chicago Tribune!” Carlson sputtered on Fox News Monday. “We’re bigger than the Boston Globe. They can’t not give us a pass!”

Can you say entitlement?

Nothing says “spoiled child” like Tucker Carlson. The son of wealthy Republican William Carlson, a former Los Angeles television anchor who became the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and a U.S. ambassador, Carlson used his family connections to sail into journalism.  Except for a brief moment when he seemed willing to ruffle the powers that be – his first George W. Bush profile for Talk magazine comes to mind – he has done nothing but afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable in his career. Examples of his partisan ethics abound, but my favorite was his shrill defense of Scooter Libby in the Valerie Plame case while never acknowledging that his father headed Libby’s defense fund. Wealthy Republican family values at work.

Having lost his perch at MSNBC, Carlson wound up on wingnut welfare at the Daily Caller. He’s bankrolled by Rick Santorum funder Foster Friess, the Wyoming mutual-fund exec best known for saying ladies should hold an aspirin between their knees as contraception. According to the Daily Beast, Friess gave Carlson $3 million to launch the site and has shoveled more cash his way since. The site’s “launch sponsors” included the Chamber of Commerce, the National Mining Association and the Auto Alliance, lobbyist for some of the biggest auto manufacturers.

We spend so much time lamenting the behavior of the poor, but the crises of the last decade make me think we need a better class of rich people. Carlson actually makes Mitt Romney look good, like a tough guy who raised himself up by his bootstraps. Yes, Romney was the son of a governor; his father made a fortune in the auto industry. But like him or not, Mitt Romney succeeded on his own as well, rising at Bain Consulting to run Bain Capital. It’s not a career that shows a lot of social conscience, but he had to be good at it in order to acquire (and often downsize) so many different American companies. He’s not a job creator, but he certainly created a great job for himself, and he was apparently excellent at extracting big fees and profits from the companies he worked for. Carlson is excellent only at being the poster boy for spoiled rich kids everywhere.

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Joan Walsh is the author of "What's the Matter With White People: Finding Our Way in the Next America."

Joan joined Salon in 1998 to become the first full-time news editor and became editor in chief in February 2005. At the end of 2010, she became editor at large, to

write full time. In the last couple of years she's had the privilege of debating conservative zealots on TV, from Bill O' Reilly to Dick Armey to Pat Buchanan.

As a columnist for San Francisco Magazine, she won Western Magazine Awards in 2004 and 2005 for writing about local politics. She's written for everyone from the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post to Vogue and the Nation.

Before she joined Salon, Joan spent many years as a freelancer. She also ran her own business, consulting to national foundations and nonprofits on education, community development and urban poverty issues. She's a crazy San Francisco Giants fan and co-wrote a book about the ballpark back in 2001.

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