Tucker Carlson spent another night attacking Jill Biden’s doctorate degree but not one moment showing concern for the 3,600 Americans who died from coronavirus yesterday.
After spending about six minutes sneering at Biden's use of the title "Dr." on Tuesday, Carlson followed up last night with more than seven minutes on what FoxNews.com describes as “A look at 'Dr.' Jill Biden's academic work, status anxiety.”
As I noted yesterday, Fox calls Alveda King “Dr.” despite the fact that her “degree” is only honorary. But the network let Carlson rant on with malicious humor, that he pretended made an important point:
CARLSON: Oh, Doctor, kind of amusing. Let's get serious for a minute.
Imagine your nightmare health emergency. You're on vacation with your family when suddenly you double over with shooting chest pains and lose consciousness.
You wake up strapped in the back of an ambulance racing to the emergency room. Paramedics hover over you trying to keep you calm. "You've had a massive coronary," they shout over the sirens, "But we're going to take good care of you. You're about to see one of the best doctors in the country. In fact, Whoopi Goldberg just said this person should be the next Surgeon General."
So you slump back onto the stretcher deeply relieved. Maybe you're going to make it after all. Moments later they wheel you into the hospital and there she is, the famous doctor they just told you about. But something is wrong. She doesn't have a stethoscope. There's not a chart or an EKG machine in sight.
Instead, she's turning on what appears to be an overhead projector. "Jill" a nurse yells, "There's a patient here. What do we do?" "That's Dr. Biden to you," the woman replies icily and then launches into a slideshow on equity and diversity in Delaware's Community College system.
Very soon you begin to lose consciousness again. For the first time in your life, you have no fear of death. In fact, you welcome its sweet release. You don't just walk toward the light, you run.
So contrary to what you may have read, Dr. Jill Biden is not a healer. She's not allowed to write prescriptions, she wouldn't know what to do with your appendix. Dr. Jill has an education degree from some school in Delaware, and you're supposed to find that highly impressive. "She could be a Surgeon General."
Now many have laughed at the apparent absurdity of this, but we took it seriously because that's our job.
FACT CHECK: According to an attorney for Fox and a federal judge, Carlson’s comments are not to be taken as a trustworthy source of truth.
So I have to believe that when Carlson said, “We actually read” Biden’s dissertation, he really meant that someone read it for him and gave him the Cliff Notes version.
CARLSON: Dr. Jill needs reading glasses, either that or she's borderline illiterate. There are typos everywhere, including in the first graph of the introduction. Dr. Jill can't write, she can't really think clearly either.
Parts of the dissertation seem to be written in a foreign language using English words. There are essentially pure nonsense like Pig Latin or dogs barking. The whole thing is just incredibly embarrassing. And that's simply to poor illiterate Jill Biden, but to the college that consider this crap scholarship. Embarrassing in fact to our entire system of higher education, to the nation itself.
Jill Biden's doctoral dissertation is our national shame. Are we overstating this? Well you decide.
Carlson even found an excuse to race bait.
CARLSON: Of course, she counts the students by their skin color. She's a Biden after all, but pay close attention to the math, quote, "Three quarters of the class will be Caucasian. One quarter of the class will be African-American, one seat will hold a Latino and the remaining seats will be filled with students of Asian descent or non-resident aliens."
In other words, somehow Dr. Biden accounted for all five quarters of the class, which actually isn't easy. You've got to pay very close attention to do something like that.
Carlson went on and on with his mockery, never bothering to mention any of Biden’s work as an educator. Biden got her doctorate degree in 2007 but she has worked as an educator for decades, the BBC notes. “Prior to moving to Washington, DC, she taught at a community college, at a public high school and at a psychiatric hospital for adolescents.” But why go into her deeds when you can mock her thesis?
But Carlson didn’t just end it there. Super-rich trust-fund baby Carlson went on to play the conservative, populist victim:
CARLSON: If you dare to notice the Dr. Jill isn't a super genius, you hate all women. You're a dangerous misogynist.
[…]
CARLSON: They're telling you that no one ever calls a man dumb. Okay, well, that's wrong. We call Dr. Jill's husband dumb all the time. In fact, we're going to go full feminist here and admit that Dr. Jill is a lot smarter than the man she married. Not that it's saying much.
Joe Biden never wrote a dissertation even on community colleges. The only thing Joe Biden has written recently are reminder notes to himself to wear matching socks. So, it's not a sexism thing.
What it is actually is a class thing. We have a class system in this country, and it's based on credentials, like the ones Dr. Jill Biden has. A certain sort of person in America gets advanced degrees or works at McKinsey or goes to Yale. Not in order to learn or to create, or to achieve anything inherently impressive or worth having. No, instead to justify their power over you.
They've got more merit badges, therefore, they rule.
It's a ridiculous system when you think about it, and that's precisely why they don't want you to think about it. It's why they shout at you and call you names when you mention it. It's why they're so touchy.
If you're allowed to point out the Jill Biden isn't really a doctor, maybe not even very bright, then you're just one step away from noticing that the medals on their chests aren't real either. It's all totally fake, just like the meritocracy that justifies their power.
You can see what “populist” Carlson thinks is more important than a record number of 3,600 American deaths from coronavirus below, from the December 16, 2020 Tucker Carlson Tonight.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
If Tucker has children, I look forward to hearing him swear on the Holy Book of his choice (check book, perhaps) that his kids won’t bother with silly stuff like college or even (junior) high school.