A fascinating article about Jesse Watters reveals he may not be quite the conservative he appears to be. He is definitely every bit the entitled white man who has gotten off easy his entire life, however.

HuffPost’s Maxwell Strachan has written a terrific deep dive into the “’Golden Boy’ of Trump’s Favorite Network,” aka Jesse Watters.

Although he acts like a spoiled frat boy, Watters’ background is surprising. He’s the product of a Quaker education and, it turns out, liberal parents. His sister is also liberal. At one point in his earlier life, Watters interned for Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat, albeit a conservative one.  When in college, he hung with a “super alternative,” punk rock crowd.

The article suggests that Watters’ conservatism is a form of rebellion.

That makes me wonder if one day Watters will return to his roots. But, regardless, one thing that seems to be immutable is his wise-ass brattiness. One of his classmates described him as “the guy that blows smoke in your face for no reason.” Another said, “It was instantly recognizable, the sort of entitlement, the flippancy, the sort of ego-driven smile.”

That brand of obnoxiousness has served him well at Fox News where he made a name for himself doing ambush interviews on The O’Reilly Factor. He became known as the “Golden Boy.” Yet, when Bill O’Reilly was booted out of Fox for sexual harassment, Watters got a permanent spot cohosting The Five, despite his own questionable behavior toward women.

The article has a lot to say about Watters’ ambush interviews, especially the infamous, tasteless, bigoted one in Chinatown. It’s a must read for anyone interested in Fox tactics and disingenuousness.

But what struck me the most were these three paragraphs about something I missed when it aired:

In January, Watters’ mother, Anne, wrote her son an impassioned note explaining why she and the rest of the family had decided to attend the upcoming Women’s March in Washington, D.C., which took place largely in opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies. 

“My hope,” she wrote, “is that the event will make a strong national statement about our collective belief that we cannot espouse discrimination of any sort — toward anyone anywhere.”

Watters read his mother’s note on air. Then he rolled tape on a mocking segment about the march.

Watch a mashup of Watters’ ambushes below, via HuffPost.

(Watters image via screen grab)