The Long Slide: Thirty Years in American Journalism

by Tucker Carlson

Overview

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News and the New York Times bestselling author of Ship of Fools, a collection of nostalgic writings that underscore America’s long slide from innocence to orthodoxy.

Thirty years ago, Tucker Carlson got his first job out of college fact checking for a quarterly magazine, and he went on to write for many other publications before becoming the primetime Fox News host he is today. In The Long Slide, Tucker delivers a few of his favorite pieces—annotated with new commentary and insight—to memorialize the tolerance and diversity of thought that the media used to celebrate instead of punish. In snapshots spanning the 1990s to today, he’ll take you on a visit to Africa with Al Sharpton and members of the Nation of Islam to stop the civil war in Liberia in 2003, inside the (not-so-) secret armies of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and on the campaign trail with Donald Trump in 2016. In case you missed it the first time around, you’ll also learn about the aesthetic merits of British colonialism, the second shift at a baked bean factory, the unexpected charm of James Carville, and the simple beauty of rural western Maine.

With his signature wit and 20/20 hindsight, Tucker investigates in this patriotic and memorable collection a question on all of our minds: Has America really changed that much in recent decades? The answer is, unequivocally, yes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501183690
Publisher:	Threshold Editions
Publication date:	08/10/2021
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	159,256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Tucker Carlson is the anchor of Tucker Carlson Tonight on the Fox News Channel. He has hosted prime time programs on CNN, PBS, and MSNBC, and cofounded The Daily Caller. He lives in the middle of nowhere with his wife and four children and dogs.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgment ix

Introduction 1

"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (Esquire, November 2003) 27

"Tucker Carlson's Diary: The Aesthetic Merits of British Colonialism" (Spectator, March 3, 2016) 55

"Pimp My Ride" (The New Republic, December 31,2007) 60

"When the Fun Stopped" (Weekly Standard, March 7, 2005) 71

"Eat, Memory: Bean There" (New York Times, March 26, 2006) 75

"Mr. Smith Goes Third Party" (Weekly Standard, July 26, 1999) 81

"A New Democrat" (Weekly Standard, August 2, 1999) 87

"Donald Trump Is Shocking, Vulgar, and Right" (Politico Magazine, January 28, 2016) 94

"The Unflappables" (Weekly Standard, December 25, 1995) 105

"Eugenics, American Style" (Weekly Standard, December 1, 1996) 110

"Dangerous Toys" (Dadly Virtues, 2015) 127

"Derek Richardson, Where Are You?" (Weekly Standard, February 19, 1996) 137

"Derek Richardson Returns" (Weekly Standard, August 4, 1997) 142

"Devil May Care" (Talk Magazine, September 1999) 147

"Power Host to Power Brokers in the Power Capital" (New York Times, June 5, 2002) 165

"Hall of Lame" (Forbes, March 8, 1999) 171

"Praise the Lord and Pass the Spuds" (GQ Magazine, November 2002) 182

"Banzhaf's Game" (Wee% Standard, November 13, 1995) 196

"James Carville, Populist Plutocrat" (Weekly Standard, March 18, 1996) 208

"Hired Guns: Inside the (Not-So-) Secret Armies of Operation Iraqi Freedom" (Esquire, March 2004) 223

"The Self-Revealers" (Weekly Standard, June 15, 1998) 250

"On the Road" (Weekly Standard, March 27, 2000) 255

"One Man's Treasure" (Weekly Standard, October 2, 2000) 274

Conclusion 277

Editorial Reviews

2021-08-23
The Fox News pundit gathers reportage and commentary.

It’s easy to forget that Carlson, fuming with anti-liberal calumny and overflowing with blustery misinformation, was once a journalist. Some of that journalism was good. For example, in 2003, he accompanied Al Sharpton, Cornel West, and several Nation of Islam stalwarts on a fact-finding mission to Liberia, where a civil war was raging. “I was in favor of seeing that,” Carlson writes, “but mostly I went because I liked Al Sharpton.” Why? Because they shared some common enemies, and, Carlson adds, “shared loathing tends to form a bond.” The author also serves up a revealing portrait of Ron Paul, whose quirky ideas about the economy motivated a surprisingly well-informed following: “The constitutionality of a central bank is not an issue you see on many lists of voter concerns.” His piece for Talkmagazine on George W. Bush is surprisingly insightful, even as he confesses that all these years later, he still doesn’t know what to make of Bush II. Where Carlson loses the thread is in the introductions to these older, sturdy pieces and in a longer introduction to the book as a whole, sections full of plaintive expressions of privilege. “I’d like to acknowledge Jonathan Karp of Simon & Schuster,” he writes on the first page, “whose descent from open-minded book editor to cartoonish corporate censor mirrors the decline of America itself. It’s been a sad education watching it happen.” (Watching Carlson’s TV show is a sad education in itself.) The author is angry that Karp canceled Josh Hawley’s book after the Jan. 6 insurrection. What did Hawley do wrong? whimpers Carlson, apparently forgetting Hawley’s raised fist to the gathering mob—and that it’s the privilege of a private business to make such decisions. Most offensive are Carlson’s bloviations about America’s bitter divisions, apparently forgetting that he has been a loud, active, and well-paid agent of those schisms.

Not just for his fans but not likely to find much of an audience beyond the base, either.

Kirkus Reviews