Tucker Carlson Has No Clue What He's Talking About

On MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews today, Tucker Carlson asserts that if Barack Obama pledged to end affirmative action, he'd win in a landslide. That part of what Tucker said is true. He also said that everybody knows it's wrong. That part, my dears, is false. He also argued that, "It was forty years ago," as though it's no longer necessary.

Here are some facts.
1 - Affirmative action works.
2 - It helps white women more than people of color, male or female. And the husbands and children and communities of white women, the overwhelming majority of whom are also white, benefit from white women's being paid more than what they'd earn otherwise and being promoted more than what they would otherwise.
3 - Neither white students nor workers are displaced by affirmative action programs.
4 - It is illegal to hire a person of color or a woman unqualified for the job over a white person or a man.
5 - Discrimination still exists. Affirmative action is still necessary.
6 - Affirmative actions help ensure a meritocracy.
7 - Using "socioeconomic" affirmative action instead of race/gender based affirmative action only aggravates existing racial/gender disparities.

Here're some more facts: The backlash against affirmative actions began as soon as the programs were legislated. The backlash that exists today is as based on ignorance and whites' racial animosity as it was then. African Americans are not the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action; and, the idea that we are is only effective in opposing affirmative action because of the racism that remains today.