There’s a Jon Stewart-era “Daily Show” clip in which the erstwhile host pokes fun at the feigned idiocy of Fox News’s Gretchen Carlson, who later left the network and won a sexual harassment settlement.
Although Carlson graduated from Stanford University with honors, she played the dumb blonde every morning on Fox & Friends.
Among other incredulous moments, Carlson would often claim she needed Google or a dictionary to look up words she most certainly knew, such as ignoramus and czar.
As Stewart quipped, Carlson was probably “dumbing [herself] down to connect with an audience [she thinks] sees intellect as an elitist flaw.” Carlson’s performative stupidity continues to be the norm for many Fox anchors (for others, like Sean Hannity, it