The Corner

Ed Schultz Disparages Working Americans in Shockingly Elitist Comments

Ed Schultz’s shtick sets him apart a bit on the normally high-brow MSNBC: He likes to think of himself a blue-collar everyman, kicking off every evening’s broadcast at 5 p.m. with a fiery “Let’s get to work!” When you’ve received more than a quarter of a million dollars from union groups over the past couple years, it makes sense — sort of.

But on Monday, Schultz revealed a rather condescending attitude toward a hard-working American who didn’t have the fortune and opportunity to seek higher education, as Schultz did with a football scholarship to Minnesota State University Moorhead​.

After pointing viewers to his social-media accounts, Schultz said, “I guess I picked up a lot of Glenn Beck fans [on social media] over the weekend. By the way, did he graduate from college?”

Schultz’s beef with Beck likely stems from an article by Dan Andros on Beck’s website the Blaze. Last week, Andros chronicled the “bizarre direct Twitter messages Ed Schultz sent me at 1:33 a.m.” (For what it’s worth, Schultz sent me an awfully defensive DM earlier this year as well, so it’s unique company.)

But if he’s going to look down on Beck for not getting a college degree, a handful of his fellow NBC News cohorts may not belong on the air either.

For example, the man who follows up Schultz’s show is a dropout: Every night at 6 p.m., Schultz is forced to make unschooled chitchat with Reverend Al Sharpton, who attended Brooklyn College for two years before dropping out.

Additionally, two of NBC News’s most prominent faces also never finished school: NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams attended a handful of colleges before pursuing his career in broadcasting, and fellow MSNBC host and NBC News chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd left George Washington University before jumping in to the political world.

Beck has managed to do pretty well for himself without being able to match Schultz’s academic laurels. Beck’s mother reportedly committed suicide when he was a teenager, but he graduated from high school and went into radio. After overcoming substance abuse early in his career, he had years of a successful radio career, before getting a CNN show in 2006. Two years later, Beck moved to Fox News, where his show drew better ratings in its time slot than CNN, HLN, and Schultz’s MSNBC combined. While at Fox News, Beck hosted during the time slot Schultz currently does, 5 p.m., although this is Schultz’s fourth slot at the network after giving it a go at 6 p.m., 8 p.m., and weekends.

Beck and Fox News have since parted ways, and his annual earnings from his radio show and Blaze media network now top $90 million a year, ranking him as one of Forbes’s most powerful celebrities.

Schultz’s radio show recently moved to a podcast.

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