Carpet Baggers

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call on the carpet

Summon for a scolding or rebuke, as in Suspecting a leak to the press, the governor called his press secretary on the carpet. This term began as on the carpet, which in the early 1700s referred to a cloth (carpet) covering a conference table and therefore came to mean "under consideration or discussion." In 19th-century America, however, carpet meant "floor covering," and the expression, first recorded in 1902, alluded to being called before or reprimanded by a person rich or powerful enough to have a carpet."

But if you are rich enough to own a carpet, why would you want to have someone idiot stand all over it and get it dirty while you yell at them? Wouldn't you rather have them stand next to the carpet so they know how important you are?