Presented without comment.

C&L strikes again: 

BNF:

I didn’t know much about Chris Matthews before I started working on this video for our friends at Media Matters. I don’t have cable, so most of what I knew of Matthews was from clips on Crooks & Liars, which usually highlighted some ridiculous, silly, or clueless thing Matthews had said. For the most part, he seemed to me like a friendly, if sometimes goofy, newsguy with an annoying voice. Even his past and recent sexism seemed more like something you’d expect from your nice friend who sometimes makes people laugh semi-uncomfortably by being mildly offensive, especially when drunk. It’s not the best thing in the world, but not that big of a deal.

But I think I might’ve been wrong.

I started watching clips of Matthews and I soon came to a very disturbing conclusion: Chris Matthews is the friendlier, smarter version of Bill O’Reilly.

Here me out on this. When BOR screams something outrageous, dishonest, and offensive, people get angry and want to hold him accountable and discredit FOX. But when Matthews goofily says something outrageous, dishonest, and offensive, most people just laugh and shrug it off because Matthews seems like a nice guy, not a lying, blowhard prick like BOR. If Matthews’ statements are allowed to stand without anyone vigorously challenging them, those statements are accepted as truth, or at least a reasonable interpretation.

Wow. Who would have thought that the incompetent Scott McClellan of all people would force the talking heads to re-evaluate their role in the lead up to the war, and make them finally realize that the White House deliberately manipulated them into mindlessly passing along pure government propaganda? To his credit, Chris Matthews today connected the dots and made as clear a case as possible that the White House used, in the case he cited, The New York Times to inject into the national dialogue completely bogus information that Cheney, Bush and Condoleezza Rice would later cite on the Sunday talk shows in order to scare Americans into supporting the Iraq War.

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“There was a lot of salesmanship here….a lot of propaganda.”

Chris Matthews and David Gregory seem to get it. Mike Allen…not so much. We’ll see how the rest of media handles it.

Of course, for those of us who actually pay attention to this sort of stuff, Bill Moyers chronicled this manipulation extensively in his fascinating documentary, Buying The War.

Memo to the media: Better late than never.

President Bush made outrageous claims today in Israel, saying that Democrats were appeasers to Iran as you know since it’s the hot topic of the day. Right wing talker Kevin James tried to call Obama “Neville Chamberlain,” but as is usually the case with these talk show conservative hosts, he knew nothing about the historical facts revolving around Chamberlain and what happened as Hitler took power and started a war with Europe. I guess just repeating RW talking points doesn’t work sometimes.

Chris: You are BS’ing me… You don’t know what you’re talking about.

 Download | Play  Download | Play (h/t Heather)

Rough transcript:

Chris: I want to do a little history check on you—what did Neville Chamberlain do wrong in 1939? What did he do wrong?

Kevin: It all goes back to appeasement. It’s the key term.

Chris: No, what did he do, tell me what he did?

Kevin: It’s the key term.

Chris: You have to answer this question. What did he do?

Kevin: It’s the same thing, it puts it all…

Chris: Well tell me what he did?

Kevin: It’s appeasement.

Chris: What did Chamberlain do wrong..

Kevin: His actions, his actions enabled, energized, legitimized

Chris: What did Chamberlain do?

Kevin: It’s the exact same thing.

Chris: No stop, Kevin. I’m not going to continue with this interview unless you answer what that thing is. What did Chamberlain do in ‘39, tell me? ‘38?

Kevin: Chris, it’s the exact same thing alright?

Chris: What did he do? <Yelling> What did he do!

(Read the rest of this story…)

Arianna Huffington has been taking a lot of heat from right wing circles for an entry in her latest book, The Right Is Wrong, where she says John McCain made a point of saying at a Hollywood party that he didn’t vote for George Bush. Now honestly, considering what the Bush campaign did to him in 2000, I don’t blame him. The problem is that he denies it now and says he did vote for Bush. That makes him a liar. He either lied to Arianna (and actors Richard Schiff and Bradley Whitford back up Arianna’s version) back then or he’s lying now. Considering the trouncing Hillary Clinton rightfully got for her Bosnia story, I see no reason why this shouldn’t speak to McCain’s character and credibility as well.

Apparently loosey-goosey on a Friday afternoon and ready to start the weekend, Chris Matthews brings on radio talk show hosts Michael Smerconish and Ed Schultz to discuss the issue, but it’s very clear that Matthews doesn’t really think it is an issue and thinks that Arianna was in the wrong for revealing this:

 Download | Play  Download | Play (h/t Heather)

Matthews: All three of them (Richard Schiff, Bradley Whitford and Arianna Huffington) claim, say that they heard John McCain, back at a party at Candice Bergen’s house, back I guess around the time of it or a little later, that he did not vote for President Bush in 2000. He now says that he did, but he isn’t quite denying about what he said to those people. That may be a distinction without a difference, but what do you make of all this? Was he cozying up to the Hollywood crowd? [..]

Smerconish: [..] Let me ask you something: isn’t this a violation of the “dinner code”? Isn’t this like a hooker who gives up a john? Isn’t there some impropriety here?

Matthews: I used to love…I used to love that rule that where you’re out having fun with each other, you weren’t sitting there with radios, you weren’t quoting them, you weren’t going to screw them in the morning. I mean, that’s the world I like to live in, but I have learned everything you say can be used against you.

Wow. Just wow. So it’s inappropriate to point out hypocrisy on the part of a man running for the highest office in the country, but it’s perfectly fine to liken a woman to a hooker “giving up a john”? Nope, I can’t imagine why people think you’re the biggest misogynist on TV, Chris. But it gets better. Conservative Smerconish needs to spin this “I won’t vote for you, but I’ll embrace you and I’ll carry your policies on into my presidency” stance into something that simultaneously reinforces the “Maverick” persona (gag) and distances him from the least popular and effective president in the history of the country. When lefty Ed Schultz doesn’t play along, Matthews takes him to task.

(Read the rest of this story…)

Despite all his faults, Chris Matthews showed his true patriotic colors Tuesday night and absolutely blasted Rush Limbaugh for abusing the American Democratic system with the intent of causing mischief.

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“I have to offer a ‘Keith-style’ Special Comment on that. Anyone who voted to screw up the political system of this country with the purpose of mischief should carry that with them the rest of their lives. What a ridiculous way to use the vote for which people fought and died — to use that vote to make mischief. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

Amen, Tweety. Amen.

Digg It! 

During Tuesday’s Democratic Presidential Primary coverage on MSNBC, Chris Matthews and Tim Russert both admit to ignoring the countless gaffes and blunders committed by John McCain.

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This is one of those clips that makes you want to throw things at your tee vee. (please don’t!) Matthews and Russert admit that MSNBC can’t — or refuses to — multi-task. The basic message was this: as long as there is a campaign battle between Obama and Clinton, they MUST ignore John McCain. Russert even admits to being flooded with e-mails about their abysmal McCain coverage, but he tells Democrats to just be patient, when the time is right, they’ll pay attention to the train wreck of a campaign being run by the aging senator from Arizona:

Matthews: …”You think the Democrat warhorses know that as long as there’s a fire going on in one of those rings, the Barack Obama ring, we’re not going to focus much on John McCain’s weaknesses?”

Russert: “Yes, they believed initially that ignoring the McCain campaign was beneficial and helpful to the Democrats, but as this has gone on, they see in their minds, and we get flooded with e-mails, Senator McCain making a mistake on Shi’a vs. Sunni, making a mistake about the first Persian Gulf War and the second, vis-à-vis oil, his own relationship with Pastor Hagee and why isn’t that talked about and reported on the way Reverend Wright’s relationship with Senator Obama is talked about. But, all that in time. It is only May. This has been going on for some time, but it’s going to be a long, long campaign and when Senator McCain is back in the media’s light, he’ll receive the same kind of scrutiny.”

This is outrageous. McCain is only out of the media spotlight because the McCain Media takes him out — intentionally — and it is detrimental to our election process. The free pass allows McCain to continue to raise more money, look more presidential than he really is and garner good poll numbers, which gives him advantages he doesn’t deserve and wouldn’t otherwise get if he were properly scrutinized. Timmeh says they’ve been flooded with e-mails about this, but he ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Send an e-mail to MSNBC and let them know that it is completely unacceptable to tell us that we have to wait for any amount of time or any reason before we see balanced coverage and scrutiny of John McCain’s disastrous campaign.

We’re going to hold on to this clip and refer to it often…

We’re gonna go ahead and report this story, even though we run the risk of the GOP suing us for “taking McCain’s quotes out of context.” </snark> At a town hall meeting today, Senator McCain made a stunning admission when he announced that his energy policy would aim to reduce our dependence on Middle East oil, which would in turn ensure that we never have to fight another war there again.

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“My friends, I will have an energy policy which will eliminate our dependence on oil from Middle East that will then prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.”

Think about how amazing this is. McCain is essentially saying that our quest to “spread democracy” throughout the Middle East is a sham. It has nothing to do with freeing oppressed people, or protecting Israel, or defending ourselves against future attacks. It’s about gaining control of foreign oil. Stunning. Will this get any significant media play?

Digg It!

Tweety gets this exactly right:

“You know, if somebody else were to say that, they would be accused of being a communist, or radical, or a leftist…for John McCain, a war hero, to say that we’re fighting in the Middle East to protect our oil sources is an astounding development.”

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Chris Matthews took time out of covering fake scandals and reciting GOP narratives on Monday’s Hardball to take a dig at members of the media who attended this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner:

“…It’s one thing to gather for events like this in Washington, it’s another one to laugh and applaud - to be charmed when the president puts on a little show. It’s harmless stuff, except that the people yucking it up in that scene are the people who are professionally committed to calling it when the people in power get it wrong.”

Where do I begin? When it comes to boot licking and heaping praise on some of the worst politicians, (current, former AND indicted) pundits and candidates to ever darken Washington D.C., Matthews, the Village Idiot, knows no peer.

During Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary coverage on MSNBC co-host, Chris Matthews, declares the race between Obama and Clinton to be essentially over before the polls closed in Pennsylvania and blames “the media” for creating a horse race he says doesn’t exist.

 Download | Play  Download | Play (h/t Heather)

“…But I really do think it’s a strange time because we’re all watching to see who won, but as Nora pointed out, 4 out of 5 ,or so, of the Hillary voters today believe she’s still in the running. That this is still up in the air and I think that was probably a mistake of the media. I think in the effort of the media, to try to keep this game going, we’ve created the delusion that somehow this race is still open. I don’t think it is open. I think if you look at the numbers Barack has to really blow it in the weeks ahead to lose.”

Matthews need only look into the archives of his own show and his work on MSNBC’s primary coverage for some of the creepiest, most delusional rants and bizarre political hackery to be found anywhere on the tee vee.

Once again, the media has decided that character issues when they relate to Republican candidates are not nearly as important as they are when they relate to Democratic candidates. Despite the fact that even conservatives and liberals alike concede that “Senator Hothead” has quite a temper on him, Hardball’s Chris Matthews dismisses it away as if it is nothing.

 Download | Play  Download | Play (h/t Heather)

Matthews: Cindy McCain guest-hosted on The View today. Here she is, talking about her husband’s alleged temper problem.

[START VIDEO]

Cindy McCain: Like anybody who is concerned about America, he is passionate about issues. All of us are. We all have our pet issues. We all have whatever it is we’re involved in. He is passionate about the future of this country. Some people mistake that for temper. It’s not.

[END VIDEO]

Matthews: Well, please give me the list of great politicians who lack a great temper. I hear these stories about everybody in public life. They all got a temper. Seems to come with the territory.

Mind you, this is the same man who took Obama’s request for orange juice in lieu of coffee at a recent campaign stop as a sign of elitism and hubris and characterized Clinton’s campaign statements about Obama as erratic mood swings.

But McCain, the man who got into a physical brawl with Rick Renzi? He’s just a great politician with a matching temper, just like all the other greats.

 Download | Play    Download | Play  (h/t Heather)

It’s one of those “through the looking glass” moments I get often when watching the news coverage of John McCain.  Sitting on a new NBC/WSJ poll that shows that young voters (18-34) preferring John McCain slightly over Barack Obama and significantly more against Hillary Clinton (why???), Chris Matthews poses the question to his panel if they think that McCain can grab that voting bloc. 

Their responses really reflect the media’s love affair with John McCain.  For David Gregory, McCain transcends the innate skepticism politics that youths have, despite his rather long history of flip-flopping and pandering.  For Katty Kay, he represents the security vote, despite the fact that he continues to champion an occupation that the GAO has said is making us less safe.  And for Howard Fineman, he suspects that young voters may be attracted to his “feisty grandpa” routine, despite an infamous surly temper.  Only Philadelphia anchor Renee Chenault-Fattah notes that the media coverage is helping McCain and that his support for Bush’s policies in Iraq may cost him dearly. 

Transcripts below the fold:

(Read the rest of this story…)

Stephen tries his very hardest to coax Chris Matthews into announcing his intention to take a run at Arlen Specter’s Senate seat in 2010. Perhaps more interestingly, Tweety doesn’t seem like he’s ruled it out. In fact, he tells Stephen his childhood dream was to be a Senator. Even GOP operative Roger Stone has written about it.

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Although Stone repulses me, it looks like he’s got this one correct:

Unfortunately, like Pat Buchanan before him, Chris Matthews has hours and hours of television tape going back 20 years and thousands of words in columns written in the same time period. His Senate bid will die of his own words.

Specter v. Matthews in 2010? Now that would be interesting.