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Chris Matthews calls B.S. on Todd Harris for the double standard Republicans have whereby they can come in with slim wins and do exactly what they want and claim a mandate for themselves, and then expect Democrats to pussyfoot around and apologize for being there when they win by large margins.

Harris replies by saying that acting that way will make Obama end up with an approval rating like Bush. Really, Todd Harris? You think that's what will happen if Obama pushes through a populist agenda against the will of the Republicans?

Update: Nicole Belle adds:

Chris Matthews talks to Obama spokesperson Bill Burton and McCain spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer about the final days of the campaign. Pfotenhauer has a great tell: whenever she gets flustered and is desperately trying to spin the unspinnable, her smile gets wider and she laughs nervously. Matthews had her beaming like a high intensity flare over whose choice it was to spend the $150,000 on Palin's clothing, something the RNC has thrown back in the lap of the McCain campaign and how pathetic it is that Palin doesn't know what the role of the Vice President is.

MATTHEWS: We talked about the superficial, now let's talk the reality here. And I want to talk about this: the role of the Vice President. I want to give you a shot at it, Nancy, you're a pro. You're not somebody in from out of town. You know how politics works. What is the role of the Vice President under the Constitution? Simply put, you know it or you don't. Either a person understands the role of the Vice President or they don't. What—as you understand it from the Constitution – as a professional, is the role of a Vice President. It's very important you know this answer. We're filling the part in two weeks.

PFOTENHAUER: That's right. That's right. Well, I mean, obviously the role of the Vice President is to support the President, but to also to preside when necessary over the US Senate. And I think that this is also a tempest in a teapot…

MATTHEWS: No, that's not the role of the Vice President. I gave you a shot, Nancy, I want you to try again. What is the Constitutional role of the Vice President? In the Constitution? What's written in the Constitution? You're…look, you're all strict constructionists…

PFOTENHAUER: I'm not a Constitutional scholar but I do know …

MATTHEWS: Have you ever read it?

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Bill Maher plays Hardball Oct. 21, 2008 and gives his thoughts on Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and the injection of religion into politics.

On Friday's Hardball, Chris Matthews interviewed his daughter, Caroline, as one of the student members of the group Concerned Youth of America, and just didn't bother mentioning the familial relationship. Apparently his daughter had asked not to be identified as such and, rather than interview another member of the group and thus preserve his journalistic integrity (heh), Matthews went right ahead anyways.

It's such a small-beer breach of what passes for journalistic ethics nowadays as to go almost un-noticed, although in the halcyon days of journalism it would probably have gotten him fired or at least earned the censure of his peers. It simply doesn't compare, though, with the likes of Andrea Mitchell reporting on the bank bailout plan - and blaming Obama for its failure - while married to Alan Greenspan and not making full disclosure of that fact before every report.

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I'm getting really tired of cable airwaves being used for Chris Matthews to exorcise whatever nerdy kid demons he still holds on to since high school.  Apparently, for Chris Matthews, Kewl Kid Barack Obama wearing sunglasses is an elitist act:

Here's MSNBC's Chris Matthews, moments ago, suggesting Barack Obama is "elite" in part because Obama was wearing sunglasses:

Can Barack Obama, a man of elite education if not elite background, break into the middle class and talk regular? Can he talk to regular people in their kitchens tonight, in their living rooms?[...]

Everybody thinks Barack is too cool. In other words, there he is with the shades, getting on the plane. A little bit too elegant, a little bit too proud of his own bearing. Is that a problem, that he's just too cool for words. In other words, elite.

Wow, project much, Chris?  Seriously, invest in a little therapy.  Take Pat Buchanan and Andrea Mitchell with you.  This kind of criticism is like a bad episode of "The Hills".  High school was many years ago, let's move on.

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Let's give Chris Matthews credit for this one...he is absolutely gobsmacked that the McCain campaign can try to posture themselves as being for change and reform when it is the Republican policies that have put us in such a tremulous position economically.  McCain Sr. Policy Advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer (herself a HUGE proponent of these failed policies and a lobbyist--along with her husband--to push these corporate first, country last policies) tries to put her best face on it, predictably claiming it is Democrats AND Republicans, but Matthews isn't having it.

MATTHEWS: But I don't understand...John McCain is the nominee of the Republican Party.
PFOTENHAUER: Yes.
MATTHEWS: He's going to stand in that debate next Friday night on the 26th, because he is the nominee of the Republican Party. That's why he has a 50/50 chance of winning this election. Because he is the nominee of the Republican Party and the other guy is the nominee-Barack Obama-of the Democratic Party. How can you run away from the party whose platform you're running on? I don't understand how you can deny that you're the in party, you're the incumbent party.

Well, exactly.  This is the meme with which the Democratic Party ought to hit back hard.  The Republican Party has had the better part of the last 30 years being in charge of Legislative or Executive branches, often both.  THEY DO NOT GOVERN WELL.  The country is much poorer for Republican policies.  Why in the hell would we give another Republican a shot?

  In response to a question by Rachel Maddow on how Barack Obama or John McCain may have responded differently to than Bush, Chris Matthews goes off on the President for irresponsibly squandering the national unity that followed. He then goes on to bash all the neoconservatives who saw the event not as a way to lead the world in a fight against those who attacked us, but rather as an excuse to go after Iraq and pursue their wildest imperial ambitions.

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"It is impossible to fail as much as this President has."

John Amato:  Since Chris Matthews and so many in the media helped defeat Al Gore, I wonder if he'll take a look at himself in the mirror and know he's been part of that failure. And if John McCain wins the White House it'll be more of the same.

Since it's no longer taboo to point out John McCain's ridiculous and offensive attempts to use of his experience as a POW as if it's somehow an excuse for everything from his extramarital affairs to his rule-breaking to his having more pieces of real estate than he can keep track of, and so on, we would be remiss if we didn't point this one out too.

When CNN's Walter Isaacson confronted John McCain about his professed love of the band of ABBA, which of course was a lame attempt to cater to "disaffected Hillary supporters" as his blogger Michael Goldfarb made clear, McCain (you guessed it) whipped out the trusty ol' POW card to explain:

“What were you thinking?,” Isaacson asked him, looking incredulous.

“If there is anything I am lacking in, I’ve got to tell you, it is taste in music and art and other great things in life,” McCain joked. “I’ve got to say that a lot of my taste in music stopped about the time I impacted a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane and never caught up again.”

But, as Spencer Ackerman was quick to point out:

What? McCain was shot down in 1967. ABBA began making music in 1972. Don't try this sh** on me, McCain! Your POW experience has nothing to do with your Partridgey musical taste.

Cue the mockery...  Nicole thinks maybe we should just put out a distress signal for McSame instead

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The earth spun slightly off from its axis on Monday, because Mrs. Alan Greenspan actually defended Barack Obama's European trip from John McCain's spurious attack ads.  

MITCHELL: Did he make a bad call deciding not to go to Ramstein? He had every right to go to Ramstein, to visit the troops in Landstuhl. He had already been to visit the troops in Iraq. Without cameras, without an entourage. And he got-his people, rather-got so backed off by warnings from the Pentagon. Now please be careful, don't bring your military aide, because he's now a political aide. The Pentagon was way too aggressive probably in that. And they got so nervous: oh this is going to look political. And they were damned if they did or damned if they didn't. Let me just finish what I was saying...just this one point...there was never any intention-let me be absolutely clear about this-the entourage was never going to go. There was never an intention to make this political. But by tacking it on to the tail end of a political-the political leg of the trip, they opened themselves up they feared to the criticism, and if they'd gone, they'd be criticized and not going, they were criticized and the McCain commercial on this subject is completely wrong! Factually wrong. 

Goodness, will wonders never cease? It begs the question, though, if these journalists, who accompanied Obama on his trip will similarly speak up for the truth of his trip and not just parrot McCain's fact-free slurs:

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On Hardball today, Matthews talked about Obama's excellent interaction with the military in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Politico's Roger Simon, a Villager extraordinaire said that the middle east trip is going swimmingly so far. Andrea Mitchell did confirm that Maliki indeed backed Obama on his Iraq plans because he brought up Obama's name by himself in his interview over the weekend earlier in the interview, but then she said a very odd thing about his "message management" as some footage of Obama played in the background on MSNBC.

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Andrea: Let me say something about his message management. He didn't have reporters with him. He didn't have a press pool. He didn't do a press conference while he  was on the ground either on Afghanistan or Iraq. What you're seeing is not reporters brought in, you're seeing selected pictures taken by the military, questioned by the military and what some would call fake interviews because they're not interviews with a journalist so there's a real press issue here. Politically it's smart as can be, but we've not seen a Presidential candidate do this in my recollection ever before.

I don't think journalism is the prime thing that we recruit them and pay them for.

She was upset because she wasn't "present" during these interviews. You mean you weren't able to get a gotcha moment? When she says "what some would call" I guess she means herself. Will Andrea go on a limb and say every interview on FOX News is not legitimate when Cheney, Bush or McCain appear? How about when she joins O'Reilly? Or when someone is interviewed on a blog? The Daily Show has some very interesting interviews, does that not count? Is the military not capable of performing interviews? Where does she draw the line? Saying they are "fake interviews" really goes too far. I've emailed Obama's campaign for a response.

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.

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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!

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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:

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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.

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