Chris Matthews has never really been able to control himself. He wants everyone to know he's smart, and he wants everyone to know what a good talker he is. Except for one thing--two things, actually. He's not that smart, and he's not that good a talker.
And yet at the same time, there's a little bit of cunning in Matthews' plan. The MSNBC might yammer on about just about everything, but he abides by a few ground rules. And so for example, one recent object of Matthews' attack-yammering was Rudy Giuliani. It's safe enough to trash Italian-Americans, as opposed to, say, African-Americans.
If Joe Biden says something that's not 100% p.c. about Barack Obama, the Delaware Senator is clobbered, but if Matthews invokes "fascism" in discussing Giuliani, an Italian-American, the MSNBC anchorman gets away with it.
Happily, Newsbusters, at least, is keeping track of Matthews. Here's an exchange between Matthews and Rudy supporter and former congresswoman Susan Molinari from Tuesday night, as caught by Newsbuster Mark Finkelstein:
Matthews: "He got the pee smell out of the phone booths in New York. Even phone booths that aren't booths, they're just a place to make a phone call, had that smell about them before. I think I've been to New York enough times -- he did clean up that atmosphere in New York."
Molinari: "You bet he did. He stopped making excuses for people. . . "
Matthews, interrupting: "Was he a little bit of a Fascist?"
A fair question, don't you think? A fair question, that is, if you're trying to slime Giuliani, and don't care about offending someone named Molinari. And if you don't care offending any Italian-American, or any fair-minded American.
But that's Chris Matthews for you--no wonder he has such a following among partisan Democrats.
Update: as Rich Noyes notes, Matthews is at it again, this time, he's trash-talking George W. Bush. But again, nobody in the MSM seems to notice.
