"NBC News Chief: Matthews Isn't Running"--that's the seemingly dispositive headline in The Hill newspaper today, picking up on an interview with NBC News president Steve Capus that appeared in Broadcasting & Cable. But interestingly, B&C chose not to put Matthews in its headline, which read "No one in television had a more eventful year than this NBC News chief." So maybe not so fast, The Hill! The Cable Gamer still has a few questions about Matthews, and so should all Cable Gamers.
Prompted with a question from reporter B&C reporter Marisa Guthrie, about a possible Matthews for office, here's how Capus answered:
Capus: "[Chris Matthews] is not running for office."
Guthrie: "He's not?"
Capus: "I don't think so. Well, look, if he were running for office, he wouldn't be on TV."
OK, fair enough. Good on reporter Guthrie for getting the interview. But The Cable Gamer can't help but notice that there are plenty of unanswered questions concerning Matthews' political venturings. For example, by all accounts, he has been seriously looking at the 2010 US Senate race in Pennsylvania for at least six months; his looking included trips to Pennsylvania and many hardball-y conversations with top Democrats. So what was MSNBC/NBC policy during that six month period? I mean, we know the answer, from the record: Matthews was free to do as he wished, exploring his options, while pulling down an estimated $400,000 a month in salary.
But now Capus says that if Matthews were running, "he wouldn't be on TV." Well, Steve, he has been on TV. During that time, of course, Matthews has distinguished himself with his slavishly pro-Barack Obama coverage, and his slashingly anti-Hillary Clinton commentary. The cartoon above, from a popular political blog, sums up the prevailing view of Matthews these days. Such an embrace of Obama might not be popular everywhere, but it would surely help Matthews win a Democratic primary.
And Matthews may feel the need to push on to new things. In a fierce piece, TV Week's Marianne Paskowski, declared that she has had enough of Matthews: "I stopped watching the bloviating, biased anchor of MSNBC’s 'Hardball' months ago." Reflecting a purely TV perspective, Paskowski hopes that Matthews does run for the Senate: "I hope this Keystone Kop returns to the Keystone state to bully Specter instead of his viewers." So there's a TV industry voice, saying, "Go, Chris, Go!"
But if Paskowski, a close observer of TV, considers it still to be an open question as to whether or not Matthews is running, maybe The Hill shouldn't have been so sure in stamping "fini" on Matthews' Senate ambitions.
Indeed, even now, Capus, after stating NBC's presumed policy against running for office while appearing on TV, the NBC man still gives himself some wiggle room, answering the question about Matthews running with "I don't think so." Kind of a weak verb, "think," wouldn't you say? So does that mean that it's still possible that Matthews might be running?
And what does that say about NBC policy toward Matthews? And toward Democrats? Is it fair to describe Capus as a pliable "yes man" for big-dog Dems? Yes sir!
h/t on photo: bigheaddc.com
