The Cable Gamer kinda feels sorry for Chris Matthews. Yes, he's a blowhard and all that, but he's smart--he's written thoughtful books--and he's clearly not the leftist that the Koolaid-drinking, bailout-collecting suits at MSNBC want him to be. Yes, he says stupid things, like the "thrill up my leg" comment last year, but that quote was so outrageous that it was its own kind of "tell." That is, through the sheer over-the-top-ness of the quote, Matthews was signaling how ridiculous it is. How do I know that Matthews doesn't mean a lot of what he says? Because last night, he had on a total of four guests, all of whom mocked the White House.
The lead on "Hardball" last night was entirely devoted to an assessment of the White House's attacks on Fox. Matthews could have put on some leftwing hitpersons from Media Matters, or The Huffington Post, who would have been happy to call Fox a hotbed of fascists and Nazis, but instead, the guests were Pat Buchanan and Joe Conason, and both of them criticized the White House, with nary a peep of protest from Matthews.
"A terrible mistake in judgment," Buchanan, an unreconstructed conservative, said in response. Buchanan further mocked the White House for getting into a "urinating contest" with the media. And Conason, an unsmiling leftist, took a few whacks at Richard Nixon, but conceded that that the White House effort was "a mistake."
After all that, Matthews--perhaps thinking back to the days when he worked for Roger Ailes at the old America's Talking network--asked his guests for a sum-up. "Stupid," said Buchanan. "A mistake," repeated Conason.
OK, that all must've been pretty disheartening to the MSNBC hierarchy, to say nothing of the MSNBC audience.
But then, as if to drill it all home, Matthews brought on, at the end of the show, Susan Page from USA Today, and Jonathan Martin from Politico, and they both dumped on the White House again. "Fox is winning" said Page.
Again, poor Chris. He does his best to protest against left-wing thought-control. And if he can't say it himself, he'll get others to say it for him.
