Sam Allis wants to make the case that MSNBC is better than CNN for election coverage. I’m sure a case can be made for that, but Allis takes a strange turn when in giving all the credit for it to Matthews:
The mere thought of Matthews as a tonic is shocking because he is an icon of the loud – perhaps the icon of the loud on television above Bill O’Reilly on Fox. Matthews is famously cheerful, rude, irritating. He’s also an effective host of “Hardball,” his MSNBC political show, and a happy warrior whose enthusiasm for the game is infectious. It’s just that his noise joystick got stuck at Yell.
Matthews has also been roughed up recently for a perceived anti-Hillary slant, which led him to apologize on television. So, all in all, we’re not talking about a man of measured thought here.
But here’s where the article gets disingenuous. Matthews was “roughed up for a perceived anti-Hillary slant?”
The word perceived implies reasonable people could disagree about something. Let’s look at the evidence of the perceived anti-Hillary slant:
In 2001, the Philadelphia Inquirer quoted Matthews saying about HRC, “I hate her. I hate her. All that she stands for.” After New Hampshire’s primary, Matthews said, “The reason she’s a U.S. Senator, the reason she’s a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front-runner, is her husband messed around. That’s how she got to be Senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn’t win it on the merits…” He’s referred to her as Nurse Ratched and She-Devil. He’s called her a fraud for saying that she supported both the Cubs and the Yankees, when he himself supports one team in the AL and one team in the NL.
There’s no way reasonable people could disagree: Chris Matthews’ spouts a negative view of Hillary Clinton.
It also doesn’t make him look good to praise Barack Obama with outright strange statements like, I felt this thrill going up my leg.” Even when trying to say something positive, Matthews is taking the discourse in a direction people would rather not explain to their kids. And kids would probably not feel comfortable asking, “Mommy, what does that man on TV mean by that?”
Think about these statements said by a man who sits behind a newsdesk on a network owned by NBC. Did Tom Brokaw ever say anything like that? Or David Brinkley? Or John Chancellor?
The political discourse in this country is broken. And Chris Matthews’ is one big reason why. The thing is, after Matthews apologized to Hillary on-air (and please note, David Schuster implied that he should not have apologized), it became accepted public knowledge that Chris Matthews was sexist and was gunning to end Hillary’s campaign. The first step to fixing the discourse is identifying the problems, and people who complained to MSNBC achieved some progress there.
But when the Globe glosses over what was wrong and the apology for it, the article only serves to whitewash just how bad Chris Matthews is.
Hey, speak for yourself! 😉
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p>Seriously, you’re absolutely right about this Matthews nonsense. The guy’s insufferable, and he has crossed WAY over the line of propriety in this cycle numerous times. Whatever happened to having grown-ups on TV?
but I don’t agree that he’s sexist. He just doesn’t like that she’s ridden Bill’s coattails. Just because a man doesn’t like a particular woman, it doesn’t mean he thinks all women are inferior. That false association needs to end as not to belittle the real issue of sexism.
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p>Last night he did try to make up for some of that bias by calling out that Rep from Texas. I thought he made a good point about how many people who endorse candidates, do so without being able to state specific accomplishments of those they’re endorsing. It makes an endorsement mean very little if it is just absed on picking a side rather than representing what you believe in.
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p>On a side note, I enjoy the coverage on MSNBC more than CNN.
in addition to his truly grotesque Hillary-bashing (has he used language like that for any other candidate of either party?), there are his leering, almost drooling, comments about how hot he thinks Michelle Obama is. It’s really appalling.
Right here. It’s all nice and hyperlinked so you can check it.
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p>Here’s how he treats women at MSNBC on the air:
Say what you will about Bill O’Reilly, he did his falafel-dirty-talk off the air.
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p>Considering this context of Chris Matthews drawing attention to women’s appearance & sexual attractiveness, it’s a lot less plausible to think, “he only hates Hillary because she was married to Bill.” And it’s a lot more plausible to think that he doesn’t respect women, and especially a woman who defines herself by knowing more about the details of policy than any other candidate, as opposed to acting demure or submissive.
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p>What if Chris Matthews were praising every African American man with compliments about athleticism and musicality? And then he picked on a single African American politician as “not winning on the merits.” Would you really think he didn’t have any racist attitudes in his brain?
it still doesn’t make him sexist.
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p>Of course I’m not defending his arguements, but to label someone, you should more closely follow the definition.
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as Matthews did with Burnett, that man is a sexist.
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p>Matthews’ comments are not aimed at getting those women into bed with him, because he knows he’s got no chance with them. He’s saying those things only to demonstrate his power over them. He’s the man and those women are only there to please his eyeballs, and he gets to pass judgment on them.
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p>That’s definitely sexism.
No doubt, Chris Matthews is a sexist pig. He shouldn’t be allowed to comment on, question, or address any female person or candidate. Luckily for him, politics is over-represented by men; it just creates yet another unacknowledged uneven playing field for women. Frankly, I cringe everytime Matthews appears to support Obama – with friends like Matthews, we don’t need enemies.
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p>Unfortunately, Matthews is a powerful sexist pig. That MSNBC apparently (we would’t be privy to personnel action) didn’t (based on his continued sexist on-air behavior) engage in disciplinary action after these comments is disappointing. Can’t wait for a smart lawyer to represent a woman employee and sue Matthews and MSNBC for failing to protect her from a professionally humiliating work culture of accepted and chronic sexual harassment. Clearly the expected response from women who want to remain employed is to be “good natured” in response to MSNBC star Matthews’ unprofessional and degrading behavior and to “laugh it off” or “take it as a compliment” or just accept it as just one of the “boys being boys.”
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p>He is an ass. And so is Bill O’Reilly.
which are low, but more likely it derives from his relationship with Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, which owns NBC.
sigh. Hired, promoted, well-paid, and protected by their relationship with other powerful men (Dan Quayle frat brother to Bush 41). Is he the most qualified? Same old same old.
Well, that line alone explains why you like MSNBC. With 35 years of public experience . . .ah why even bother.
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p>Are you making the argument that Ms. Clinton would be a leading candidate absent her last name and the Bill Clinton Presidency?
That comment defies the reality of politics today. You appear (though never actually said so I don’t want to put words in your mouth) to be saying that experience should be a critical qualification for presidential candidates. We saw several with extensive experience (Richardson, Dodd, Biden, etc.) who dropped out because they couldn’t get things going for a variety of reasons.
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p>There are far too many “what if’s” involved to know what she would have done if she weren’t married to Bill. Would she have run for office in Illinois? Would she have moved to NYC anyway and run for Senate? Would she have continued working for non-profits or as a lawyer for megalomarts? Who knows?
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p>What does Bill’s coattails have to do with it? Everybody (or almost everybody) that ran got some media. Bozos like Keyes barely got any. With all the “What If’s” it is simply impossible to know what, if any, attention she would have received because we don’t know what she would have been doing.
Actually, I was just trying to understand the point of the comment.
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p>Hillary Clinton has most certainly ridden Bill Clinton’s coattails to the point she’s at. Whether that’s objectionable or not, YMMV.
Public?
So being a corporate lawyer counts as public?
Do your homework and stop swallowing the already disproven rhetoric.