Chris’ Craftiness, Rhymes with ‘Dull Snit’
Whoa! Chris Matthews’ lengthy show opening near-apology on his MSNBC Hardball show January 17th was rife with just the kind of dodgy circumlocution the Meter Beater commonly resorts to when cornered by his own mouth – downplaying his ongoing animosity to Hillary Clinton and other women, and attempting to modulate his bizarre boyish hero worship of John McCain. Along the way, he tossed in some self-congratulatory meditations on his affinity with his ‘little people’ viewers, his outsized heart that can always be trusted to do the right thing if not his loose lips, and his abundant love for politicians and all things political, if General Electric and Jack Welch approve of them in advance.
What he didn’t bother to mention in his diatribe was his “I hate her, I hate her” Hillary bashing quoted by a colleague in a Philadelphia Inquirer magazine piece, and his frequently expressed belief that John McCain ‘deserves’ to be president by dint of spending time as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton. Strange that in 2004 Matthews didn’t think that John Kerry, who saved a soldier’s life under fire in Vietnam, ‘deserved’ to be president, even though the man Kerry was running against comfortably sat out the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National Guard and didn’t bother to show up for his last two years of service.
He also didn’t say that combat veteran Max Cleland, the former Democratic senator from Georgia defeated by slimy attack ads connecting him with Osama bin Laden and the magic of no-paper-trail electronic voting machines, ‘deserved’ to be in Congress, even though he left two legs and an arm in Vietnam, which would seem to be a sacrifice on par with McCain’s years in captivity.
To be fair, Matthews does sometimes hound pols for an answer to questions outside of their comfort zone but, just as often, he rolls over for a belly scratch from those he favors. Worse, he will occasionally spend half an interview lauding the subject with overwrought superlatives and then pamper them with Nerf ball questions. This has led to the amusing blowback of what I call the Matthews Curse: When he babbled delightedly over Bush’s Mission Accomplished strut, Junior began descending in the polls; when earlier this year he slathered over McCain’s manly ‘straight talk,’ the McCain campaign started unraveling; when he goosed-up Giuliani, Rudy’s fortunes headed south; and when he nominated Fred Thompson as his surrogate father, redolent of ‘50s after shave, saddle leather, and True Grit bourbon whiskey, the voters abandoned Thompson in droves. (Perhaps Hillary is better off enduring his scorn after all.)
Adding to that is Matthews’ on-air ‘style,’ a combination of sputtering sophistry, gaseous obsession with campaign minutiae, obnoxious dated stereotyping, obscure DC-insider meanderings, tedious archaic references, Vinnie Barbarino sexism, and an embarrassing tendency to gush and drool over men he considers ‘tough guys’ because they once worked a real job outside of politics, take their Philly cheese steak with Cheez-Whiz, or smoke a John Holmes-length cigar. The effect on the audience of Matthews’ spittle-flecked persona was adroitly summed up by a friend of mine as “really, truly creepy.”
Now that creepiness is coming home to haunt Matthews. Media Matters is doing an excellent job of keeping track of his habitual outrages against common decency and simple fact, and his Hardball audience, never huge, is pathetic compared to MSNBC barnburner Keith Olbermann.
Matthews’ January 17th speech was apparently some sort of appeal for forgiveness and reprieve, but it’s an appeal that comes much too late and far too short of the mark.
With Tucker Carlson’s impending departure from the cable news network and the rumored elevation of progressive talker Rachel Maddow to take his place, Matthews is feeling the heat; in a political season of change, he has found himself part of the Old Guard and he’s in a panic – even he sees that the future doesn’t augur well for media camp followers of the defeated GOP Grand Army and its failed joke of an Emperor, soon to be exiled to a life of clearing brush in Crawford and making his unfitness for office the fault of others. Perhaps Chris will end up one day working at the Texas ranch himself — appropriately oiling up the chainsaws and ghostwriting the Little King’s scripts of blame.
The Tattlesnake – Tweety Bird Feeling the Heat
Chris’ Craftiness, Rhymes with ‘Dull Snit’
Whoa! Chris Matthews’ lengthy show opening near-apology on his MSNBC Hardball show January 17th was rife with just the kind of dodgy circumlocution the Meter Beater commonly resorts to when cornered by his own mouth – downplaying his ongoing animosity to Hillary Clinton and other women, and attempting to modulate his bizarre boyish hero worship of John McCain. Along the way, he tossed in some self-congratulatory meditations on his affinity with his ‘little people’ viewers, his outsized heart that can always be trusted to do the right thing if not his loose lips, and his abundant love for politicians and all things political, if General Electric and Jack Welch approve of them in advance.
What he didn’t bother to mention in his diatribe was his “I hate her, I hate her” Hillary bashing quoted by a colleague in a Philadelphia Inquirer magazine piece, and his frequently expressed belief that John McCain ‘deserves’ to be president by dint of spending time as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton. Strange that in 2004 Matthews didn’t think that John Kerry, who saved a soldier’s life under fire in Vietnam, ‘deserved’ to be president, even though the man Kerry was running against comfortably sat out the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National Guard and didn’t bother to show up for his last two years of service.
He also didn’t say that combat veteran Max Cleland, the former Democratic senator from Georgia defeated by slimy attack ads connecting him with Osama bin Laden and the magic of no-paper-trail electronic voting machines, ‘deserved’ to be in Congress, even though he left two legs and an arm in Vietnam, which would seem to be a sacrifice on par with McCain’s years in captivity.
To be fair, Matthews does sometimes hound pols for an answer to questions outside of their comfort zone but, just as often, he rolls over for a belly scratch from those he favors. Worse, he will occasionally spend half an interview lauding the subject with overwrought superlatives and then pamper them with Nerf ball questions. This has led to the amusing blowback of what I call the Matthews Curse: When he babbled delightedly over Bush’s Mission Accomplished strut, Junior began descending in the polls; when earlier this year he slathered over McCain’s manly ‘straight talk,’ the McCain campaign started unraveling; when he goosed-up Giuliani, Rudy’s fortunes headed south; and when he nominated Fred Thompson as his surrogate father, redolent of ‘50s after shave, saddle leather, and True Grit bourbon whiskey, the voters abandoned Thompson in droves. (Perhaps Hillary is better off enduring his scorn after all.)
Adding to that is Matthews’ on-air ‘style,’ a combination of sputtering sophistry, gaseous obsession with campaign minutiae, obnoxious dated stereotyping, obscure DC-insider meanderings, tedious archaic references, Vinnie Barbarino sexism, and an embarrassing tendency to gush and drool over men he considers ‘tough guys’ because they once worked a real job outside of politics, take their Philly cheese steak with Cheez-Whiz, or smoke a John Holmes-length cigar. The effect on the audience of Matthews’ spittle-flecked persona was adroitly summed up by a friend of mine as “really, truly creepy.”
Now that creepiness is coming home to haunt Matthews. Media Matters is doing an excellent job of keeping track of his habitual outrages against common decency and simple fact, and his Hardball audience, never huge, is pathetic compared to MSNBC barnburner Keith Olbermann.
Matthews’ January 17th speech was apparently some sort of appeal for forgiveness and reprieve, but it’s an appeal that comes much too late and far too short of the mark.
With Tucker Carlson’s impending departure from the cable news network and the rumored elevation of progressive talker Rachel Maddow to take his place, Matthews is feeling the heat; in a political season of change, he has found himself part of the Old Guard and he’s in a panic – even he sees that the future doesn’t augur well for media camp followers of the defeated GOP Grand Army and its failed joke of an Emperor, soon to be exiled to a life of clearing brush in Crawford and making his unfitness for office the fault of others. Perhaps Chris will end up one day working at the Texas ranch himself — appropriately oiling up the chainsaws and ghostwriting the Little King’s scripts of blame.