On the Sunday, December 20, syndicated Chris Matthews Show – during which the panel weighed in on who should be granted various dishonors for the year – Matthews seemed to lump conservatives like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh in with what Matthews saw as "white tribalism" as he also fretted over the "birthers" who promote the fringe conspiracy theory that President Obama was not born in America. Matthews had notably expressed frustration about "white tribalism" being stirred up by "idiots" in America at the end of last week’s show.

Matthews seemed to compare Glenn Beck and  Limbaugh to swine flu as he introduced the award titled "A Plague on Both Our Houses." Matthews played a clip of Beck going over the top in calling President Obama a "racist" on FNC’s Fox and Friends, but he did not specify any particular quote from Limbaugh. A bit later, after the BBC’s Katty Kay tied Palin to the "birthers," prompting Matthews to interject that "I think it’s white tribalism," Matthews brought up the new book of panel member John Heilemann of New York magazine, and set up Heilemann to blame Palin for "activating" racism against Obama during the 2008 campaign.

Matthews: "Was this something that was simmering, this sort of tribalistic resentment of Barack Obama being what he is?"

Heilemann responded:

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People forget that this happened at the end of general election in 2008 where John McCain and Sarah Palin were out at their rallies and you started to see, when she started to talk about how he was palling around with terrorists, you started to see the early incipient kind of signs of what became the birther movement, where you'd have people standing up calling him a socialist, calling him a communist, calling him an Arab. You know, that stuff was out there, and you only saw it at the very, very end.

And by that point, Obama was so far ahead that people kind of ignored it. But it was there and they activated it.

Matthews then suggested that it would be racist to attack Obama for attending the racist sermons of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and criticized Palin for expressing a regret that the McCain/Palin campaign did not talk about Wright. Matthews:

And did you hear that Palin was saying that later on, more recently, she wished they'd done more of that Reverend Wright stuff, more of that ethnic stuff, that racial stuff. She wanted to push that. To John McCain's lasting credit he refused to play the racial card, which is always easy to play in this country, as we've seen.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Sunday, December 20, Chris Matthews Show:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: When we come back, more of our look back at this year. What was the bigger plague, the birthers or the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh? And who gets our "Backbone of Steel" award? And who was the biggest cad of the year? That's a long list. And we got a lot of nominees. We’ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back. And more of our look back at this year. Next category, we're calling it a "Plague on All Our Houses." First, swine flu – now, that was a big, big deal this year. The birthers, another kind of plague, the people who pushed the idea that Barack Obama was not born in America. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and their ilk – the nutty talk went off the rails this past summer. Here is Beck:

GLENN BECK, FROM THE JULY 28 FOX AND FRIENDS, CLIP #1: This President, I think, has exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture. I don't know what it is.

BECK CLIP #2: This guy is, I believe, a racist.

MATTHEWS: And our last plague, those reality TV wannabes. The balloon family and those White House gate crashers. Howard, another rich list. By the way, Glenn Beck, white people. What's that supposed to mean?

HOWARD FINEMAN, NEWSWEEK: Well, it's hard not to name him the "Plague of the Year." And not for ideological reasons. Because I think the name calling, the shameless name calling, and stirring up of the worst in our society is something that should be condemned. It was a year ago, almost a year ago, that we were all out there on the mall, when Barack Obama was sworn in as President, one of the great moments in American history, no matter what your politics are, no matter who you are, where you come from, and to sort of drag all that through the mud I think is a plague.

MATTHEWS: Yes, bring back tribalism.

FINEMAN: Yeah, exactly.

KATTY KAY, BBC: I would say the birthers, and I think because it's insidious-

MATTHEWS: Same deal, by the way.

KAY: I think it’s a similar deal, and with the birthers, it's getting at this idea that Americans somehow don't like anything that's foreign, that anything that's foreign is suspicious. And there's no evidence of this. And the way that people like Sarah Palin have said this is an issue without actually coming out straight and saying I think he wasn't born in America. There’s a very mean-spiritedness about the birthers, I find, worrying about...

MATTHEWS: I think it’s tribalism, white tribalism.

NORAH O’DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: It is, and it's an effort to delegitimize the President in some way, to offer an ad hominem attack in many ways-

KAY: Without even straight-up attacking.

O’DONNELL: -suggesting he’s not credible, he’s not American. And it’s sort of a way to – it’s racist in many ways to do it.

MATTHEWS: John, you've got a book coming out, a big one, coming out very early this year, right at the new year time. And you’re going to be on here to talk about it. Was this something that was simmering, this sort of tribalistic resentment of Barack Obama being what he is?

JOHN HEILEMANN, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Yeah, it’s funny, you know, people forget that this happened at the end of general election in 2008 where John McCain and Sarah Palin were out at their rallies and you started to see, when she started to talk about how he was palling around with terrorists, you started to see the early incipient kind of signs of what became the birther movement, where you’d have people standing up calling him a socialist, calling him a communist-

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

HEILEMANN: -calling him an Arab. You know, that stuff was out there, and you only saw it at the very, very end. And by that point, Obama was so far ahead that people kind of ignored it. But it was there and they activated it.

MATTHEWS: And did you hear that Palin was saying that later on, more recently, she wished they’d done more of that Reverend Wright stuff, more of that ethnic stuff, that racial stuff? She wanted to push that.

HEILEMANN: She was very unhappy about going after Reverend Wright.

MATTHEWS: To John McCain’s lasting credit he refused to play the racial card, which is always easy to play in this country, as we’ve seen.

—Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center.

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