Chris Matthews's Bizarro Movie Reference: Dick Cheney Like Father of Superman

The "Hardball" host has a penchant for making loopy cinematic references, such as the time he compared Rush Limbaugh to the villain in the James Bond film "Live and Let Die."

Well, yesterday the MSNBC host made some odd, labored metaphor that found the former vice president being compared to Jor-El, the biological father of Superman (audio here; transcript via NB's Geoffrey Dickens):

One of the new ideas that Dick Cheney's trying to sell right now is his daughter, Steve. He reminds me of that Marlon Brando character in, in Superman up on Krypton. The island is about to, the planet is about to blow up. So he puts his little kid, in this case Superman, into a little capsule and sends him to Earth.  It's like Cheney knows his whole world is blowing up, so he's put his little daughter in this capsule and is sending her to us. It just seems like he's spending all his time, it's kind of like a booster rocket, building one for his offspring. What's going on with this family?!

"How stupid. Can't Matthews get ANYTHING right? Everyone knows that if you are of Matthews' political persuasion, Cheney=Zod!" the New York Post's Robert A. George tweeted in reaction to my post of yesterday's video.

Good point.

Perhaps Chris has just been spending way too much time in his den Fortress of Solitude late at night watching action flicks on cable.