MSNBC's Matthews: Washington Post 'Used to Be Liberal', Now 'Hard to Read Ideologically'

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Chris Matthews could have a future in comedy if only his funniest moments weren't unintentional.

Here's today's knee-slapper: The Washington Post is not ideologically liberal in its editorials [MP3 audio available here].

Matthews made that pronouncement today during live coverage shortly after the conclusion of the ObamaCare signing ceremony. The "Hardball" host's comment followed MSNBC correspondent Savannah Guthrie's observation that ObamaCare is a "Rorschach test" that Democrats and Republicans will respond to along ideological lines in the run-up to the midterm elections in November:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me go to Jonathan Capehart on that, because he has to write editorials for the Washington Post, which is kind of hard to read ideologically these days.

[laughter off camera]

MATTHEWS: Jonathan, no, I mean it. I mean it. It used to be a liberal paper. I don't know what you are now. But, let me ask you this--

JONATHAN CAPEHART, referring to the paper's motto: An independent paper, yes, Chris.

MATTHEWS: Fine, that probably is very self-gratifying.

Matthews may have a point with his snarky response to Capehart. The Post's insistence that it is "an independent newspaper" is little more than an onanistic exercise in self-congratulation for being, in its collective mind, above ideological and partisan rancor, an "independent" arbiter of common sense and good public policy.

So if Matthews sees through the baloney of the Post's slogan, how can he simultaneously think the paper used to be liberal but is now all over the map editorially now?

For our part at NewsBusters, we've got an archive of bias that proves the Post is not a lapsed liberal paper, but a very much stridently observant one.