After Michael Steele, the first African-American chairman of the Republican Party, left office, the RNC became single mindedly devoted to blocking black people from the ballot box. That's the allegation that MSNBC's Chris Matthews made not once, but twice, to Steele's face, on the October 28 edition of Hardball.
For his part, Steele simply laughed it off. Fellow guest panelist and leftist writer David Corn chortled that Matthews had delivered the "best introduction ever!"
The snarky "voter suppression" line had nothing to do with the underlying topic: Gov. Christie's handling of the short-lived quarantine of a nurse in New Jersey who may have been exposed to the deadly Ebola virus while working in West Africa.
Video and transcript appear below.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host: Michael Steele was chairman of the RNC back before it was dedicated entirely to black voter suppression--
(DAVID CORN laughs heartily)
MATTHEWS: --and David Corn is the Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones. Both are MSNBC political analysts. I see it--
DAVID CORN: That was the best introduction ever!
MICHAEL STEELE: Where the heck did that come from? [smiles]
MATTHEWS: It came from here.
STEELE, chuckling: OK.
MATTHEWS: And here. And here.
[...]
MATTHEWS, concluding the segment: David Corn, that's you. Thank you. Michael Steele, that's you. And I'm right about your party. Ever since you've left, it's been all about black voter suppression.
