On Wednesday, frequent MSNBC guest Jackie Kucinich published a story at the Daily Beast website detailing how some of Hillary Clinton's biggest backers are anti-vaxxer activists. So surely MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews brought Kucinich on his program to note Clinton's ties to nutty vaccine-deniers, right?
Of course not! To the contrary, Matthews opened his program with a segment in which he gushed over Clinton's "#grandmothersknowbest" tweet from Monday evening praising vaccines.
"Grandmothers know best. Let's play Hardball," Matthews tossed out in the opening tease, adding after the opening theme music:
That's it. You just heard it right. Grandmothers know best. That's the word from Hillary Clinton. The recent Secretary of State has served notice that she's embracing her new family position with gusto and taking it on the road politically. When she signed off Monday night about the need for vaccines with that hashtag, grandmothersknowbest. It was a statement meant to be noticed to friend and foe alike.
Quote, I am who I am, I think she was saying, and I think it gives me a vital status in taking this country into the future. I care about the future because our Charlotte -- that's her grandchild -- and all the other children of her generation are going to be living in it.
Here's an excerpt from Kucinich's excellent piece (emphasis mine):
Albert Dwoskin and his wife, Claire, have been heavy hitters in Democratic politics for decades, boasting fundraisers with access to top Democratic leaders—even the Clintons.
Bill Clinton has spoken at their mansion in McLean, Virginia twice.
Albert, a real estate developer, donated more than $10,000 to Ready for Hillary—Clinton’s campaign in waiting—in 2013. That’s on top of the thousands of dollars both Clintons have received from the pair since the 1990s.
But it’s Albert and Claire Dwoskin’s other hobby that is under scrutiny now. The Dwoskins fund a multimillion-dollar family foundation that has publicly tied the use of vaccines to a rise in autism, and is dedicated to addressing “gaps in the knowledge about the biological and genetic risk factors for vaccine induced brain and immune dysfunction.”
In other words, they’re vaccination skeptics. And the foundation is just one in a series of anti-vaxx projects that the wealthy couple bankrolls.
Over the past few nights, of course, Matthews has taken pains to tar conservative Republicans as "anti-science" on the vaccine front. Matthews similarly has shielded both President Obama and Hillary Clinton from scrutiny regarding their positions on vaccines in the 2008 campaign.
