Live television, particularly news broadcasting, is bound to have the occasion slip-up or gaffe here and there. Some nights are much better than others and some much worse. Tonight, MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews had three or four, including confusing an NBC reporter's name with that of a movie star.
"I'm joined right now by NBC's Halle Berry," Matthews said as his introduced his first segment's panelists. "I'm sorry, Hallie Jackson. I always make that mistake," Matthews corrected himself. "I'll take it!" the reporter quipped back.
[Update | 8:55 p.m. Eastern: My colleague Mark Finkelstein reminded me that last November Matthews accidentally referred to Ms. Jackson as, I kid you not, "Haley Barbour."]
Later in the segment, Matthews repeated his goof.
"You know, Halle Berry. Halle Berry! Hallie Jackson, I would love to know why we can't use, occasionally, lie detectors" on politicians, Matthews told the NBC News Cruz campaign reporter. Matthews was reacting to a video clip of the Texas Republican asserting that he's aware of news organizations that are deliberately sitting on stories that would cast Donald Trump in a negative light until after such time as he's locked up the GOP nomination.
From there, Matthews launched into another Cruz-equals-Joe McCarthy screed. It was that McCarthy rant that perhaps led Matthews, moments later, to misname liberal Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson as Eugene McCarthy:
Thank you so much, Al Cardenas. Thank you, Hallie Jackson, and thank you, Eugene McCarthy.
Coming up! – Eugene McCarthy. Eugene Robinson. Why do I do – Eugene McCarthy. Halle Berry. I get the first names right! [chuckles] Coming up! – You're not anywhere a McCarthyite, and Halle Berry is not a knock, by the way, Hallie Jackson.
At another point, apparently reacting to the voice of his producer in his ear, a confused Matthews asks "what did I say?" when told he got the state from which Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) hails incorrect. Matthews said the Bernie Sanders backer was from the State of Ohio as he thanked her for appearing on the program via satellite from a Sanders rally from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
And last, but not least, when introducing a segment on the life and legacy of the late First Lady Nancy Reagan, Matthews noted that "the nation mourns as we remember the lif, the life, of former First Lady Nancy Reagan, who died yesterday at the age of 94."
"Not a bad run for anybody," Matthews comments on Mrs. Reagan's longevity.
