Chris Matthews: Conservatives Beck, Cruz, Lee, Levin and Paul Are Like Kim Jong Un Killing His Uncle

December 14th, 2013 12:13 PM

Is there anything MSNBC hosts won't compare conservatives to?

Consider Chris Matthews who began Friday's Hardball likening conservatives such as Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Mark Levin, and Rand Paul - who have the nerve to oppose the budget compromise just passed in the House - to North Korean despot Kim Jong Un killing his uncle (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Good evening. I'm Chris Matthews back in Washington. And let me start tonight with the crazy way this week is ending. You've heard the news from North Korea, how the young head of that country just executed his guardian uncle, Well, back here in America, the right-wing is acting if not as brutally, certainly as crazily. It's hard to tell who's calling the shots in this crowd.

Radio man Mark Levin denounced today Speaker John Boehner as utterly feckless -- that means weak -- for backing that little budget deal and trying to avoid another government shutdown. Glenn Beck condemns the Republican speaker as not just a liberal, but get this, he's calling him a progressive. Oh, my God. Acting like a king of the crazies, Beck then says Ted Cruz is being a good right-wing boy in opposing the budget deal in the Senate -- and I can`t believe the way he says this -- because, quote, "he did what we told him to" -- "We," Glenn Beck and company.

So now the cat's out of the bag. The people calling the shots are the loudest, angriest, nastiest voices in the right-wing media. The people marching to their tune, always marching away from any deal with the president, are the Cruzes, the Rand Pauls, and of course, the Mike Lees.

But not only them, also the Mitch McConnells, the John Cornyns, the Lindsey Grahams, all scared to death at this moment that the Mark Levins and the Glenn Becks of the right-wing media circus will finger them for destruction the way Kim Jong Il -- or Kim Jong Un, rather - just fingered his own unsuspecting guardian uncle over in Pyongyang.

Well, it's not North Korea, but boy, is it getting tough over there on the American right.


So going against the majority in your Party is like killing your uncle?

What about the 32 Democrats - including the number two in the House, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer - who broke ranks and voted “No?” Or any of the people on the far-left that oppose this budget because it doesn't raise taxes and/or extend unemployment benefits?

Are they as crazy if not as brutal as Jong Un?

No - they're just principled, like any Democrat that goes against the party for liberal reasons.

But when a Republican goes against the party for conservative reasons?

Crazy!