Chris Matthews Says "Crash" Is "Honest," Joe Klein Says It's "Lousy" and Unrealistic

Our man Dickens also discovered that over the weekend on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," Time columnist (and Clinton-loving "Anonymous" author) Joe Klein disagreed with Matthews on the artistic and political merit of the Best Picture winner, "Crash":

Joe Klein: “You look at these five, you look at these five movies and they are like a right-wing fantasy of what the Democratic Party is all about. It’s, one movie is about blacks, another movie is about Jews, another movie is about journalists, another movie is about a gay journalist and finally you have gay cowboys just to poke an eye in your face. Since all politics is local.”

Matthews: “Right.”

Klein: “Since, since all politics is local and Hollywood is very conscious now with the rest of the country looking at them they’re gonna go with 'Crash' and black/white relations, black/white relations, even though I thought it was a pretty lousy movie.”

Matthews: “Oh, oh, oh.”

BBC's Katty Kay: “I thought it was, no, no, I would go with 'Crash' over any of the others.”

Matthews: “'Crash' was a great movie! Didn’t you think it was the most realistic...”

Kay: “It was intense, it was vi-, it was violent, it moved fast. It got my nerves jangling in a way that I thought 'Brokeback' was actually rather slow. There was about 30 minutes too much there.”

Matthews: “Okay, okay you’re talking about aesthetics let’s talk politics. Didn’t you think that was the most honest look at race and ethnic relations in America you’ve seen in a movie?”

Klein: “No. No, because I’ve lived it. I’ve lived in a mixed neighborhood and race relations aren’t at all like that.”

I'm with Klein. You don't see genuine inter-racial friendship in this movie. You see a lot of overwrought distrust, cynicism, and abuse. Matthews then turned to the CBS-liberal-bias-celebrating, anti-anti-communist flick:

Matthews: “Okay tell me [about] 'Good Night and Good Luck' about us, journalists. The better journalists.”

NBC's Andrea Mitchell: “Well it, it’s a classic picture because it’s black and white, it’s got this sort of edge of docudrama, documentary and it talks about journalism as we want it to be. About standing up and doing and being honest and doing the right thing. Not to say that it is commercially successful enough to be the Best Picture...”

David Brooks, New York Times columnist: “Or factual.”

Mitchell: “Ohhh....”