The Chris Matthews Show

Local NBC Reporter Says 'Smart' Voters for Obama, Unsure About 'Conservative' Voters

By Geoffrey Dickens | May 5, 2008 - 15:36 ET

On the syndicated, "The Chris Matthews Show," Kim Genardo, a political reporter for NBC Raleigh, North Carolina affilate WNCN, predicted that "smart, educated" North Carolina primary voters wouldn't be swayed by Jeremiah Wright but was unsure how "conservative, white, rural voters" would vote as she admitted she's not, "in touch with them."

The following exchange occurred on the May 4, edition of "The Chris Matthews Show":

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let's talk about North Carolina, Kim. It's where you work. He's had a big lead down there, Barack Obama. Has for weeks now.

KIM GENARDO, WNCN RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA: Absolutely.

MATTHEWS: It's narrowing, I hear. Tell me what you hear about that race as it's shaping up. Will it be an up or down on Jeremiah Wright, not Barack?

Time to Play: 'Who Said It?'

By Geoffrey Dickens | April 16, 2008 - 12:33 ET

What pundit uttered the following liberal canard that makes it sound like Republicans don't care about poor people?

"He's [John McCain] a conservative. The way he breaks out of it, though, electorally, is to be Teddy Roosevelt, and this is gonna be the toughest thing for his campaign. He's got a group of people around him, and frankly a group, a party that doesn't want the government to do anything to help poor people. And he has to break out of that."

Was it?

A.) Chris Matthews, MSNBC

B.) Geraldo Rivera, Fox News

C.) Eleanor Clift, Newsweek

D.) David Brooks, New York Times

Andrew Sullivan: Rumsfeld Will Be Indicted For War Crimes

By Noel Sheppard | April 6, 2008 - 15:06 ET

Despite having officially left the White House in December 2006, the mere mention of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's name is almost as certain to evoke uncontrollable vitriol from liberal media members as someone saying in their presence "George W. Bush," "Dick Cheney," or "Halliburton."

With this in mind, it certainly was not surprising to see Atlantic magazine's senior editor Andrew Sullivan on Sunday's "The Chris Matthews Show" assert that Rumsfeld, along with other Bush administration officials, will soon be indicted for war crimes.

Here's how Sullivan indelicately put it (video available here):

Media Divide Wall Street and 'Main Street'

By Jeff Poor | April 3, 2008 - 16:22 ET

As economic issues move to the front of the on-going presidential campaign, the mainstream media have given an increased amount of coverage to what is happening on Wall Street. However, they have portrayed Wall Street as something completely alien to what happens on "Main Street."

"Now to Wall Street, which, as you know, doesn't always like what Main Street likes, and by the end of the trading day, it was up," NBC "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams said on Oct. 31, 2007.

But something positive on Wall Street and something positive for Main Street are not mutually exclusive.

Chris Matthews Urges Clarence Page to Get Pro-Jeremiah Wright Tapes Out

By Geoffrey Dickens | March 24, 2008 - 17:53 ET

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page defended Rev. Jeremiah Wright, on "The Chris Matthews Show" over the weekend, as he claimed tapes existed that put Barack Obama's former pastor in a better light than those clips of him damning America, to which Matthews requested of Page: "Would you get those tapes out?...Let's get the good tapes out."

The following exchange occurred on the March 23 edition of "The Chris Matthews Show:"

CHRIS MATTHEWS: We put it to The Matthews Meter, 12 of our regulars. If Obama is the nominee, will he be defined by race in the fall election? Well, it looks like Obama can still be the transformative candidate on that front. Ten to two, the meter says no, Obama would not be defined by race in the fall. Norah and Clarence, you're both with the 10. You're upbeat on this. We're gonna see beyond color here.

Dan Rather Backs 'Outstanding' NYT Journos on McCain Hit Piece

By Geoffrey Dickens | February 25, 2008 - 17:54 ET

If you're the New York Times' Jim Rutenberg or Bill Keller the last person you probably want in your corner is Dan "National Guard Forgery Story" Rather. Yet on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," Rather jumped to their defense, on last week's McCain hit piece, by declaring them "outstanding journalists."

Now Rather did hedge a bit saying if the story wasn't true they could be "in a heap of trouble," but he concluded, that in the end, their reporting should be trusted because they were: "Very responsible journalists."

When Chris Matthews asked the former "CBS Evening News" anchor for his opinion on the Times story, Rather offered the following take on the February 24, edition of "The Chris Matthews Show:"

‘Matthews’ Panelist: ‘Clinton Ought to be Put in Nutty Old Geezer Club’

By Noel Sheppard | January 20, 2008 - 22:10 ET

The weekend of January 19 - 20 might go down as the moment in history when the liberal media collectively told former President Bill Clinton to shut up.

Possibly the best example occurred on "The Chris Matthews Show" Sunday when Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution actually stated, "Sometimes I think that Bill Clinton ought to be put in the Nutty Old Geezer Club along with Andrew Young for some of the dumb things he's said lately."

For those that have forgotten, Young is the former Atlanta mayor that recently stated, "Bill [Clinton] is every bit as black as Barack [Obama]...He's probably gone with more black women than Barack."

This statement by Tucker followed other such incidents, including, as NewsBusters reported, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter publishing an article Saturday expressing grave concern that the former president's recent antics were harming Hillary's campaign. Hours later, the panel on ABC's "This Week" shared similar misgivings regarding Clinton's recent "temper tantrums."

Wonderfully, exiling the former president to the Nutty Old Geezer Club was just the beginning of the Bill bashing on Sunday's "Matthews" program:

AP's Puff Piece on Chris Matthews 'The Target' For The Left?

By Warner Todd Huston | January 12, 2008 - 22:26 ET

We are in the middle of an intense election cycle, we all know. Both parties are, for the first time in many years, completely undecided as to which of their candidates is "the" candidate. It's pretty exciting for a political junkie. So, what does the Associated Press give us? What political news is of the utmost importance to help us all in this supremely important decision, so urgent that the AP felt we needed to know about it? Why, it's that Chris Matthews has made a few lefties mad at him for helping Hillary win in New Hampshire, of course! The AP is trying to drum up sympathy for Matthews who is supposedly on the receiving end of a "backlash" for his supposed attacks on Hillary Clinton.

Chris Matthews a target for people who believe media backlash helped Hillary Clinton

He’s become the target for critics who think a backlash against the media played a part in Hillary Clinton’s surprise win in New Hampshire. Chris Matthews laughs off that idea, and insists he has a lot of respect for her.

Geeze, give me a break.

Chris Matthews Slams Hillary

By Kathleen McKinley | January 9, 2008 - 15:43 ET

Yes, it was Chris Matthews:

"I think the Hillary appeal has always been about the mix of toughness and sympathy. Let's not forget, and I'll be brutal, the reason she's a US Senator, the reason she's a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front runner, is that her husband messed around...That's how she got to be a Senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win it on her merit, she won because everybody felt, 'My God, this woman stood up under humiliation,' right? That's what happened. That's how it happened. In 1998, she went to NY and campaigned for Chuck Schumer as almost like the grieving widow of absurdity, and she did it so well and courageously. But it was about the humilation of Bill Clinton."

I don't think I have ever seen such a harsh analysis of Hillary Clinton. Not from Sean Hannity. Not from Bill O'Reilly.

Could the media be turning on Hillary?

Chris Matthews: GOP Candidates Want to Kill Bugs Bunny

By Rich Noyes | December 31, 2007 - 13:07 ET

On Sunday’s The Chris Matthews Show, the host used one of Mike Huckabee’s Iowa photo-ops as an excuse to launch into an elitist attack on Republicans and hunters. “Who made killing small animals the test of Republican manhood?” Matthews challenged at the top of his show. Over a clip of a vintage Looney Tunes cartoon, Matthews further upped the ante: “Who declared war on Bugs Bunny?!”

Later with his panel, an appalled Matthews noted how Huckabee “told a reporter that he loved to bag squirrels because he fried ’em up and ate ’em with biscuits and a Coca-Cola. What have we come to!”

Noticing how NBC News chief foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell was squirming, Matthews asked her, “Are you upset by this Andrea? You must be!”

“Absolutely,” Mitchell confirmed, adding a unique sexist angle: “You don’t see any women out there with a gun.”

Economic Gloom and Doom on ‘The Chris Matthews Show'

By Noel Sheppard | December 23, 2007 - 14:35 ET

NewsBusters and affiliate The Business & Media Institute have been reporting for many months the continuous, bearish assessments of economic gloom and doom by America's press.

Of course, this all comes despite 24 straight quarters of Gross Domestic Product growth, 50 consecutive months of job gains, higher wages for virtually all Americans, and last month's consumer spending explosion.

Ignoring all this Sunday morning were panelists on "The Chris Matthews Show" who demonstrated such a deplorable lack of economic acumen that maybe they shouldn't be allowed to comment on such matters when cameras and microphones are on.

Host Matthews set this segment up:

"A Nightmare on 'Hardball'"?

By Seton Motley | December 18, 2007 - 19:05 ET

NewsBusters.org - Media Research CenterNewsBusters.org - Media Research Center
Quoth Wes Craven: Nevermore
Message for Chris Matthews: Hollywood 1984 called, and it wants its sweater back.

On location today in Hanover, New Hampshire, Matthews climbed out of the Wardrobe Wayback Machine - Slasher Flick Edition sporting a Halloween-shaded version of Freddy Krueger's trademark "A Nightmare on Elm Street" pull-over.

Matthews Panel Hates Hillary, Hearts Huckabee

By Noel Sheppard | December 16, 2007 - 17:10 ET

As NewsBuster Mark Finkelstein reported, Sunday's "This Week" wasn't a good omen for Hillary Clinton or her supporters.

Fortunately, for those of us that enjoy Hillary bashing as much as a Gershwin tune (how 'bout you?), dessert was served on "The Chris Matthews Show" as panelists including Dan Rather, Norah O'Donnell, Katty Kay, and Andrew Sullivan gave conservatives an early Clinton kicking Christmas present to savor.

Is this still payback for Bill and Hillary chastising Tim Russert for his behavior during October's debate in Philadelphia? Maybe more important, have press members decided that if they continue to pile on the supposedly inevitable one, the Democrats' only chance in 2008 is if Mike Huckabee is the Republican nominee?

Before we get there, here are some marvelous examples of Hillary bashing from seemingly unlikely sources to brighten your day:

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell: Hsu Scandal Makes Bill Clinton a Drag on Hillary’s Campaign

By Noel Sheppard | September 16, 2007 - 13:57 ET

Since the Norman Hsu campaign finance scandal first broke weeks ago, conservatives have wondered when liberal media members will get concerned about how this might impact the presidential aspirations of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY).

If Sunday's "The Chris Matthews Show" is a barometer, the news is not good for Hillary supporters.

As The Anchoress accurately reported Saturday, NBC's Andrea Mitchell made a statement concerning the Clintons that was absolutely shocking:

Shocking ‘Chris Matthews' Discussion: Maybe We Shouldn’t Leave Iraq

By Noel Sheppard | July 29, 2007 - 14:29 ET

[Updated w/video clip, 14:21 Eastern, July 30]

Something happened on Sunday's "Chris Matthews Show" that likely shocked virtually all viewers on both sides of the aisle: the panel, stocked with liberal media members as usual, actually discussed reasons why America shouldn't pull troops out of Iraq.

In fact, not only was this issue seriously debated, but some of the statements made could have come from well-known conservative columnists like Fred Barnes, Bill Kristol, and Charles Krauthammer.

Video (3:09): Real (2.29 MB) or Windows (1.91 MB), plus MP3 audio (1.06 MB).

Yet, this panel was comprised of the Washington Post's David Ignatius, Time's Michael Duffy, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, and U.S. News and World Report's Gloria Borger.

The shocking discussion was set up thusly by host Matthews: