The Chris Matthews Show

Andrew Sullivan this weekend seemed to shock Chris Matthews when he said that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin could actually beat President Obama in next year's elections running as the "principled candidate" representing "this grassroots movement of cutting government down to size."

Maybe even more surprising, Time's Joe Klein seemed to agree telling the host of "The Chris Matthews Show," "You were around in ’79 and ’80 as I was. Did you see many people in the Carter administration think that Ronald Reagan could beat Jimmy Carter?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow this weekend predicted that there is going to be a Republican presidential candidate that will refuse to do any interviews with the mainstream media.

She told her fellow panelists on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" that it could be Sarah Palin (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Dan Rather this weekend said Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is "for real" and that he can "imagine a scenario where she actually gets the Republican [presidential] nomination."

Maybe even more surprising, on the syndicated program bearing his name, Chris Matthews agreed (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

Experience tells us that the Republican presidential candidate the media prefer is the one they believe is most easily defeated.

On this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show," seven of the twelve regulars said Mitch Daniels "has the best shot to overcome his obvious flaw" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

For days, Bush hating media members have concocted a variety of mostly nefarious theories why former President George W. Bush opted not to join Barack Obama at Ground Zero Thursday.

The Washington Post's David Ignatius on this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show" claimed, "The reason that Bush didn’t go is the photograph of the two of them together would have locked the reelection of Barack Obama in 2012" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

There was a marvelous moment on this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show" when the host literally stuck his foot in his mouth claiming in front of four British journalists that former Prime Minister Tony Blair "was much closer emotionally and politically to Bill Clinton" than George W. Bush.

Guest's Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast and Gillian Tett of the Financial Times both immediately shook their heads as the BBC's Katty Kay and Matt Frei said "No" and "Wrong" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters has been reporting, since President Obama once again proposed letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the highest earning Americans, the media have been supporting it almost 24 hours a day.

Doing his part this weekend was Chris Matthews who after the introduction of the syndicated program bearing his name actually began the show, "Why is taxing the rich so hard?" (video follows with transcript and lots of commentary):

Liberal media members better learn that if they step onto a set with CNBC's Becky Quick, they better bring their "A" game when talking about business and finance or they'll end up looking foolish.

Such was the case on this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show" when Andrew Sullivan called Wall Street a "parasite class...producing nothing" only to be forcibly corrected by Quick (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews has clearly forgotten all the concern over violent rhetoric he and his colleagues expressed in January after the tragic shootings in Tucson.

On this week's syndicated program bearing his name, Matthews began the show saying, "Going for the kill! This week's shutdown fight is just the beginning. The young Republican turks want to fight to the death!" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The liberal media are on a full-court press to make the entire GOP presidential candidate field look hapless and unelectable.

Doing his part Friday was New York magazine's John Heilemann who on "The Chris Matthews Show" said the Obama campaign thinks their guy has "more talent in his little finger than any of these Republicans" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Despite our air attacks in Libya this weekend, most Middle East experts view the growing rebellion in Bahrain as being far more important to America.

Yet according to the BBC's Katty Kay, who was a guest on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," the Obama administration doesn't want the press reporting what's going on there (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The far-left in America are having a collective conniption fit over President Obama's decision to attack Libya.

Included in the wolf pack is the Atlantic magazine's Andrew Sullivan who despite his preposterous claims of being a conservative appeared on "The Chris Matthews Show" this weekend and said, "I don’t know why anybody voted for Obama in the primaries...[now] we have this politicized Clintonian mess" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

With civil unrest breaking out all over the Middle East and Africa sending oil and gas prices through the roof, one could make the case that Barack Obama more and more is looking like Jimmy Carter.

On this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show," the liberal host made it seem that this is even on his mind as he made a rather telling slip of the tongue (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters has been reporting, liberal media members have been out in force the past few days defending NPR.

On this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show," New York Times columnist David Brooks said, "I thought it was really biased ten years ago, but now I think it’s pretty straight" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

President Obama apparently has 18.5 million Facebook friends which not surprisingly is far more than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

When the Huffington Post's Howard Fineman told his liberal colleagues on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" what a potential advantage this gives the current White House resident, there was much rejoicing (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker said Friday New Jersey Governor Chris Christie won't run for president next year because "he realizes there’s still a crazy tax that a Republican nominee has to pay at this point."

This in Tucker's view stated on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" includes cozying up to the birthers, coddling Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, and denying manmade global warming (video follows with transcript and commentary):

New York Magazine's John Heilemann on Friday said the Republican presidential field is the weakest anybody has seen in our lifetime.

This absurd statement was made on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" in a segment about which GOPers will be throwing their name into the ring in the coming months before next year's elections (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In a classic example of liberal media bias, Chris Matthews on Friday bashed former President George W. Bush for holding Prince Abdullah of Saudia Arabia's hand when he visited the Crawford ranch back in 2005.

After mentioning how "the bowing and scraping" involved in the "paramount task" of presidents honoring Arab leaders has sometimes "been nearly comical," the host of the syndicated program bearing his name completely ignored President Barack Obama's deep bow to the very same man less than two years ago (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews on Friday asked the panelists on the syndicated program bearing his name two questions about the crisis in Egypt that must have made his liberal viewers gasp.

Moments after surprisingly asking NBC's Andrea Mitchell if "neo-conservatives who believe in really trying to push democracy" were right all along, Matthews asked David Sanger of the New York Times if George W. Bush was "better equipped than this President to deal with this crisis" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

National Review's Reihan Salam this weekend demonstrated exactly why it should be required that there be at least one conservative present during televised political discussions.

Appearing on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," Salam had a spirited and at times contentious debate with the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan about conservatism, Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Talk about bullish consensus, the entire panel on this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show" felt that President Obama was going to be a big winner in the first quarter of this year making him the proverbial comeback kid.

Alex Wagner of Politics Daily went so far as to predict, "Obama’s going to be flying on angels wings two feet off the ground" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, over the weekend, CNN's Gloria Borger predicted that incoming House Republicans will overreach and make Barack Obama "look good" in comparison and allow the President to become the "grown-up." During a segment in which host Chris Matthews asked his panel to predict how Obama will deal with the GOP, New York magazine's John Heilemann suggested Republicans would "work with him" on issues like deficit reduction and education, which prompted Matthews to ask Borger if this meant Republicans could no longer call him a "socialist."

CHRIS MATTHEWS: So, you're shaking your head. Is one of the advantages of cutting deals with Republicans, they can't call you a socialist anymore?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN: Right! They can't call you a socialist anymore. Although there will be some Republicans, in the new Congress, who are not gonna like the deals that the other Republicans cut. So he's still gonna have those problems. But they will make him look good, by the way. And he will be able to triangulate and to look like the grown-up which is-

MATTHEWS: Oh my favorite word!

BORGER: -what people want.

A little bit later on in the segment the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan insisted a GOP House will allow Obama to become the "President he wants to be" because, as he insisted, "he's not a big spending liberal, never was!"

 Appearing as a panel member on Sunday’s syndicated Chris Matthews Show, Time columnist Joe Klein predicted that the Tea Party will be the "biggest losers" next year after he agreed with MSNBC’s Howard Fineman that the conservative movement represented the "biggest winners" this year. Klein: "I'm going to go with the Tea Party, with the caveat that even though they were the biggest winners of this year because they set the debate, they're going to be the biggest losers of next year because they're going to have to vote."

A bit earlier, after Fineman accused Nevada Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle of running a "frankly racist ad about immigration against Hispanics," and alluded to the Republican Party’s challenge of winning Hispanic voters in the future, Klein predicted that opponents of the Dream Act would "suffer" as he chimed in: "I'm going to go with the Tea Party, with the caveat that even though they were the biggest winners of this year because they set the debate, they're going to be the biggest losers of next year because they're going to have to vote."

 On Sunday’s syndicated Chris Matthews Show, panel member and MSNBC analyst Howard Fineman - also of the Huffington Post - made the over the top assertion that "10 to 20 percent" of Americans will "continue to hate and fear" President and Mrs. Obama, but that the rest have "accepted" President Obama "as a member of the family." And when host Matthews asked who was the biggest winner of the year, Fineman gushed over former President Bill Clinton’s recent return to the podium in the White House press room, with Matthews referring to Clinton’s visit as the "second coming":

HOWARD FINEMAN: Unfortunately, I wasn't there when he came in.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: For the moment, the second coming.

FINEMAN: He, Bill Clinton walks in, and easy as pie for the next half hour explains what real life in Washington, in politics is all about.

After agreeing with Time’s Joe Klein that health care reform was the "worst move of [President Obama’s] first two years," and that the unpopular reforms keep dragging down his popularity, Fineman contended that Obama had, by contrast, been successful in getting Americans to like him personally, describing the President as being like "a member of the family," and surprisingly characterized Obama’s "background" as "strange." Fineman:

Chris Matthews on the syndicated program bearing his name devoted an entire segment this weekend to attacking Sarah Palin.

To assist him in the attacks, the host of "The Chris Matthews Show" brought on Howard Fineman of the Huffington Post, the BBC's Katty Kay, Joe Klein of Time magazine, and NBC's Norah O'Donnell (video follows with transcript and commentary):

NBC's Andrea Mitchell this weekend named the Tea Party as her Person of the Year.

Two others on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" disgustingly chose WikiLeaks' Julian Assange (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Time magazine's Michael Duffy said this weekend that the liberal part of Barack Obama's presidency is probably over.

Maybe more surprising, no one on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" - including the host - disagreed with him (video follows with transcript and commentary):

 Appearing as a panel member Sunday on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic charged that Republicans are "trying to keep this economy bad" to hurt President Obama as the group discussed extension of the Bush tax cuts. He then tagged the GOP as "the most irresponsible political party I’ve seen."

Sullivan began his rant against Republicans as he jumped into the conversation: "Can I just point out the fantastic irony that we’ve just gone through an election in which the Republicans campaigned day in and day out about the debt, and now we find after the election that they’re the least willing to tackle it?"

When host Chris Matthews asked him to "explain," Sullivan continued: "Pure, utter cynicism. All they’re doing is trying to keep this economy bad and keep nailing that in Obama - by the way, who’s not responsible for most of it - and so that they can get back in power. They have no interest in solving this country’s debt problems and fiscal problems. They’re the most irresponsible political party I’ve seen in (INAUDIBLE)."

Moments earlier, John Heilemann of New York magazine had also argued against the extension of the Bush tax cuts. Heilemann:

New York magazine's John Heilemann said this weekend that President Obama is the only serious adult in the deficit reduction conversation now going on in Washington.

This deliciously came seconds before Heilemann told other guests on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," "I have been dispirited by the lack of strategy on the part of the White House since the midterm elections...specifically on this [issue]" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Would you ever in your wildest dreams imagine Chris Matthews flatteringly comparing Sarah Palin to former President Bill Clinton?

During a lengthy opening segment about Palin's political future on the syndicated program bearing his name, Matthews said, "There’s one unlikely Democrat you might compare to Sarah Palin when it comes to being a natural: the generally incomparable Bill Clinton" (video follows with transcript and commentary):