Hardball

Former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu on Monday had a heated debate with MSNBC's Chris Matthews.

Toward the end of the incursion predictably about Paul Ryan's budget, Sununu accused the Hardball host of being "dumb enough" to think Ryan is "going to call the shots" in this matter instead of Mitt Romney who's "at the top of the ticket" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On a special Saturday edition of Hardball, MSNBC host Chris Matthews twice claimed that Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's budget "screws" needy people. During a segment with Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen, as he asked what it was like to work with Rep. Ryan as his colleague, the MSNBC host asserted that the plan "really screws the people who desperately need Medicare and programs like that."

Everyone knows that politics can be an ugly business, but MSNBC’s Chris Matthews sunk to a new long on his Hardball program Tuesday night.  Matthews’ outrage came from an ad put out by the Romney campaign suggesting that President Obama, "announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements," which, his administration most certainly did.

Since there's nothing factually assailable about the ad, Matthews decided that the best approach for criticizing the spot was claiming it was "Willie Horton stuff." Of course, the 1988 Willie Horton ad was also 100 percent factually unassailable, which is why that ad resonated against then-Gov. Michael Dukakis (D-Mass.).  The issue at hand isn’t the accuracy of the ad but rather Matthews' insistence that racism is at play.  [Video follows page break;  MP3 audio here.]

During the 1960 presidential campaign, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was attacked for his Catholic faith, then viewed by many as subversive and un-American. Anti-Mormon bigots are now targeting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for his Mormon beliefs, which are now viewed by many “progressives” as a “transparent and recent fraud.” But in those 50 years, the role of the media has changed significantly.

A June 2012 study performed by American National Election Studies (ANES) found that 43 percent of liberals would be “less likely” to vote for a Mormon candidate for religious reasons. An essential point, given how often news outlets highlight Romney’s religion.

Is there anything more disgusting than watching a grown, heterosexual, married man gush and fawn over another grown, heterosexual married man for political reasons on national television?

Unfortunately, this happens all too often for MSNBC's Chris Matthew who on Monday's Hardball was once again proudly displaying the thrill up his leg, this time for former President Bill Clinton (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews, who once giddily speculated that "at some point, somebody's going to jam a CO2 pellet" into Rush Limbaugh's head that will "explode," on Thursday called for civility in the political discourse. Speaking of the tragic shooting in Aurora, Colorado, Matthews lectured, "We need to remember that we don't despise each other, but we do despise, maybe, the arguments that are thrown up by the other side."

Matthews, who, on another occasion, called Limbaugh "evil," conceded, "I know that sounds odd coming from me." He added, "I freely admit that there are people who really get to me, but I also know that if I found them lying in a ditch somewhere, say after say a traffic accident, I'd do everything I could do care for them."

Former Newsweek editor Howard Fineman appeared on Monday's Hardball to smear the Republican Party as "xenophobic" and "nativist." Fineman lamented that Mitt Romney doesn't have the courage to take on the base, a group he mocked as being "afraid of the world."

Fineman is now the editorial director for the liberal Huffington Post, an outlet in sync with his own left-wing views. Matthews and the journalist discussed Huma Abedin, an aide to Hillary Clinton who Congresswoman Michele Bachmann connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. Asked why Romney won't take on people like Bachmann, Fineman assailed that the presumptive GOP nominee has "played to the kind of nativist base of the Tea Party. And by nativist, I mean people who are, in essence, afraid of the world." 

Quite the MSNBC two-fer tonight.  Wrapping up Hardball, Chris Matthews counseled President Obama to explain his accomplishments to the American people "as if he were talking to a two-year old."

Later, on Al Sharpton's MSNBC show, MSNBC contributor Richard Wolffe said he "might get into trouble" for saying that President George W. Bush has done a dignifed job of staying out of the limelight since leaving office.  Was Wolffe being facetious?  He seemed straight-faced. View the video after the jump.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews got another thrill up his leg for Barack Obama Tuesday.

Without any regard for how pathetic it's become for him to regularly gush and fawn over the current White House resident like a school girl around a rock star, the Hardball host said of his beloved, "He’s the perfect father, the perfect husband, the perfect American" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Former Newsweek editor Howard Fineman on Monday lashed out at Rush Limbaugh as a "nasty" "werewolf" who is making the national discourse extreme. Hardball anchor Chris Matthews played a clip of the conservative radio star asserting that Barack Obama "hates" America.

Fineman spewed, "So, if you have an establishment Republican [Mitt Romney] behaving like an attack dog, you're going to have the Rush Limbaughs of the world behaving like werewolves." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] According to Fineman, Romney "dragged the center of the gravity of the discussion over to the nasty realm which...brings what happens in talk radio and elsewhere in the conservative grassroots, legitimizes the nastiness that you're seeing there."

We media analysts see, hear, and read a lot of stupid comments from press members everyday.

For me, the howler of the week has to be MSNBC political analyst Ron Reagan Jr. saying about President Obama on Friday's Hardball, "The media is not giving him enough credit" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Time magazine editor Mark Halperin on Monday dropped any pretense of objectivity, openly shilling for ObamaCare. The Game Change co-author appeared on Hardball and lamented that opposing government-run health care is a political winner for Republicans: "...I think we shouldn't be the only industrialized democracy that doesn't have universal health care." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Halperin told guest host Michael Smerconish that, unfortunately, "it is not a politically dangerous" position for Senator Mitch McConnell to say, "...We should do things to make health- access to health care easier and more likely, but not guaranteed."        

According to liberal MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts being the fifth vote to strike down Obamacare would make him the "second Roger Taney," the Civil War-era high judge who delivered the majority opinion in the Dred Scott Case and upheld the Fugitive Slave Act.

Talking to columnist Ezra Klein, Matthews smeared, "...A friend of mine, who is a fellow Roman Catholic said, he doesn't want to be the second Roger Taney."  Matthews added, "Roger Taney, of course, was a Roman Catholic who upheld the Fugitive Slave Law back before the Civil War and was villainized throughout history because of that." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Remember all those demands for civility in politics after the tragic shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in January, 2011?

On Tuesday's Hardball, MSNBC's Chris Matthews said, "I’m with' [the Obama campaign] putting the knife in" Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for the supposed outsourcing that happened at companies Bain Capital invested in (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews on Tuesday smeared Pennsylvania Republicans as attempting to "kill off the older voters" by enacting a new voter ID law in the state. The liberal Hardball host offered this baseless charge during a discussion of the true motive behind such GOP legislation across the country.

Matthews referenced Pennsylvania Majority Leader Mike Turzai's gaffe that a voter ID law will help the party win the state in the fall. From that, Matthews spewed, "Let's get to this GOP leader in the Keystone state and other states, this plan to kill off the older voters and others who might be planning, how dare they, to vote for Obama." [MP3 audio here. See video below.]

Chris Matthews, clearly worried that the Supreme Court will overturn part or all of Obamacare, frothed about this "most conservative" court, Monday, insisting that the current right-leaning judges would have upheld "separate but equal" and struck down the 1964 Civil Right Act.

Matthews sneered, "I wonder whether this court would have backed desegregation in the Brown case? I doubt this pack of conservatives, which includes Chief Justice John Roberts, Sam Alito, and Anthony Kennedy, would have voted to knock down separate by equal back in the 1950s." The Hardball anchor foamed, "Would this court, voting as it does today, have upheld the 1964 Civil Rights bill?"

Steve Kornacki, who will debut as a new MSNBC host on Monday, appeared on Hardball, Thursday, to smear conservative opposition to Eric Holder and Barack Obama as racist. Asked why some on the right oppose the attorney general, Kornacki derided the "caricature of Obama" as a "secret black radical" who is trying to "take away rights or...money from, you know, from white people."

Kornacki saw an "aspect of race and culture" to the conservative disdain. In a discussion of the Fast and Furious scandal, Kornacki simplified, "...You take, you know, prominent, you know, black lawyer and you put him in charge of the Obama Justice Department and I think that's, to you know, to people who sort of traffic in that sort of thing, you know, it really is kind of a lightening rod." [UPDATED with video below. MP3 audio here.]

Liberal MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews on Tuesday slimed the House GOP investigating Attorney General Eric Holder as racist, insisting that the possible contempt charges over Fast and Furious had an "ethnic" feel. Using charged, racial imagery, Matthews demonized, "Is this sort of stop-and-frisk at the highest level? Go after the attorney general, get him to empty his pockets, stand in the spotlight."

The Hardball host, who had previously been ignoring the Fast and Furious scandal, changed course and portrayed the whole thing as a bigoted witch hunt. Talking to former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Matthews speculated: "I don't want to start too much forest fire here, but it is my instinct: Is this ethnic, Mr. Mayor?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

MSNBC's Chris Matthews is clearly scared to death Barack Obama won't be reelected in November.

On Monday's Hardball, the host upped the attacks on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney ending his program with a hate-filled monologue about how the former governor of Massachusetts is a "dangerous," unthinking puppet controlled by neo-cons, the religious right, and Grover Norquist (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews on Monday smeared supporters of enforcing America's immigration laws, linking them to the post-Civil War "back to Africa" movement for African Americans. After liberal columnist David Corn insisted that Mitt Romney had boxed himself in, politically, on the issue, Matthews snarled, "How is this any different than the big boat argument of people when it comes to African Americans after the Civil War?"

Matthews continued, "This idea of 'put them on a boat and send them back where they came from.'" Finding the worst motives in his political opponents, Matthews insisted, "You know, he says that in polite language, but that's what Romney's been saying. 'Get home where you came from.'" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

With a program entitled Hardball, MSNBC audiences should expect, well, "hardball" questions of politicians no matter what their ideological leanings, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on the June 14 edition of Fox News Channel's Hannity. Instead, host Chris Matthews recently and quite openly confessed his eagerness to aid Democrat Elizabeth Warren's campaign to defeat Sen. Scott Walker (R-Mass.) this November.

"Let me help you on this, to the extent I, as a journalist, can help you," Matthews offered Warren on his June 13 program. [see the full video below the page break]

We at NewsBusters have been calling MSNBC's Chris Matthews a sycophant for Barack Obama since at least February 2008 when the so-called journalist bragged on the air about getting a thrill up his leg at the sound of the former junior senator from Illinois' voice.

It was therefore quite pleasing to hear former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele tell the Hardball host that to his face Thursday during a contentious exchange about the current White House resident's economics policies and who should be blamed for their failure (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews isn't even trying anymore. The liberal anchor on Wednesday went into full Democratic adviser mode. Talking to Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, he turned an interview into a strategy session, saying of the campaign against Republican Scott Brown: "Let me help you on this, to the extent that I, as a journalist, can help you."

Providing an additional contribution, Matthews somehow managed to skip the controversy that's been plaguing Warren's campaign for a month and a half: The fact that she has repeatedly tried to pass herself off as a Native American. (At one point, the Democrat claimed she was 1/32 Cherokee.) While avoiding this embarrassing subject, Matthews incredulously wondered, "Why are the polls so close?...You should be miles ahead of [Brown]." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Wednesday mocked Ann Romney for having a horse that might be heading to London to represent America in the Olympics.

I guess aside from his obvious lack of national pride, the Hardball host didn't know that the wife of the Republican presidential candidate credits horseback riding with helping to reduce her multiple sclerosis symptoms (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Wednesday outrageously compared Dorothy Sandusky standing by her alleged child rapist husband, Jerry, to Pat Nixon supporting Richard Nixon. The liberal cable anchor was discussing the molestation case and shockingly inserted a political comparison.

After legal guest Kendall Coffey tried to explain how Mrs. Sandusky could be a helpful witness to her disgraced husband, Matthews linked the 52 counts of sexual abuse to America's 37th president: "This is the new story of our life: The wife who stands by their man, as if they were Pat Nixon standing up there putting up with the ignominy that their husband's 100 percent responsible for and yet being loyal." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Of course you probably won't hear an apology or retraction on the network's programming, but PolitiFact.com has determined that MSNBC's Chris Matthews was in error when the Hardball host claimed on his June 4 program that a new Florida law -- which has been on hold by a federal judge -- made it utterly impossible for voter registration drives to sign up new voters over weekends. The law requires voter registration drive volunteers to turn in new voter registration forms within 48 hours after having collected them. "You don’t have to be a lawyer to own a calendar or know what a weekend is. A weekend is 48 hours," Matthews sneered at Florida GOP chairman Lenny Curry, insisting that its impossible to register new voters over a weekend without running afoul of the law

But the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald-run PolitiFact site did what Hardball producers should have done before Chris took to the air, actually look up and read the text of the legislation. In doing so, PolitiFact found that there's an exception in the law that takes weekends into account:

Chris Matthews on Tuesday's Hardball gave viewers a preview of what's going to happen on MSNBC the next five months any time a poll comes in showing Mitt Romney leading President Obama.

"In North Carolina a new PPP poll has Romney up by two - that’s not good" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Chris Matthews is clearly worried the President that once gave him a thrill up his leg is not going to get reelected.

Appearing on Jansing and Company moments before Barack Obama's press conference Friday, the Hardball host said the President has "got to be aggressive. He’s got to be big time. Stop this nickel and dime, a couple of bucks for the teachers, a couple of bucks for the firefighters. 'I'm going to reduce the payroll tax.' This is pissant" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Considering how you're on the payroll and all ...

MSNBC's Chris Matthews made an observation to colleague Ed Schultz last night that was presumably intended as a compliment but could easily be seen as passive aggressive (video after page break) --

As NewsBusters previously reported, MSNBC's Chris Matthews bombed on the game show Jeopardy! three weeks ago missing questions many fifth graders would have had no problem with.

Clearly forgetting his shameful performance, the Hardball host on Monday mocked Miss USA Pageant contestants for not knowing the name of the current Vice President (video follows with transcript and commentary):