Hardball

[UPDATED: See below.] Chris Matthews on Thursday took a break from comparing conservatives to Nazis and instead compared them to movie Nazis. The Hardball anchor opened the program by referencing the classic movie Casablanca. In this example, Barack Obama is the good guy and the Second Amendment supporters are the Nazis.

Matthews spewed, "You know that scene in Casablanca when the French police captain shoots the Nazi, Major Strasser, and Humphrey Bogart does the right thing by Ingrid Bergman, and the anti-Nazi hero Victor Laszlo says 'Welcome back to the fight, Rick'?" In case anyone was unclear on the comparison, the liberal journalist added, "Well, I felt that way today watching President Obama get back to the front in the historic battle for gun safety." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Chris Matthews’ week of hateful speech concluded on March 23 with the liberal MSNBC host going after Tea Party favorite Rep. Michele Bachmann. 

Speaking on Friday, Matthews disgustingly, albeit all too predictably asserted that Bachmann’s criticism of President Obama was motivated by racist beliefs.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

Chris Matthews’ liberal activism reached new heights on March 21 surrounding his push for greater gun control legislation.  Speaking during the opening segment for Hardball, Matthews provided his audience with email addresses and phone numbers to members of Congress, telling them that:

For all those who care about gun safety, let me repeat what I said last night, get a hold of your Senator and Member of Congress and say you want a real background check on people who buy guns.  [See video after jump.]

Two days after Chris Matthews and fellow MSNBCer Joy-Ann Reid suggested that participants at the annual CPAC supported segregation, the liberal host was back at it on March 20.  Matthews brought on two liberal guests to slam the Tea Party for its “racist” and “xenophobic” mentality.    

Speaking with his guests on Wednesday’s Hardball, Matthews asked:

Once again, MSNBC shows it has no sense of decency when it comes to its political contributors making extreme statements on its network.  The latest example comes from contributor Joy-Ann Reid, managing editor of TheGrio.com, who asserted that attendees of the annual CPAC conference sympathized with pro-segregationist comments made by one extreme individual attending the three-day conference. 

At issue is video that has emerged from a CPAC panel discussion called “Trump the Race Card” hosted by K. Carl Smith of Frederick Douglass Republicans.  After Smith commented that, “[Frederick] Douglass escaped from slavery. He writes a letter to his former slave master and says, I forgive you for all things you did for me,” an attendee of the panel named Scott Terry then interjected, “For giving him shelter and food?”  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

Chris Matthews on Monday offensively connected Senator Ted Cruz with the actions of disturbed conspiracy theorists who believe the Sandy Hook massacre was a government plot. Talking to Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy, the Hardball host lectured, "While the world has viewed last December's massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school as an unspeakable tragedy, some gun rights dead-enders have seen it more as an inconvenient truth."

Matthews began by asking Malloy, "What is it that springs it out of our country's culture that people won't even accept reality in fights like this?" Later in the segment, he played a clip of the "far-right" Cruz battling with Dianne Feinstein last week over gun rights. Matthews snarled, "Well, there you have it. This is the face of the new Republican right." What does the Republican senator from Texas have to do with "Sandy Hook Truthers?" Absolutely nothing. But Matthews wanted to smear Cruz with the association. Ironically, it was the cable anchor who, on February 14, mocked Cruz as the new "Joe McCarthy."

"No chance anyone’s looking for a nekkid picture of Mitch McConnell.”

As amazing as it might seem, such was actually said by MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Hardball Monday (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In case you missed it, the February jobs report on Friday contained some encouraging news. National Journal’s Michael Hirsh wrote that the BLS numbers gave President Obama “what he’s wanted for four years: an unemployment rate that’s below where he started as president, 7.7 percent.” But Hirsh was guarded in his optimism, also acknowledging that “things are not really as good as the numbers suggest, and they are all but certain to get worse.”

No such considerations entered into the mind of Chris Matthews Friday night when he wondered aloud on “Hardball” when Republicans were going finally make sure that Obama got “credit for this amazing economy that’s coming back.”

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Thursday worried that a future "right-wing" politician "like Dick Cheney" might one day use drone strikes against his political enemies. The Hardball host was discussing Senator Rand Paul's filibuster on Wednesday and the subject that prompted it: Whether the U.S. has the right to use drones on Americans in a non-war situation.

Matthews wondered if "there is a possibility somewhere out there on the edge that a tough-- not going to say he did it-- but somebody pretty far on the far right like Dick Cheney...will push this thing too far?" The host fumed, "Do you think it's possible that a Jane Fonda could be targeted even by the most right-wing American politician we can imagine?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

At the same time that rising Republican Senate stars Rand Paul and Ted Cruz were making history with a filibuster Chris Matthews, on Wednesday's Hardball, insisted Paul and Cruz must be heroes to hate groups.

During a segment on the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center's new study about an increase of anti-government hate groups, Matthews demanded which politicians they supported: "Who do they root for?! They don't root for Rand Paul? Pat Buchanan? I mean who? They must like this new guy Ted Cruz. They must love Ted Cruz, c'mon!" (video after the jump)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time high on Tuesday.

But you wouldn't know that if you watched MSNBC's Hardball where two guests actually made the case that this really isn't an all-time high due to inflation (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Within minutes of the death of death of repressive socialist Hugo Chavez on Tuesday, MSNBC featured ex-Washington Post managing editor Eugene Robinson to fawn over the "quick," "popular" leader. Though Robinson allowed that "freedom of speech suffered greatly" under Chavez, he praised, "He provided medical attention that the poor of Venezuela hadn't received before, and, and, frankly, it was the first time in many decades that a leader had paid that kind of attention to the poor majority in Venezuela." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

With a nostalgic grin on his face, Robinson told guest Hardball host Michael Smerconish about the time he met the "quick-witted" anti-American. "He came to the Washington Post and there were several of us waiting to greet him," the liberal journalist giddily recounted. Robinson continued, "I didn't know if he spoke English at the time, so I introduced myself to him in Spanish when he got to me in the line, and he shook my hand and looked up at me and kind of grinned and said, 'hello, my name is Hu.'"

In a closing commentary on Wednesday, Hardball's Chris Matthews ranted that  opposing gun control could lead to the assassination of a future American president or politician. Matthews fumed that he supports new restrictions because "the next mass shooter could well emerge out of this pack" of the "politically nutty."  

He lobbied, "Check the shooters of John F. Kennedy and Jerry Ford, who got shot at twice. Look at the men that shot Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and George Wallace. They all had political motives and they all had guns." In the very next sentence, Matthews sneered, "And if you're not against this movement, you're with it." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Chris Matthews featured her as a "Rising Star," someone who with more seasoning might someday entertain a presidential run.  But newly-elected Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane came across as more of a not-ready-for-prime-time-deer-in-the-headlights.

Appearing on today's Hardball, Kane came out with this mind-boggler: "I think the people of Pennsylvania would accept a limit on the amount of clips. You know, I believe and I think a lot of people feel the same way that you don't have a right to go into a classroom and take down a class of children in under a minute."  Really going out on a limb there, Rising Star! View the video after the jump.

You've surely heard by now that Michelle Obama presented the Academy Award for Best Picture last evening.

On Monday, MSNBC host Alex Wagner, appearing on Hardball, said, "Could Laura Bush have done it? No. If she'd appeared at the Oscars, I don't think she would have been greeted with the same amount of warmth" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

According to TV critic David Zurawik, MSNBC's hiring of ex-Obama officials David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs makes the so-callend news network almost "a bona fide organ of state propaganda."

Hours after this was published Monday, Hardball's Chris Matthews offered his services to Hillary Clinton - along with those of MSNBC contributors Howard Fineman and Joan Walsh - in order to get her elected president in 2016 (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

On Wednesday's Hardball, Chris Matthews, who previously ranted about too much "hate" in politics, sneeringly compared the House GOP to Hamas. Talking to Jonathan Allen of Politico, Matthews snarled at Barack Obama's congressional opponents: "Who is the President talking to? Is it just a clique of a bunch of right-wingers who don't want to talk to anybody? Are they Hamas?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

It was left to Allen, no conservative, to talk Matthews down: "They are not Hamas." It's clear that the cable anchor doesn't listen to himself when he talks. On January 21, he whined about too much partisanship and over-the-top language: "Why can't politics be a matter of belief and honest disagreement, not hatred?" If only the January 21 Matthews could ask the February 20 Matthews this.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews is starting to get completely unhinged.

On Tuesday's Hardball, he accused Republicans of using "Cold War CIA tactics to destabilize our own country" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Although every holiday may seem like Obama Day to Chris Matthews, the MSNBC host used the date often devoted to Lincoln and Washington as an excuse to wonder if the current President is headed to Mount Rushmore. On President's Day, Matthews thrilled, "Is Barack Obama going for it? Is he set on becoming one of the great presidents in history?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

The cable anchor, who famously declared that Obama caused a "thrill going up my leg," first declared, "I'm not talking about Mt. Rushmore but perhaps the level right below it." He later went back on this and fantasized about the President watching him: "If [Obama] were hearing us talking about him maybe mounting Mount Rushmore, getting up there with the great presidents...what would he be thinking? 'That's exactly what I'm doing?'"

It appears as though the wheels have fallen off the wagon at MSNBC.  On her February 18, 2013 show Now w/ Alex Wagner, host Wagner teased that her fellow MSNBCer Chris Matthews was a “national treasure.”

Apparently Ms. Wagner considers someone who compares the GOP to Nazi’s and calls Republicans racist on a daily basis a “national treasure.”  In honor of Wagner, we have compiled a short list of the best of Chris Matthews, to show just what makes him the national treasure that he is.

For daring to oppose Chuck Hagel's nomination to be Secretary of Defense, Chris Matthews on Thursday snarled that Ted Cruz is the new Joe McCarthy. Comparing the Republican senator from Texas to liberalism's highest villain, Matthews ranted, "You know, I don't often say it, and I rarely say it, but there was echoes of Joe McCarthy there. Really strong echoes." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

The Hardball anchor came to this conclusion after playing a clip of Cruz pointing out that the "government of Iran [is] formally and publicly praising" Hagel's nomination. Matthews's guest, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, unsurprisingly agreed: "It was absolutely McCarthy-like!" Matthews's claim that he "rarely" compares people to McCarthy is just wrong. He's done it a number of times. 

What world does Chris Matthews live in? The MSNBC anchor on Wednesday saw nothing liberal in Barack Obama's State of the Union. Talking to Chuck Todd, the Hardball anchor puzzled, "There's nothing lefty in here. What's the left-wing part? Objectively, was there a left wing piece to this speech last night? I mean, truly left? I didn't see it." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

This was the same speech in which Obama lobbied for gun control, higher taxes, increasing the minimum wage and left-wing immigration reform. According to Matthews, "these weren't Hail Mary passes." The anchor described this as "I mean, basically, he was moving the ball maybe one foot to the left of the midfield." 

Liberal host Chris Matthews on Tuesday anchored live coverage of a cop killer on the run, making bizarre and offensive comments about the situation. Talking to Los Angeles Times journalist Andrew Blankstein, Matthews agonized about being fair to Chris Dorner, the man who has allegedly murdered three people and wounded several others: "How do you write a story like this that's objective for the big metropolitan paper, the Los Angeles Times?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

He continued, "Are there people in your newsroom, editors who are saying, 'We have to be careful here. It's not simple. This man may have a complaint.'" He may have a complaint? Matthews did not allow Tea Partiers, who, it should be pointed out, haven't slaughtered people, the same considerations. No, the MSNBC host would foam about  racism and compare them to the Muslim Brotherhood.

It’s been four years since President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney left the White House, but MSNBC’s Chris Matthews can’t miss an opportunity to trash the former vice president every chance he has. After playing a recent soundbite of Matthews's favorite bete noir, Matthews asked Howard Fineman, the editorial director of the Huffington Post, “Where do you learn to be that evil?”

Speaking to his all-liberal panel, which included Joan Walsh of Salon.com, Matthews went on a bender against Cheney from everything from the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame -- he blamed the wrong person for it, by the way -- to the decision to go to war with Iraq.  Matthews began his spittle-laced rant:

I often wonder how MSNBC's Chris Matthews looks at himself in the mirror each morning when he shaves and brushes his teeth.

Seems impossible when he makes comments like he did on Tuesday's Hardball: "[The Republican Party] spent months in every state legislative capital trying to keep black people and poor people from voting, or young people" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

[UPDATED: Video added] MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Thursday assailed John McCain, slamming the "boiling hatred" aimed at Chuck Hagel, Barack Obama's Defense Secretary nominee. Matthews sneered, "Hatred, pure and simple, seeped from the mouths of John McCain and Lindsay Graham as they slashed away at war hero Hagel." (McCain is also a war hero. Graham is a veteran. Are those with military experience only allowed to speak out if they agree with Matthews?)

Most ridiculously, Matthews whined, "Why can't politics be a matter of belief and honest disagreement, not hatred?" This coming from the man who has, more than once, compared his opponents to Nazis? This from a man whose show airs on a network that compared Rick Santorum to Stalin? The cable anchor ranted, "Badgering the witness is too nice a description of what went on today. The hawks swirled like buzzards sweeping down, pecking and pulling at the skin of a former colleague." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

It was a metaphysical certitude that America's media were going to gush and fawn over Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's testimony before Congress Wednesday as they mercilessly attacked any Senator or Representative having the gall to ask her tough questions about what happend at our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last year.

Playing his part was MSNBC's Chris Matthews who on Hardball moments after the hearing ended said of Senator Ron Johnson's (R-Wisc.) exchange with Clinton, "That was kind of a pissant performance" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's been almost exactly four years since George W. Bush left the White House, yet liberal media members still can't resist taking a poke at him when the opportunity presents itself.

On Thursday's Hardball, MSNBC's Chris Matthews accused the former President of "speaking English as a second language" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Perhaps, it would be easier to ask Chris Matthews what isn't like being an old segregationist? Two weeks ago, the Hardball host compared anti-tax conservatives to "being the most segregationist guy in the south." On Thursday, Matthews suggested it was pro-Second Amendment conservatives who fit the description.

The cable anchor opened his show by blasting, "It used to be that the only way to get elected in the old Dixiecrat south was to be the farthest out there in backing segregation. Anyone who showed moderation was seen as soft." Making his comparison clear, Matthews sneered, "Well, to win in today's Republican Party, which began displacing the Dixiecrats a half century ago, you have to be the farthest out there backing guns." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, best known for constantly attacking the Republican Party and conservatives in general, made the laughable claim on Wednesday that he's a "really conservative guy." Scarborough appeared on Hardball to receive the adulation due any member of the GOP who attacks his own party. The comedy began when Matthews, who famously got a "thrill" up his leg from Barack Obama, mildly asserted, "I'm sort of somewhere over to the left."

After Matthews wondered where Scarborough was on the ideological spectrum, the Morning Joe anchor seriously asserted, "I'm a really conservative guy, especially fiscally." He then began attacking his own party, bemoaning "the extremism that has taken over my party on certain issues." Scarborough lectured, "I think I'm a very conservative guy, but I think my party has gone in a direction that's deeply disturbing to me on a lot of issues, especially [guns]."