Hardball

Chris Matthews played the race card on Mitt Romney, Thursday, angrily insisting that the Republican presidential candidate bringing up Jeremiah Wright is the equivalent of  mocking Black History Month. After guest Major Garrett suggested that Romney's attack on Wright indicated, simply, that the Republican was running a primary race, Matthews erupted.

The Hardball anchor snarled, "That was his tribute to Black History Month? Whacking at the guy for his minister. Whacking at him for his philosophy and his religion?" Unloading on Garrett, Matthews continued, "What, he was allowed to do it in February?...Why do you so loosely let him skip away from the standard he set?" [MP3 audio here.]

It's becoming obvious the Obama-loving media are in a full-scale panic over recent polling data showing the President trailing Republican contender Mitt Romney.

On MSNBC's Hardball Wednesday, host Chris Matthews actually compared Romney to the low budget restaurant chain Denny's (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Diversity of thought on MSNBC: Liberal Chris Matthews on Wednesday talked to liberal journalist David Corn and liberal Congressman Steve Israel about the "Tea Party crackpots" and whether the GOP is trying to "sabotage" the economy in order to defeat Barack Obama.

With no conservative or Republican in the Hardball segment, Matthews seriously wondered to David Corn: "I know you are an advocate but you're also an journalist. Why do Tea Party crackpots keep winning elections out in the country?" Not shockingly, the Nation journalist cited the Tea Party's ability to "exploit" anger. Matthews summarized, "...[Democrats] believe in government."

As NewsBusters reported, MSNBC's Chris Matthews totally struck out on Jeopardy! Monday night after repeatedly mocking former Alaska governor Sarah Palin for how she would do if she ever went on the show.

For your entertainment pleasure, the following is a video of conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck and his sidekicks excoriating the Hardball host for his delicious bout with instant karma:

Fresh off his humiliating defeat on Jeopardy! Monday night, MSNBC's Chris Matthews actually introduced a pair of guests Tuesday as "two of the most smartest people."

Almost as funny, "two of the most smartest people" in the Hardball host's opinion are Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On at least four occasions, MSNBC's Chris Matthews mocked Sarah Palin for how he felt she'd do if she were ever on the hit television game show Jeopardy!.

In a delicious example of instant karma, the self-proclaimed brainiac got his chance to show America how smart he was in a special "Power Players" version of the show Monday, but came up quite short finishing dead last with the paltry sum of only $2,300 (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Hardball anchor Chris Matthews, who routinely smears his political opponents as racist, on Monday lectured an African American minister who opposes gay marriage, "I hope you evolve." The host patronizingly added, "I'm just teasing." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] How would he (or MSNBC for that matter) react if a conservative said such a thing to a black leader?

Matthews interviewed Bishop Harry Jackson, who has spoken out against Barack Obama's endorsement of gay marriage. Speaking of Jesus Christ, Matthews ridiculously linked accusations that Mitt Romney once bullied a teen, nearly 50 years ago: "Do you think [Christ] would have been chasing after the kid with long hair and cutting his hair or he would have been the one protecting the kid with long hair in high school?"

MSNBC's Chris Matthews is featured in a new "Lean Forward" promo spot [embedded below page break; MP3 audio here] quoting his "hero" Winston Churchill as having asked "Then what are we fighting for?" when his finance minister suggested that the government's budget for the arts would have to cut to aid Britain's war effort.  Matthews used that story as a warning to conservatives that the nation's dire financial straits are no excuse for cutting federal spending on the arts.

But alas, it seems the story is poppycock, as Churchill historian Richard Langworth noted in a March 2009 blog post.

On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, American Conservative Union president Al Cardenas squared off against a group of left-wing pundits on the subject of President Obama announcing his support for gay marriage. The liberal bloc of guests included MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, and Washington Post columnists Jonathan Capehart and Kathleen Parker. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Parker cheered Obama's use of the word "evolving" to describe his flip-flop on gay marriage: "I think that's the perfect word to describe this conversation because the American people are evolving on this issue. And increasingly they're coming on the side of same-sex marriage being the right side of history..."

President Obama once again flipflopped on his position regarding same-sex marriage Wednesday, and his adoring media couldn't be more pleased.

On MSNBC, Hardball's Chris Matthews actually called for "gay men and women who now work for the election of Republican members of Congress, Senators, and [Mitt] Romney himself...to stand up, walk in the direction of their bosses and candidates, and ask them to join the president on this" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Minutes after Barack Obama came out for gay marriage, Wednesday, Chris Matthews appeared on MSNBC to compare opponents of such unions to "wolves" and to link them to supporters of slavery. Warning of political danger to the President, Matthews spewed, "The dens are opening. The gates are opening of wolves coming out for this, the Karl Roves."

After describing liberalism as the force that brought all social change to America, the Hardball anchor warned about the armies that feed off "resentment." Matthews lectured, "That army has been out there during Jim Crow. It was out there during abolition, during suffrage. There's always an army that feeds on change and feeds against it." [See video below. See MP3 audio here.]

It's becoming clearer and clearer that the time has come for MSNBC's Chris Matthews to retire.

On Tuesday's Hardball, despite virtually every intelligent person in this country knowing that Ford was the lone American car company to not accept a bailout in 2009, Matthews actually claimed President Obama "bet on" the auto giant (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Last August, Politico revealed that the Obama campaign intended to make Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney "a sort of political Gordon Gekko" if he won the nomination.

Right out of that playbook, MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Monday compared Romney to the financial villain of the '80s movie classic "Wall Street" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Is MSNBC's Chris Matthews stupid, dishonest, or both?

On Friday's Hardball, the host actually said of today's report from the Department of Labor, "The unemployment rate did drop to 8.1 percent, the lowest rate since President Obama took office" (video follows with transcribe highlights and commentary):

MSNBC on Thursday again featured Ron Reagan to trade on the legacy of his father, trashing  the Republican Party as a "haven for bigots." The liberal son of the former president appeared on Hardball to slime the GOP and Mitt Romney for discriminating against gays.

Matthews tossed Reagan a softball, complimenting his "Republican family" for not discriminating against gays. The son of a Republican president slimed, "Since the civil rights era, the Republican Party has been a haven for bigots." He added that not "all" GOP members are bigots, but the party "has provided a refuge for bigots and it has exploited their fear and anger." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother.

I have to wonder how the St. Crispin's Day speech by Henry V as written by William Shakespeare would sound if read from a teleprompter. The reason for this strange speculation is that Chris Matthews yesterday on Hardball compared President Obama's speech to the troops in Afghanistan to Henry V as you can see on this video and below the fold.

NBC's Chuck Todd on Tuesday, moments before President Obama addressed the nation from Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, compared the assassination of Osama bin Laden one year ago to VE and VJ Days marking the end of World War II.

The following was actually said by NBC's Chief White House correspondent on MSNBC's Hardball (video follows with transcript and commentary):

"There is no slur against conservatives that's off the table" for the so-called journalists at MSNBC, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Sean Hannity last night. The Media Research Center president made that remark after viewing a clip of Hardball host Chris Matthews calling the GOP the "Grand Wizard crowd," a not-so-thinly veiled suggestion that conservatives are violent racists.

What's more, "Chris Matthews is lying," Bozell argued, pointing back to a January 13 quote about Romney wherein Matthews called Romney a "moderate." "Even Chris Matthews doesn't believe that lie that he told." Also addressed on the April 26 "Media Mash" segment was how Matthews's colleague Martin Bashir callously suggested that Mitt Romney was "intentionally using" his multiple sclerosis-suffering wife to close a "gender gap." [watch the full Media Mash segment video below page break]

NewsBusters reported Monday that MSNBC's Chris Matthews got into a heated exchange with former Republican Party chairman Michael Steele when he called the GOP the "Grand Wizard crowd" and Mitt Romney a "flat-earther."

Fox News's Bill O'Reilly started his program Tuesday by saying the Hardball host's comments were "simply madness" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Washington Post political writer Chris Cillizza definitively declared on Tuesday's Hardball that for the 2012 race, Barack Obama is "cool" and Mitt Romney is "not cool." Host Chris Matthews, trying to prove his hipness, wondered aloud, "Can you dig it?"

Fellow Post writer Nia-Malika Henderson then attempted to explain what the "kids" these days are saying. After a clip of Obama on the Jimmy Fallon show, Cillizza proclaimed, "The one thing that I would point out that I think is fascinating about this race...[Obama] is cool. Mitt Romney is not cool."

An unhinged Chris Matthews on Monday excoriated Republican primary voters as racist, deriding them as the "Grand Wizard crowd." Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele fought back,  slamming "this Grand Wizard nonsense." "Don't go there with me," he warned. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

After Steele informed the Hardball anchor that subjects such as climate change weren't big issues in the GOP primary, Matthews slimed, "It certainly was in the Grand Wizard crowd over there." The liberal host tried to move on, but his guest stopped the conversation dead: "Wait, I resent that! No. Come on. What is this Grand Wizard nonsense? Are you saying that we're Ku Klux Klan?" "Give me a break," the former RNC chair dismissed.

Geraldo Rivera on Friday accused MSNBC anchors of not caring at all about the evidence concerning the shooting of Trayvon Martin and instead "cheerleading for the conviction of George Zimmerman."

Appearing on Fox New's The O'Reilly Factor, Rivera specifically pointed his finger at Martin Bashir, Chris Matthews, Lawrence O'Donnell, Al Sharpton, and Ed Schultz (video follows with transcript and commentary:

Maybe it's time for MSNBC's Chris Matthews to retire.

On Friday's Hardball, the 66-year-old host actually said that people's view of the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case is impacted by "so much history ever since the first slave arrived in the United States" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

It seems a metaphysical certitude a meaningful percentage of Americans in 2008 supported Barack Obama out of an historical sense to have elected the nation's first black president.

On MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews made a somewhat similar case for this upcoming election asking guests Chuck Todd of NBC News and Howard Fineman of the Huffington Post, "Is there going to be a reluctance on the part of the voters and the political community that talks politics as we get into November about dumping the first African-American president?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Apparently, Hardball anchor Chris Matthews doesn't watch his own network. On Wednesday, the liberal cable host piously proclaimed that liberals would never compare a conservative to a dictator such as Joseph Stalin: "...People don't do that," he sputtered. However, on February 14, 2012, MSNBC host Martin Bashir outrageously linked Rick Santorum to genocidal murderer Joseph Stalin. [See video of both clips below. MP3 audio here.]

After highlighting a critic who insisted the Republican was straight out of the 13th century, Bashir smeared, "If you listen carefully to Rick Santorum, he sounds more like Stalin than Pope Innocent III." Yet, according to Matthews on April 18th, "But if you were to say that to a conservative...you're really on a slippery slope to extreme rightism...you're basically over there with Mussolini and Hitler- But people don't do that." Maybe just MSNBC hosts do such things?

In the wake of the Ann Romney-Hilary Rosen stay-at-home mom dustup, Salon's Joan Walsh on Thursday predictably made the totally false claim "being able to stay home with your children [is] a choice for the wealthy only."

Fortunately, former RNC chairman Michael Steele was also on MSNBC's Hardball to set the record straight saying, "This isn’t about just rich women. There are a lot of middle class women out there who stay at home with their kids too" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

How detached is Chris Matthews from the rest of the country? The Hardball host on Thursday appeared bewildered as he conceded to being "totally unprepared" for the prospect that Obamacare might be "ripped off the books." Talking to Chuck Todd, Matthews asked his fellow MSNBC colleague if he would be "surprised" to see the Supreme Court strike down the health care law.

Matthews then confessed, "I was totally unprepared because of the way people talked." The anchor insisted that "intellectually," he knew it could be a problem, but "I never heard it discussed politically as a prospect, that they actually might get his major achievement just ripped off the books." He never heard it discussed? [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Here's a joke for you this Tuesday morning. Did you know that hyperpartisan Democrat Chris Matthews sees himself as a "centrist?" In an aside during a conversation with MSNBC contributor Joan Walsh, the leg-thrilling pundit emphatically claimed the moderate label for himself, stating that he could understand President Obama being criticized by both liberals and conservatives on the Keystone Pipeline.

"Take it from a centrist. I know what it's like," Matthews proclaimed. Video, transcript and commentary below the break.

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, but if the media were the judges, the Court would rule 9-0 in favor of it. During its coverage of the health care debate, the liberal press never permitted questions about ObamaCare’s legality to interfere with their dream of a government takeover of the health care sector.

Starting even before Barack Obama became President, the press has been campaigning hard for passage of the most liberal version of health care reform as a cure-all elixir to all of America’s health problems. First, they pitched the public on the desperate need to, as ABC’s Dr. Tim Johnson demanded, fix America’s “national shame” of no universal coverage. (Worst of the Worst quote compiliation with videos after the jump)

A seemingly befuddled Chris Matthews on Tuesday interviewed former Senator Arlen Specter, gleefully (and incorrectly) referring to the Democrat as a Republican. Downplaying the fact that Specter switched parties, Matthews bellowed, "Your party has become a right-wing party."

After mentioning the plight of Charlie Crist, who was defeated by Marco Rubio in a Republican senatorial primary, Matthews shrieked, "He lost the Senate race because he contacted [hugged] the President physically once. This is what is going on in your party." Again, the Republican Party is not Specter's party. Just getting warmed up, Matthews complained, "And so the party of Lincoln has became the party of Strom Thurmond, hasn't it?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]