Chris Matthews Calls Hillary Clinton ‘Dukakis in a Dress’

With the love-fest that is currently going on over Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois), it is certainly no surprise when a group of mainstream media members gets together to discuss Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings. Yet, it is quite odd to hear someone like Chris Matthews state that the current frontrunner for the 2008 Democrat presidential nomination – and a former first lady – is a female incarnation of one of the biggest left-wing failures in decades (video available here courtesy of our friend at Ms Underestimated). (Please also see update with a humorous photoshopped picture of the one to the right!)

To set this up, the panel in the first segment of Sunday’s “The Chris Matthews Show” was discussing presidential candidates. As they moved in Al Gore’s direction, Norah O’Donnell stated that Democrat party leaders are concerned about Hillary’s chances in the general election, and that a more senior and experienced candidate like Gore might be the ticket so to speak.

That precipitated this rather shocking exchange between O’Donnell and Matthews:

O’Donnell: And it’s not necessarily on the war. But they want, the Democrats are so sick of losing. They just want someone that can win a general election.

Matthews: Why do they think she won’t win a general?

O’Donnell: Because they believe that she is too polarizing a figure because of her past.

Matthews: Dukakis in a dress.

Amazing.

*****Update: NB member "jcrue" has supplied the following photoshopped picture to demonstrate Matthews' point. He blogs at DPGI v.2.