Clinton Confidant: MSNBC, Chris Matthews 'Shamelessly Biased'

May 9th, 2008 9:39 AM

Here's something you probably never thought in your wildest dreams you'd hear a Democrat say about MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews:

Do I think he is shamelessly biased and doesn’t care about being biased? Absolutely.

Be still my heart.

As I'm sure you're in as much disbelief as I, and must hear it from the horse's mouth so to speak, the following was reported by The Hill Monday, and somehow slipped underneath the radar until NB member Par for the Course made me aware of it moments ago (emphasis added):

[O]ne of [Hillary Clinton's] closest confidants, Lanny Davis, a former top adviser to her husband (and a regular contributor to The Hill’s Pundits Blog), is bashing and accusing MSNBC of abandoning promises to do something about bias.

Davis says he spoke with a “member of senior MSNBC management” who “told me personally that they were aware that they needed to do something to bring credibility back to MSNBC in terms of balance.”

The former Clinton adviser points to MSNBC hosts Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann as culprits. Though he says he personally likes the men, citing a 25-year-old friendship with Matthews, he thinks their shows are deplorably one-sided.

Davis says he takes no issue with Matthews and Olbermann being anti-Clinton. His problem, he says, is that they offer no counterpoint. [...]

Davis ran into Matthews at a reception; he says the host told him, “I’m going to be better.” But he isn’t sure he meant it. “Do I think he is shamelessly biased and doesn’t care about being biased? Absolutely. Even after he admits to wanting to be better, he doesn’t do better.”

Davis says the network has become totally biased, certainly against Clinton. “It has become a completely shameless, one-sided, personal attack-oriented evening network. The great news organization [helmed] by Brian Williams portrays itself as fair and balanced. … My gut is he [Brian Williams] has just washed his hands of it.” [...]

“No, I would not go on either Olbermann or Matthews ever,” Davis says, later clarifying that he’d need assurances of fairness for that to happen.

Hopefully, such sentiments will become more commonplace in the Democrat Party as folks really begin to understand just how terrible a job this network does.