Chris Matthews

The liberal media should have reported President Obama's Chicken Little sky-is-falling claims about the sequester, but "with clear skepticism" instead of mindlessly parroting them, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News's Sean Hannity on the March 7 edition of his eponymous program.  "They should have gone to the American people and in effect said, this man is lying," but instead, "they did the exact opposite. They waved the pom-poms for him," the Media Research Center (MRC) founder argued.

Even worse, Hannity added, after the sequester ended up being a nothing-burger, the media whined about it, wringing their hands that the public are not concerned. "Let's understand what they mean when they say it's sad.... they're sad that the America people aren't believing the media," Bozell argued, adding the the "big losers" in the whole sequester ordeal are the liberal media, because "people are seeing right through it." [watch the full "Media Mash" segment here]

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)

"We're all socialists from the day we're born. You know, you don't have to be poor or unemployed to be on Welfare. We're all at the trough. We're all Welfare queens."

So said TIME magazine executive editor Michael Duffy on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show Sunday (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews asked a question Sunday that should truly offend people on both sides of the aisle.

During the syndicated program bearing his name, Matthews asked his panel, "Has President Obama put himself at political risk if the big cuts do not wreak havoc?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

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):

Chris Matthews on Sunday actually joked about whether or not it was good that media mogul Rupert Murdoch is still going strong despite being in his 80s.

Not surprisingly, the panelists on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show also thought this was a hoot (video follows with transcript 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.

At what point will the public tire of liberal journalists lamenting that the Republican Party is overwhelmingly white and thrilled about it? They've been drawing that cartoon so long surely they'll eventually run out of ink. They love their 2012 narrative that every non-white group is rushing to Obama and the Left, and they want to keep it that way.

So what do you do when the GOP elects or nominates a black, or Hispanic (as they've done constantly)? You rip them personally, mercilessly. Ask Justice Thomas.

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.

It’s bad enough that Chris Matthews gets two hours a day on MSNBC to showcase his anti-conservative rants, but why does host David Gregory undermine any pretense that NBC News is not the same as MSNBC by bringing Matthews aboard Meet the Press? Worse, Gregory prompted Matthews to repeat his Hardball diatribe about how, in freshman Senator Ted Cruz, “I saw Joe McCarthy.”

Seconds later, Matthews charged the Congress has “really become an undemocratic system with the way that Boehner’s had to play this with his right wing.” That led Carly Fiorina, a fellow panelist, to snidely observe: “It’s all the Republicans’ fault in your view, clearly.” A delighted Matthews agreed: “It is. You nailed it.”

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." 

Once again, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews showed his over-eager liberal partisanship and Obama puffery following Marco Rubio’s response to the State of the Union on February 13.  Speaking on Tuesday night with the rest of the liberal MSNBC panel, Matthews slammed Rubio’s speech as “primitive” and “tinker toys.”

Following Rachel Maddow’s liberal critique of Senator Rubio’s speech, which she said was, “a claws out kind of aggressive speech”, Matthews offered no such restraints in slamming Rubio, snarking that Rubio’s speech was, “something you would hear on a high school debating team.”  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

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:

Early this morning, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he’d abdicate the papal throne at the end of the month, which is the first time a pontiff will have stepped down in seven centuries.  Such breaking news was bound to set off rampant media speculation about next month's meeting of the College of Cardinals --which will decide Benedict's successor -- and talk in the media about the outgoing bishop of Rome's legacy.

All that is well and good, but on MSNBC, it was the perfect excuse for the liberal network to feature liberal Catholics Chris Matthews and E.J. Dionne scolding the Church as out of touch with modernity on issues of sexuality and women as priests. And that was on top of laughingly treating the election of a new pope as though it were some presidential primary where candidates work feverishly to line up enough delegates to win nomination. Read the relevant transcript below the page break:

As NewsBusters reported, CBS News political director John Dickerson a few days before Barack Obama's second inaugural advised the President to destroy the Republican Party.

On the syndicated Chris Matthews Show Sunday, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius went in a completely different direction imploring Obama to "get out of the zero sum game Washington where to do something good on immigration reform he's got to destroy Marco Rubio" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In today's "Gag Me With A Spoon" segment, Time's Joe Klein on Sunday uttered some sychophantic words about the current White House resident that will send many Americans to their medicine chests for relief.

Appearing on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, Klein said with a huge smile on his face, "I think that the President really feels that the state of the union is stronger for several reasons. One is that he's been winning ever since the election" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As of 9:47 ET this morning, according to the Associated Press, this is where the manhunt for Christopher Dorner stands: "Police spent all night searching the snowy mountains of Southern California but were unable to find the former Los Angeles police officer accused of carrying out a killing spree because he felt he was unfairly fired from his job.

We don't have to search very far for bias in the wire service's coverage of Dorner's "manifesto" (full uncensored version is here), which he apparently sent to CNN's Anderson Cooper. AP's unbylined report carrying excerpts from it cite Dorner's comments on the following politicians: former President George H. W. Bush (i.e., Bush 41), Hillary Clinton, Colin Powell, Chris Christie. Notably absent is any mention of our current president. As seen after the jump, Dorner effusively praises President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle (paragraph breaks added by me; expletive cleaned up):

Nowadays, our nation's capital is in such ill-repute that if George Washington were around, he might sue to have his name taken off it. But never fear: restoring Washington's good name is just a few trillion dollars away!

So Chris Matthews assures us in an MSNBC "Lean Forward" promo that is currently airing.  After ticking off a number of big-government programs initated under past presidents, Matthews continues: "we got to get back to that, and then Washington will have a good name again." View the promo after the jump.

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):

An exasperated Chris Matthews on Sunday highlighted Governor Andrew Cuomo's plummeting poll numbers in the wake of New York's new gun control legislation. Singling out the National Rifle Association as the villain, he fretted "...Is anybody safe from the NRA?"

The host of the Chris Matthews Show lamented the inability of many states to pass gun control laws. Matthews told his guests that, initially, he thought "there's a few place in the country we are safe from the NRA, maybe California, maybe the Northeast." Citing a new poll showing Cuomo's polls have dropped 15 points, the journalist added, "I read the other day Cuomo's numbers have crumbled pretty much on that one issue in New York State." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

The media's gushing and fawning over Hillary Clinton running for president in 2016 knows no bounds.

On the syndicated Chris Matthews Show Sunday, Time magazine's Washington bureau chief Michael Duffy cooed over a Clinton-Biden "dream ticket" that could make Joe vice president for sixteen straight years (video follows with commentary):

Chris Matthews - apparently absent the thrill up his leg - asked a question on his syndicated program Sunday that will shock people on both sides of the aisle.

"Does the president want immigration reform or does he want more Hispanic votes?" (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):