Chris Matthews

As the media push Republicans to raise taxes, anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist has been taking a pounding.

This may have reached a high point Tuesday when MSNBC's Chris Matthews and former Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY.) actually joked about Norquist drowning (video follows with transcript and commentary):

[UPDATE: See bottom of post] Chris Matthews on Monday disgustingly connected conservatives unhappy with the 2012 election to Hitler and the 1936 Olympics. After Huffington Post journalist Howard Fineman mocked the GOP for supposedly considering the African American and Hispanic vote to be "extraterrestrial," Matthews spewed, "The last guy to refer to the black auxiliary was Hitler." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Matthews, known for his verbal gaffes, prefaced the Nazi comparison by rambling, "...And these references are always dangerous, but I'll take it anyway." Trying to explain his smear, the Hardball anchor expanded, "During the '36 Olympics, we had Jesse Owens and a couple other guys winning the Olympics and they [the Nazis] were saying, "Well, they had their auxiliary out there." As if this made his comments all go away, Matthews added that his comments have "no bearing on the Republican Party."

Former top Newsweek journalist and current MSNBC.com editor Richard Wolffe on Monday smeared Senator John McCain as a racist. According to Wolffe, there's no legitimate reason for the Republican to oppose Susan Rice's confirmation for Secretary of State. Appearing on Hardball, the journalist sneered that it was "outrageous" the way McCain was acting, raging against "this witch hunt going on the right about these people of color, let's face it, around this president. Eric Holder, Valerie Jarrett, now Susan Rice." [See video below.]

Such a charge seemed to shock even Chris Matthews. He sputtered, "McCain, who had his own daughter attacked, was accused of having an illegitimate child when, in fact, he adopted a young girl from South Asia. You're saying that McCain's being driven by racial prejudice here?" Wolffe confirmed, "There is no other way to look at this..." Of course, McCain opposes Rice's nomination because of her dissembling on the issue of the terrorist attack in Libya.

Jay Leno took a humorous swipe at MSNBC's Chris Matthews Friday.

After introducing the Hardball host to NBC's Tonight Show, Leno said to his guest, “Well, Obama was re-elected. You must be orgasmic" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Chicago Tribune reporter Christi Parson's fawning fan girl act at Wednesday's press conference was bad enough, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Sean Hannity on the November 15 edition of Hannity, but even worse was the reaction of the rest of the press corps in the room.

"This is the blue chip ensemble of journalists in America," the Media Research Center founder noted, and yet, "no one, but nobody seemed the least bit perturbed that she and [President Obama] are playing kissy-face in a press conference. Nobody was at all surprised by that. What does that tell you about our press corps?" Bozell asked. [watch the full "Media Mash" segment below the page break]

The list of words MSNBC's Chris Matthews believes are racist if uttered by a conservative got longer on Wednesday.

You can now add "urban" which offended Matthews when Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said it during an interview Monday, but didn't bother the Hardball host in the slightest when Salon's Joan Walsh said it on his own program two days later (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Note to Chris Matthews: when seeking to slam Republicans for their supposed ignorance of science, try not to expose your own.   On Tuesday's Hardball, Matthews—mocking the Republican congressmen vying for the chairmanship of the House Science Committee— committed this whopper: "As we all learned in grammar school—young people watching—trees absorb carbon monoxide."

As even an MSNBC host might know, carbon monoxide is a toxic gas produced when there is insufficient oxygen to permit complete oxidation. Think running car in closed garage. The greenhouse gas to which Matthews was presumably referring—and which trees are famous for absorbing—is carbon dioxide.  Perhaps it was just a slip of the overworked Matthews' tongue, but when it comes to a guy who likes to jump down any available Republican throat, turnabout is fair play. View the video after the jump.

Stop the presses! Stop the presses!

The Washington Post's Bob Woodward on The Chris Matthews Show Sunday not only called Democrat visions of balancing the budget by raising taxes on the rich a "fantasy," but he also said "there is a way to...raise more revenue and perhaps lower the rates" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, in response to Barack Obama's re-election victory, said Tuesday, "I'm so glad we had that storm last week."

Fox News's Bret Baier covered Matthews' pathetic comment on Special Report Wednesday while quoting NewsBusters associate editor Noel Sheppard (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On the same night he apologized for making a horribly inappropriate comment about Hurricane Sandy, Chris Matthews on Wednesday had Bill Maher on Hardball to compare Karl Rove and Republicans to Nazis. After Matthews wondered about Rove's erroneous predictions, the liberal comic mocked, "It was a little Hitler's bunker, wasn't it? I wanted to rush in with a cyanide capsule there. I thought he was going to say, 'I don't want to live in a world without national socialism.'" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Matthews himself got into the act, comparing Rove to Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, a former propaganda henchman for Saddam Hussein: "Is [Rove] the Baghdad Bob of the 2012 election, the last guy to admit something's new and something bad is happening?" Again, this is the same program in which the MSNBC anchor apologized for his "terrible"  election night comment: "I'm so glad we had that storm last week."

As NewsBusters previously reported, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, in response to Barack Obama's re-election victory, said Tuesday, "I'm so glad we had that storm last week."

On Wednesday, the Hardball host led off his program with a heartfelt apology (video follows with transcript and commentary):

At about 1:26 a.m. during MSNBC's live coverage of election night, co-anchor Chris Matthews obsessed over critics of President Obama who "practically frisked" President Obama and told him, "get out of your car, show me your birth certificate, who are you?"

Even as he rejoiced that racism had not cost Obama reelection, Matthews made his comments on the subject after co-host Rachel Maddow noted polls showing Obama had received a lower percentage of white voters than four years ago. Matthews:

"I'm so glad we had that storm last week."

So amazingly said MSNBC's Chris Matthews about Hurricane Sandy Tuesday night following the announcement that Barack Obama had won re-election (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Throughout the very long presidential election cycle, two trends remained consistent. The media lauded Obama no matter how horrendous his record, and they savaged Obama’s Republican contenders as ridiculous pretenders.

From the start of the Republican race in 2011, every candidate who took the lead then took an unfair beating.  They even slimed Sarah Palin in case she decided to run. Martin Bashir announced she was “vacuous, crass, and according to almost every biographer, vindictive too.” Newsweek mocked Michele Bachmann on its cover, making her look pale, confused and nutty, with the headline “The Queen of Rage.” Politico and other media outlets tried to pin sexual harassment claims on Herman Cain without naming, or even knowing the accusers.

Chris Matthews in a special Sunday night Hardball slammed the south as racist and insisted that quoting Barack Obama is bigoted. An incredulous Matthews explained, "And topping it off, we heard Romney himself out here in Ohio today tying all this trash talk together, the President is bent on, get this, revenge." Of course, while talking to voters last week, the President actually said, "Voting is the best revenge."

In another appearance, on Sunday's Last Word, Matthews appeared totally unaware of the context "Well, where did this revenge come from? Where did that line come from?" [See video below.] On Hardball, Matthews insisted to Howard Fineman that most of the country would vote for Obama: "Well, what do you make of the geography, Howard?...The fact that the north, the west, the Midwest will all support Obama, but the south intensely dislikes him?"

The Huffington Post's Howard Fineman said Sunday that Democrats in Kentucky are hoping actress Ashley Judd will run against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2014.

This happened on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

CBS Late Show host David Letterman took a humorous swipe at MSNBC's Chris Matthews Friday.

In a recurring segment riffing on Zogby polls, Letterman said that 51 percent of people supporting Mitt Romney are doing so because they "Want to see Chris Matthews cry like a baby" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Phil Griffin, the President of MSNBC, apologized Thursday for Chris Matthews calling the Koch brothers “pigs,” but Matthews has refused and MSNBC won’t require him to do so.

As NewsBusters reported, this disgusting incident took place on Tuesday’s Hardball as Matthews talked to Congressman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) about Hurricane Sandy’s connection to global warming.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Tuesday called the Koch brothers "pigs."

In a Hardball segment about the connection between global warming and Hurricane Sandy, Congressman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) for some reason took the conversation in a decidely disgusting direction (video follows with transcript and commentary):

President Obama on Tuesday twice used MSNBC’s slogan “lean forward” while addressing Red Cross headquarters in Washington, D.C., about relief for Sandy victims.

First he said this (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Like ambulance-chasing lawyers, the heavy-handed liberal activists who populate much of the media raced to exploit Hurricane Sandy even as the storm was lashing the East Coast last night, citing it as proof of “climate change” and a reason to oppose Mitt Romney.

Yesterday afternoon, MSNBC’s Martin Bashir started a panel discussion by claiming that “people are wondering today if the current hurricane has anything to do with global change, climate change, global warming,” and then mentioned the “right-wing nut jobs” supporting Romney.

For at least 24 hours, the mainstream media have been trying to figure out a way to make Hurricane Sandy an aid to Barack Obama's re-election.

On Monday, MSNBC's Chris Matthews had a related concern asking guest John Nichols of the Nation magazine, "How long do you think it’ll take for Donald Trump to take a crack at the President for engineering this?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Media Research Center is out with the latest edition of our Notable Quotables newsletter, a compilation of the most outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes from the liberal meda. This week's lowlights: Liberal pundits insist that the unfolding details of Obama's incompetent handling of the September 11 attack in Benghazi is an "utterly contrived" story, an "October Mirage."

The ever-wacky Chris Matthews is even sticking with Team Obama's now discredited first response: "Everybody knows it's about the video. It's all about the video."

This week's best quotes are after the jump; you can read the entire issue at www.MRC.org:

At this point in the campaign, most liberal journalists are panicked, but MSNBC's Chris Matthews, well, he's just "delusional," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on the Thursday edition of Fox News Channel's Hannity. The Media Research Center founder was reacting to a montage that a) showed the Hardball host bullying a college student, insisting that the "Innocence of the Muslims" video was the real spark of the deadly Benghazi attack and b) showed Matthews complaining that conservatives are more interested in turning Obama out of office than destroying al Qaeda, and that that was out of racial animus.

Matthews was being "clearly, clearly dishonest" since he most certainly "knows [the Benghazi attack was] not about a video." As to Matthews's charge about conservatives hating Obama more than al Qaeda [MP3 audio here]:

A shrieking Chris Matthews on Thursday smeared the Republican Party, comparing the abortion stances of candidates such as Paul Ryan and Richard Mourdock to those found under Sharia law. The hyperbolic Hardball anchor snarled, "I don't like to comparing anything to Sharia, but there's something about this theocratic notion that we're going to apply all our philosophical beliefs, our metaphysics, our religious training and turn it into law and turn it into criminalization."  [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Matthews continued, "And it's not quite like stoning, but it has that same sort of impulse which is we're going to punish women." Terry O'Neil, the president of the National Organization for Women appeared on the show and screeched, "I think that it's kind of the creeping Talibanization of American policy." Speaking of Mitt Romney, she insisted that the Republican is in the "thick of this very fringe but very dangerous line of thought."

Liberal cable anchor Chris Matthews, who in 2010 used the phrase "shuck and jive," on Wednesday assailed Sarah Palin as racist for using the phrase "shuck and jive." Referring to a Facebook post the former Alaska governor wrote about Obama and Libya, Matthews ranted, "You know, a dog whistle is a dog whistle...A trumpet call is another."

The MSNBC host insisted that "shuck and jive" has "a particular ethnic connection" and "to throw it at the president as an ethnic shot is pretty blatant." On July 7, 2010, Matthews, while talking to Rachel Maddow about her visit to Afghanistan, wondered, "What has it been like, as you shuck and jive, hang out with the men over there, the women over there, in uniform risking their lives every day?" The late Tim Russert also used the term on July 18, 2003.

In an article for the November Philadelphia Style magazine, a cocky Chris Matthews wistfully recounted a considered 2010 run for Senate, bragging at how incredible he would have been: "I'm not dreaming here. I would be one of the stars of the Democratic Party—there aren’t that many."

The liberal MSNBC anchor flirted with, but ultimately decided against, running in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Perhaps wondering what might have been, he lamented, "I know this: If I had run and won and beaten [Senator Pat] Toomey, I would be one of the Democrats people talk about today." The Hardball host also took some disgruntled shots at Barack Obama.

During his special post-debate Hardball,  Chris Matthews's panelists -- with the exception of Republican Michael Steele -- praised moderator Bob Schieffer’s ability to get Romney “to be quiet.”  Apparently it’s the job of the moderator to keep the Republican docile during debates in the minds of liberals. 

Matthews also liked the format of Monday's debate because it denied Romney from being exhibiting "flagrant disrespect" towards President Obama.

In the post debate commentary of the third – and last – presidential debate on foreign policy, on Monday, Chris Matthews just could not help himself spewing another diatribe about the racial hatred that he insists is ingrained into the soul of America’s conservatives. 

In fact, clucked Matthews, they’re so hateful of Obama that they want him out of the White House more than they want al-Qaeda’s complete destruction.  Below is the transcript and video of this hyperbolic and unruly episode. (video after the jump)

Going around the rope line at the bottom of his 7 p.m. Eastern edition of Monday's Hardball to ask folks whom they are supporting in the presidential race, Chris Matthews found a young man who said he was backing Romney because, unlike Obama, "he doesn't cover up scandals in the Middle East."

"What was the scandal? Get to it, nail it, what was the scandal?!" Matthews rudely barked at the Romney backer. Upon the young Romney supporter answering that he was referring to Benghazi and the administration's early dogged insistence that the fiasco was the result of a spontaneous demonstration over a YouTube video, Matthews barked back (emphasis mine), "Yeah, it was about the video. Read the newspaper. Thank you. Everybody knows it's about the video. It's all about the video." [video follows page break]