Doug Wilder

In today's "People In Glass Houses" segment, Chris Matthews accused Fox News of being shills for the Republican Party just minutes before he said "the scariest three words in the English language are: President Sarah Palin."

MSNBC's "Hardball" on Tuesday began with a lengthy segment in which Matthews, with the help of co-conspirators from the Huffington Post and Media Matters for America, made the case that the Fox News Channel was a platform to assist Republican candidates to get elected.

Obviously missing the irony, the very next piece dealt with why President Obama ought to replace Vice President Biden with Hillary Clinton to not only assist him in getting reelected in 2012, but also set her up to win in 2016.

Still oblivious to the hypocrisy, Matthews ended the program with his take on why the thought of Palin becoming president is scaring "tens of millions of Americans, and not just Democrats."

To give you an idea of the absurdity of this hour of television, let's start with quotes from the first segment (videos and partial transcripts follow with commentary):

Painting conservatives as racists is a favorite pastime of the mainstream media and a recent move by Republican Virginia governor Bob McDonnell gave them more ammunition to do just that.

McDonnell issued a proclamation on April 2 stating April would be Confederate History Month, but failed to note the role slavery played in the U.S. Civil War that lasted from 1861-1865. Commentators and journalists seized upon McDonnell's omission as proof that conservatives are inherent racists, despite an apology and later inclusion in the proclamation of a strong statement condemning slavery.

In his apology, McDonnell called slavery an "abomination" and explained that the proclamation was "solely intended to promote the study of our history, encourage tourism in our state in advance of the 150th Anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, and recognize Virginia's unique role in the story of America."

These allegations of racism against conservatives have percolated in the media since Barack Obama's election in 2008. "Confederate" or "Confederacy" has been used 60 times in news reports on ABC, CBS and NBC since November 4, 2008, but it's this proclamation, coupled with the anger over the recently passed health care reform, that had some in the media wondering if conservatives were ready to wage Civil War Redux.

It's amusing how far some people will go not to give someone credit for something they have done especially if that deserving someone happens to be an ostensible political enemy. In this case we find CBS discussing Republican crossover voters in these primaries, the network newser telling us how crossovers will "skew primary results," and then they tell us who is responsible for egging on these crossovers. Now, for those of you in the know, you'd automatically assume that CBS is talking about radio host Rush Limbaugh who has been carrying on his "operation chaos" program to encourage Republican voters to re-register as Dems to vote for Hillary, right?

Not to CBS. No, CBS has decided that the real story is that what we have here is "right-wing radio commentators" and "the bloggers" are who is responsible for "operation chaos." But, in truth, few other radio people are pushing their listeners to re-register and no high profile conservative blogger I know of is doing so either. The whole thing is the brainchild of Rush Limbaugh, not "right-wing radio commentators" -- commentators as in plural, more than one.

CBS is bending over backwards in order NOT to mention Limbaugh's name so as not to give him publicity, apparently. But, it simply is not factual to say that "right-wing radio commentators" are responsible for this crossover voting effort when it is basically ONE "right-wing radio commentator." This spiteful avoidance of naming Limbaugh makes their report factually incorrect.