Chris Matthews got together with the Politico's Jeanne Cummings and the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page to look down their collective noses at the concept of Sarah Palin as a writer on Tuesday's Hardball, with Matthews even questioning the former vice presidential candidate's mental state as he pondered: "Is this delusion here?" After playing a clip of Barbara Walters' interview with Palin, in which Palin says of a possible talk show hosting gig that she'd "rather write than talk," the MSNBC host called the idea "daffy," and Cummings giggled, "It's all illusion and delusion. Smoke and mirrors everywhere!" while Page insultingly interjected, "Well Chris don't forget...she was a journalism major. That's what she got her degree in. So I suppose in...her head she's...still a writer who just hasn't written in a while." [audio available here]

The following exchange was aired on the November 17, edition of Hardball:

Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's "Hardball," invited on California Senator Barbara Boxer to dismiss the increasing number of townhall protestors opposed to Obama's liberal agenda as the "angry, and "noisy," "well-dressed middle-class people in pinks and limes...Brooks Brothers Brigade." After playing brief clips from the townhall protests Matthews devoted the first half of his show to knocking down their legitimacy, something Boxer actually instructed Matthews to do, as she urged the MSNBC host: "You, you in the media have to take a look at what's going on here. This is all planned. It's to hurt our president and it's to change the Congress." To which Matthews suggested the grassroots revolt should be ignored, as he depicted the protestors as stooges of the health care industry.

MATTHEWS: Do you think the health insurance companies that have made money for years on health care are the bad guys here? Do you think they're behind these so-called Astroturf demonstrations? That they're not really grassroots. These Brooks Brothers attacks on these congressional meetings?[audio available here]

Before the Boxer interview, Matthews invited on the Politico's Jeanne Cummings who also pooh-poohed the demonstrators:

After playing a clip of Rush Limbaugh charging Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with bigotry and racism, Chris Matthews, on Wednesday's "Hardball," implied Limbaugh was the racist as he asked a guest panelist Jeanne Cummings of the Politico, "Is this the pot calling the kettle black?" To which Cummings responded that the radio talk show host was going to "chase," all the Hispanics away from the GOP:

Well all I know is it's the worst nightmare for the Republicans, I mean they're trying to calculate whether they should vote against her, how aggressively they should try to sort through her record and challenge her during hearings. And with things like that, and all that calculation to try to keep Hispanic support, even as small as it's gotten for Republicans. Rush Limbaugh can chase ‘em all away in an afternoon with that kind of talk." [audio available here]

The following is the full segment as it was aired on the May 27 edition of "Hardball":

The Politico's Jeanne Cummings, a veteran of the Wall Street Journal, fretted on this weekend's Inside Washington that former Vice President Dick Cheney has “changed this debate in a way that has made it much, much harder to close Guantanamo, which the President is already committed to doing.” So he's done an awful thing in daring to oppose something President Obama is “committed to doing.” Dreadful!

In fact, she soon charged that in complicating Obama's intention to close Guantanamo -- which Obama had announced without any plan for where to place the detainees -- “Cheney really did damage to the effort to keep our country secure by turning this into a political issue. We were going to have to deal with this and to make it a political issue is not helpful. It's just not.”

To which a befuddled columnist Charles Krauthammer retorted by pointing out the overwhelming bi-partisan vote to block the closing: “Cheney is the one who turned it into a political issue? I thought it was a 90-6 vote in the Senate. Just about every Democrat in the Senate-” Cummings jumped in to blame Cheney for turning virtually every Senate Democrat against Obama: “No, Cheney started making political arguments a week ago. That is when you did start to see the tide turn up on Capitol Hill. It was after Cheney started to talk about 'I don't want to be the Member who says I brought a terrorist to a jail in my district.'”