Chris Matthews, on Thursday's Hardball, took GOP Congresswoman Virginia Foxx to task for claiming that Republicans "passed civil rights bills in the sixties" as he accused her of having a bad memory, going as far as to compare her to one of the androids from the science fiction classic Blade Runner:

Up next wait ‘til you hear the latest from Congresswoman, whoa! Wait ‘til you catch this. Well this is another version of The Dream, let's put it that way. This is Virginia Foxx, in action. She's actually trying to say -- remember this? It was the Republicans, don't you remember? They are the ones that pushed through civil rights back in the sixties. Remember it was not the Democrats, remember that? Interesting memory there. Next in the "Sideshow." I think she's one of these replicants from Blade Runner where they had an imposed memory put into them. [audio available here]

After playing a clip of Foxx claiming it was Republicans "who passed the civil rights bills back in the sixties, without very much help from our colleagues across the aisle," Matthews charged it was the GOP who became the political "winners" in the South for "opposing civil rights." While Foxx's claim wasn't entirely accurate, Matthews also needs a history refresher course as the Republicans were pivotal in getting the legislation passed, something the late Paul Weyrich pointed out in a July 2004 column:

In its year-ending double issue Newsweek couldn't resist injecting liberal media bias into its mini obituaries entitled "Remember Them Well."

Yet the newsmagazine seemed to forget, perhaps intentionally, the left-of-center politics of prominent liberals profiled while using terms like "far-right" to describe the politics of deceased conservatives such as Paul Weyrich.

But wait, there's more, Newsweek used the occasion to link the civil rights struggles of the 1960s with the fight for same-sex marriage and to approve the first President Bush's breaking of the "no new taxes" pledge.

Take Studs Terkel, the hard-left Communist journalist who passed away at age 96. Newsweek ignored his political leanings, euphemizing them by referencing his "working-class empathy and patient, guileless style [that] helped a confused nation speak its mind."

By contrast, here's how the World Socialist Web Site eulogized him: