Sara Palin

Chris Matthews is becoming a master of the odd analogy. In the past Matthews has compared favorites of the left like Bill Clinton to Jesus and Barack Obama to God and those on the right like Rush Limbaugh to a walrus and Dick Cheney to the Hussein brothers. Well on Tuesday's Hardball, Matthews added another strange comparison to his collection as he claimed former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin reminded him of the extravagant pianist Liberace. During his "Sideshow" segment Matthews cited $12 million as his "Big Number" of the night, claiming that is what the former Alaskan governor has earned since leaving office, which caused Matthews to blurt: "As they used to say of Liberace...another person who took some licks for over the-top-behavior he laughed all the way to the bank."

The following Matthews dig at Palin's expense was aired on the April 13 edition of Hardball:

align="right"Catching up with an item from a few days ago: Barry Sonnenfeld, a movie director (Men in Black) and now the Emmy-winning executive producer and director of ABC's dramady Pushing Daisies, predicted on Wednesday's Late Show that amongst the things he's “worried” President Bush will do before leaving office is “go out by pushing the button and destroying all life on Earth.” That was too much for David Letterman, hardly a Bush fan (in June he asked if Bush has “any humanity?”), who responded: “It's just a little bleaker than I would have hoped for -- the idea that he would actually detonate the planet in a moment of despair.”

Sonnenfeld, who speculated about Bush hiding bin Laden, also wondered why Americans wouldn't vote for the “really smart” Barack Obama over John McCain who “finished second to last in his graduating class in college” and Sarah Palin, who “went to five different colleges,” and so “I'm thinking maybe she's got other talents than intelligence.” 

With some mix of seriousness and humor you can judge yourself by watching the video clip (though how funny is it to joke about the President as some kind of religious zealot out to murder millions?), Sonnenfeld told Letterman he's “worried since it's October that George Bush will do one of three things: Either find bin Laden, who've they've had somewhere for eight months waiting to bring out” or “let's start a war with Iran. That's always a possibility.” Then:

And here's the third thing -- and I don't know much about the Bible and I'm not a big rapture guy -- but I believe George Bush is and what better way, if your polls are so bad, than to go out by pushing the button and destroying all life on Earth?

Audio: MP3 clip (2:05, 750 Kb)