Horror spread quickly across America as the story unfolded: an Army psychiatrist went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas, killing 13 and wounding 30. But as more information emerged, clearly pointing to an act of terrorism, many in the "news" media simply chose not to report news.

By late afternoon, it emerged that the shooter’s name was Major Nidal Malik Hasan. But that night, CBS and NBC completely avoided mentioning that the shooter was a Muslim. ABC’s Charles Gibson suggested he was a "Muslim convert," which wasn’t right, but at least he wasn’t playing hide-and-seek with the facts. ABC reporter Martha Raddatz spoke for the media in choosing this tidbit: "As for the suspect, Nidal Hasan, as one officer's wife told me, ‘I wish his name was Smith.’"

The coverage grew more factual the next morning, with all the networks noting Hasan was Muslim, and that he shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) as he opened fire. ABC’s Diane Sawyer, though, repeated Raddatz: "We heard Martha Raddatz say last night that the wife of a soldier said ‘I wish his name had been Smith,’ so no one would have a reflexive question about that."

"The clergy should stay off Capitol Hill," MSNBC's Chris Matthews flatly declared on the November 10 "Hardball."  Matthews fumed with disgust as Politico's Jonathan Allen told him that Catholic bishops lobbied Democrats to pass the pro-life Stupak Amendment to the Democratic health care reform bill last week.

"I understand the [pro-life] argument" that the bishops brought to the table, Matthews added, but huffed that they should not "show up" on the Hill.

After the commercial break, Matthews took to the air again to clarify that it was not in fact bishops but staffers with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) who lobbied the Democrats. Such a distinction, he insisted, was important.

The relevant transcript follows [MP3 audio available here]:

MSNBC's Chris Matthews has said some things that would make your scratch your head - like getting a thrill up his leg from a speech given by Barack Obama. However, this one will really make you wonder what he was thinking.

On his Nov. 9 broadcast of "Hardball," in an interview with Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Matthews compared the incident of Maj. Nidal M. Hasan at Ft. Hood to Sirhan Sirhan's 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

"You know, I have a hard time with this because people like Sirhan Sirhan, who is still serving time for killing Bobby Kennedy, didn't like what Bobby Kennedy had said on television," Matthews said. "Bobby Kennedy had made political statements saying we're going to sell arms, fighter planes directly to Israel, not under the table. We're going to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Those are the things that triggered his killing spree. He killed one person - Bobby Kennedy, horrifically. But did he become a different religious person because he committed the crime? And when did this happen?" [Audio: Part I here (925 KB), Part II here (1.18 MB)]

On the syndicated The Chris Matthews Show, over the weekend, conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin was mocked by Chris Matthews for playing to the "wingnuts" at a Capitol Hill rally. Before running a clip of Levin, MSNBC host broke down the new GOP coalition as "regular Republicans," "energized conservatives," and "the wingnuts!" and added: "Talk show host Mark Levin spoke to all of them!"

The following exchange was aired on the November 8 edition of the The Chris Matthews Show [MP3 audio clip here]:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Tuesday's election results gave Republicans a big boost. A year from now they hope their loose coalition will unite to beat a lot of Democrats. What's that coalition? Well it's regular Republicans, people that have been Republicans all their lives. It’s also energized conservatives. People philosophically opposed to what they see as a creeping big government. Third - it's people just upset about the economy and the loss of jobs. And fourth - it's the wingnuts! Talk show host Mark Levin spoke to all of them at that rally at the Capitol this week.

Drinking the Kool-Aid on MSNBC wasn't enough, even for CNBC's Jim Cramer, to escape the reality that Obamanomics isn't working.

Back on October 12, Cramer, to his credit, knew there were some problems with the $787-billion stimulus passed earlier this year. However, he felt it was necessary to pledge his admiration for President Barack Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. But, Matthews asked Cramer if there would be something tangible to back up that praise.

"OK - let me ask you the question," Matthews said on MSNBC's Oct. 12 "Hardball." "Let's talk about how we keep score in electoral politics, that's how we keep score. Between now and next summer, when people begin to decide how they're going to vote in next year's election, will the employment rate be coming down by then?"

For those who missed it last week, here's another chance to catch the October 30 episode of NewsBusters’ Notable Quotables comedy show, featuring some of the most outrageous sound bites from the liberal media.

In this episode, we have CBS fawning over Michelle Obama frolicking on the White House lawn, CNN psychoanalyzing Rush Limbaugh listeners, and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews in need of some psychiatric help of his own.

Enjoy the show and the weekend.

By the way, check out the new ‘Notable Quotables Show’ channel on Eyeblast for current and past episodes.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Tuesday night got visibly annoyed with radio host Mark Williams for daring to bring up the Hardball host’s famous assertion that Barack Obama gave him a "thrill" up his leg. After Matthews goaded Williams and suggested he didn’t know the name of the Republican leadership in Congress, Williams paraphrased, "Chris, you're making my legs tingle!"

Matthews, who only seconds before had been smiling as he mocked the host, became flustered: "See, this is- this is. I’m going to- What do you mean? How is your leg? What do you mean? Your leg’s tingling? I don’t get what you mean- what you mean." After Williams repeated himself, Matthews shot back: "What do you mean?" [Audio available here.]

It's probably safe to assume many Democrats weren't happy about last evening's election results, no matter how they spun them and how they pertained to President Barack Obama. And to his credit, that's something MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews admitted was not good for the Democratic Party.

However, MSNBC, the so-called "Place for Politics" hyped up its Nov. 3 "Super Tuesday" election coverage throughout the day (emphasis added):

"Tonight, Super Tuesday continues on MSNBC with live coverage of ‘Decision ‘09' inside the key elections that will set the stage for a 2010 political battle," the announcer on the TV spot said. "Follow the results on MSNBC's primetime line-up. Plus, special live editions of ‘Countdown with Keith Olbermann' at 10, ‘The Rachel Maddow Show' at 11 and ‘Hardball with Chris Matthews' at midnight. Super Tuesday continues tonight on MSNBC, the place for politics."

If you're a skeptic of climate change or want to educate your child at home Chris Matthews probably thinks you're an oddball. On Tuesday's Hardball, the MSNBC host egged on the former liberal Republican New Jersey governor and former EPA head Christine Todd Whitman to turn to the camera to scold all the global warming non-believers in the GOP as he urged: "Would you tell your Republican colleagues right now – look in the camera and say, 'There is climate change and we have to do something about it?'" And later on in the show Matthews stereotyped all homeschoolers as some sort of anti-social shut-ins that don't want their children to "go to public school 'cause you don't want to mix with other people."

The following exchanges were aired on the November 3 edition of Hardball:

After Joe Scarborough’s intra-squad snarking of Keith Olbermann yesterday morning, one might have expected a better-behaved Brew Crew today.

No such luck for Chris Matthews – Pat Buchanan had different plans.

In a discussion of the polling data in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, Joe asked Lawrence O’Donnell why the Democrat was doing so poorly in a state that President Obama won by a large margin last year:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Why [crosstalk] Democrats doing better in Virginia a year after Obama’s historic victory?

Chris Matthews, on Monday's Hardball, claimed the GOP is purging moderates from the party like it was 1930s Russia, and Newsweek's Howard Fineman said the dumping of RINOs like Dede Scozzafava in New York was leading to "the crack cocaine of reduced Republicanism." Yes indeed it was, as Fineman noted, a night of "wild comparisons," on Hardball but after making the "purge" metaphor, Matthews actually had the nerve to call Rush Limbaugh's play-on-words joke that Scozzafava "screwed every RINO in the country," a "metaphor from Hell."

The following exchanges were aired on the November 2 edition of Hardball:

It's hard to imagine two Chris Matthews Show panelists publicly admitting that the President was smarter than them, during the George W. Bush administration, but that's precisely what happened during this weekend's episode when host Chris Matthews asked Newsweek's Howard Fineman that very question. When a frustrated Matthews worried that Barack Obama wasn't being more aggressive in pushing health care reform, Fineman calmed Matthews down by assuring him that "one of his great qualities...is patience" which prompted Matthews to ponder: "Howard is he smarter than us?" to which Fineman affirmed: "Of course he is! Much smarter!" [audio available here]

The following exchange occurred during the November 1 edition of The Chris Matthews Show:

Noted Dick Cheney-basher Chris Matthews, on Thursday's "Hardball," finally found an area of common ground with the former Vice President – his endorsement of moderate Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison over Rick Perry in the Texas governor's race. However, even a bit of praise from the MSNBC host came with a vicious shot, as Matthews sneered, "You might think an endorsement from Dick Cheney would be like a dinner invite from Uday and Qusay Hussein, but not in Texas."

After making the comparison to the brothers who infamously tortured Iraqi athletes for losing on the field, Matthews went on to ponder: "Can the torture man boost her backing from conservatives in beating secessionist governor Rick Perry?" [audio available here]

The following Matthews outbursts were aired on the October 29, "Hardball":

Want to be noticed by any one of the hosts that have a primetime show on MSNBC's weeknight lineup? Just figure out a way to make Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.  the subject matter, and there's an excellent chance either Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow will take a shot at it, or her, during their shows.

In the Oct. 25 Washington Post, George Will penned a column about Bachmann, outlining her ascendancy into the national spotlight, which told of her start in politics and how she grew to become reviled by the left. And it was just a matter time before one of the charming personalities on MSNBC made some sort of remarks about the column, albeit two days later. That came on Olbermann's Oct. 27 "Countdown" broadcast.

Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's "Hardball," invited on former Cheers star Woody Harrelson to promote his new movie, The Messenger, and also talk Afghanistan war policy. The Zombieland actor announced that he was opposed not only to the war in Iraq, but also to the fight in Afghanistan as he compared it to Vietnam and advised that Barack Obama should "pull those troops out," to which Matthews chimed: "It doesn't look like he's pulling out. He's not gonna follow the recommendation of Mr. Woody Harrelson it looks like...although he might be better off doing that." [audio available here]

The following is the relevant exchange between Matthews and Harrelson as it was aired on the October 27 edition of "Hardball":

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about this, the war. I mean we’ve got two wars going now, one that hopefully is settling down, we’re coming home next year from Af-, from Iraq. But the other one looks like we might be beefing up. Your feelings about it?

Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's "Hardball," mocked former President George W. Bush making his debut as a motivational speaker as he laughed it off as a "Halloween prank, you know like toilet-papering somebody’s house." After taking that jab Matthews proceeded to castigate Bush as "the man who got this country into two wars that feel like Chinese handcuffs right now," and determined Bush's legacy will be as the "reason" people voted for Barack Obama.

The following outburst was aired during the "Sideshow" portion of the October 27 edition of "Hardball":

Let's say, hypothetically, someone was to make a disparaging statement about Fox News and conclude as a news outlet it is way outside of mainstream political thought. Well, then the follow-up appropriate question could be where does that put Fox News' competitors who get just a fraction of the cable news juggernaut's ratings?

Michael Wolff, a contributing editor and columnist Vanity Fair and CNBC regular, told MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews on his Oct. 26 program the White House strategy was to marginalize Fox News the same way conservatives once did to liberals, making "liberal" a word with negative connotations. However, he also made the bizarre conclusion that Fox News, which dominates cable news on a regular basis, is "not very popular."

Is Chris Matthews feeling pressure to keep up with the Olbermanns when it comes to flinging invective at conservatives?  On this evening's Hardball, discussing Dick Cheney's statement—-made at a dinner at which he received an award—that Pres. Obama is dithering on Afghanistan, an apparently incensed Matthews spluttered [unexpurgated in the original]:

"What G--D--- award . . . are they giving these guys?"

Is there no depth MSNBC's Chris Matthews won't sink to?

Judging from a truly disgraceful comment he made on Thursday's "Hardball," the answer has got to be a resounding "NO!"

Chatting with guests Frank Gaffney and Ron Reagan Jr. about conditions in Afghanistan, Matthews ended a really heated discussion between his guests -- which included the former scolding, "Your father would be ashamed of you," and the latter responding, "You better watch your mouth about that" -- by disgustingly saying (video embedded below the fold, h/t NB reader Kirk Wikoff):

Well the verdict is in and it looks like the GOP has been severely damaged by its opposition to Obamacare, well at least that was the conclusion of all the liberal members of "The Chris Matthews Show" panel over the weekend. On the syndicated show, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell and HDNET's Dan Rather were unanimous that the "branding" of the GOP as "The Party Of No," has "hurt" them. The New York Times' Helene Cooper chimed in that the Republicans were "gonna be in a really tough spot," and the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan judged "The town halls clearly hurt them. They turned the debate around in favor of the President."

The following exchanges were aired on the October 18 edition of "The Chris Matthews Show":