There was no way that Chris Matthews was going to let the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's assassination pass without using it as an occasion to slander the GOP as a "Jim Crow"-loving racist party unworthy of the label Party of Lincoln.
Both in a roundtable discussion segment and in a "Let Me Finish" commentary, Matthews groused about voter ID laws passed in 36 states, most of which were done under the aegis of Republican legislatures. [Rhode Island's law was passed by an overwhelmingly liberal Democratic legislature and signed by a liberal independent governor, Lincoln Chafee, but that's an inconvenient truth when you're trying to flog a simplistic, incendiary meme.]
Here's the relevant transcript from Hardball, both Matthews pre-commercial break tease and the full "Let Me Finish" commentary (emphasis mine):
MSNBC
Hardball
April 14, 2015
7:54 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host: When we return, Let Me Finish with the systematic effort by the Republican Party to keep the children of freed slaves from exercising the right that Abraham Lincoln himself died fighting to get. And you're watching Hardball, the place for politics.
...
7:58 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: Let me finish tonight with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln who was shot 150 years ago today. He was killed because he fought and won a war that saved the Union. He was killed fighting still for the right of freed American slaves to vote. And now the Republican Party he helped to start is out there in a systemic effort to keep the children of those freed slaves from voting.
I brought this up before and will again. This is no way to win the hearts and minds of Americans. We are a competitive people. We love a hot rivalry. We love rooting for our side and we don't like bad calls. We don't like the very idea of a biased ref or umpire and this is the heart of this matter.
If Republicans can't win an election in which everyone votes does anybody truly want them out there trying to make sure certain people don't? You know, I don't think so. Does any true American want to see a sports people picked on the basis of anything other than talent? Does any true American want to put out obstacles to keep minorities from participating in any of our national contests?
Then why do the people running the Republican Party, starting with Reince Priebus, oversee a national effort in three dozen states to create voter laws that make it hard for minorities, especially older minorities, from exercising the right that Abraham Lincoln died fighting to get them. This is a scar on the Grand Old Party.
Who can blame Marco Rubio out there as the candidate of youth and the future? But who can not blame the Republican Party itself from reverting to the bad old days of Jim Crow and poll taxes and bogus literacy tests? Practically everyone that comes to Washington, D.C., marches up the many steps of the Lincoln Memorial to pay tribute to the man who freed the slaves, the man who saved the Union, passed the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery, and died pushing for voting rights for those who were freed.
It's time for Reince Priebus and the rest of today's GOP leaders to get up on those stairs and pay true tribute to their party's, and the country's, finest president.
