"Being a suicide bomber is the new political role model," Chris Matthews told his Friday "Hardball" audience. "Just kill everything, destroy everything, blow it up, nothing gets done. You're dead, but who cares?" he added, referring to conservative Republicans running against Democrats in the 2010 midterms.
The comment came at the end of a segment featuring Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) and Politico's Jim VandeHei. Matthews had complained to the latter that the congressional minority Republicans were intent not merely on tinkering around the edges of the majority Democrats' policy proposals but on "destroy[ing] the United States government every time it gets up in the morning" all to the applause of "its cheering section back home say[ing] good work, keep trying to destroy the government."
[MP3 audio available here; WMV video available here]
VandeHei didn't agree with Matthews's "destroy the government" rhetoric about the GOP, although he agreed that the GOP was intent on "destroying" policies that President Obama supports.
For his part, the Politico writer argued that the political system as it stands now is just geared towards extreme partisanship because in part moderates had been "purged" from the GOP but also because "right now we have an entire system, we have a media system, we have a culture, we have technology that really rewards the incendiary, [that] rewards conflict."
Given Matthews's hyperbolic invective about "The Rise of the New Right," VandeHei might unwittingly be on to something, at least when it comes to the incendiary media.
