During the Wednesday edition of his show Hardball, MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who once called former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin “profoundly stupid,” appeared not to know that there are two current U.S. senators who are of African descent.
“We don’t have any African Americans in the United States Senate, which I think is a disgrace,” Matthews said before being corrected by a producer and one of his guests. Before his mistake was fixed, Matthews also disclosed that he, as a resident of Maryland, voted for Republican Michael Steele when he ran for Senate in 2006 because he was black.
“You know, it’s one of the reasons I voted for my friend Michael Steele when he ran because I think we ought to have some. It’s absurd in this country. It’s absurd,” Matthews said.
After finishing that rant, Matthews quickly backtracked and noted that South Carolina Republican Tim Scott is black. He was further corrected moments later by one of his guests, weekend MSNBC host Steve Kornacki, who also noted that William “Mo” Cowan of Massachusetts is black.
Matthews made his comments during a segment discussing the decision of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to hold a special election to fill the seat of recently deceased senator Frank Lautenberg, a choice which some political observers view was sparked by his desire not to be on the ballot in the regular November election with black Democrat Cory Booker. (Hat tip: RealClearPolitics.)
This is hardly the first time that Matthews has been busted for spouting off ignorant, tasteless remarks about race.
That would indeed appear to be the case. Last year, NewsBusters caught the deranged MSNBC host claiming that he lived in Washington, DC, when in fact he lives in a wealthy Maryland suburb, less than 1 percent of whose residents are black.
Despite these missteps (and I have given only a partial listing), Matthews has persisted in making baseless accusations that Republicans are actually the clueless, racist ones, not himself. In 2011, the MSNBC host smelled racism when analyzing poll numbers showing declining support among white voters for President Obama. He was echoing a previous statement he made earlier that year when he denounced “older white people” for noticing race “all the time.”
Given that Matthews is 67 according to Wikipedia and that he himself says he voted for a black man purely because of his race, it would appear that Chris Matthews is the first documented example of one of these despicable “older white people” obsessed with skin color.
