MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews periodically goes on a tear about his disdain for the term "homeland" to refer to the United States of America. On his September 24 program, Chris Matthews groused it was "ominous" language. But it seems his colleague Al Sharpton never got the memo as he used it just prior to the lead-in to tonight's Hardball. (watch the video below)
What's more, a review of our DVR system shows Matthews himself used the term in a passing reference on September 10, prior to President Obama's speech to the nation on the threat from ISIS.
Wrapping up a segment with former Secret Service agent Evy Poumpouras about a potential threat to commercial aircraft from small explosive devices that are difficult to detect, Sharpton thanked his guest and intoned "certainly, we're going to continue watching as the world deals with this threat to the United States homeland and other parts of the world."
Forty-two minutes later, in a panel discussion about Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown's negative ad against incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Matthews took a brief rabbit trail about the term "homeland," as it was featured in Brown's ad, one met with approval by his guests Perry Bacon of the Washington Post and U.S. News & World Report's Susan Milligan:
MATTHEWS: You know, I get on these things like the word "homeland," I never liked it.
MILLIGAN: Yeah.
BACON: I try to avoid using it, yeah.
MATTHEWS: It's sort of Eastern European--
MILLIGAN: It's very Nazi Germany. [chuckles]
MATTHEWS: -- totalitarian, homeland, fatherland, motherland. We don't talk-- we call it the United States.They're coming to America, they're coming here. Civil defense. You don't need a new word. Why do they, the word homeland is essentially ominous. [in dismissive tone] "They're going to hit the homeland!"
But for one so obsessed with how "ominous" and "neo-con" and "totalitarian" the word "homeland" is, even Chris Matthews himself slips up and uses it from time to time in a non-dismissive way, like on September 10, 2014 on special MSNBC programming prior to President Obama's address to the nation on ISIS:
The American people, according to our polls at NBC and The Wall Street journal, and we've all read them, seem to say we want to do something against ISIS. We want to make war. But we don't want to get on the ground and we don't want any casualties at home. Or [civilian casualties] over there. We don't want the homeland hurt. We don't want the soldiers involved. A war without casualties, a war without troops, but it has to win. What kind of a war is that? I don't know what that war is.
