According to Chris Matthews, the modern GOP would throw out the party's pro-civil rights members from the 1960s. Talking to former Lyndon Johnson aide Joseph Califano on Tuesday, the Hardball anchor appeared amazed by the fact that the 1964 Civil Rights Act "passed with four out of five Republicans." He sneered, "People don't believe the Republican Party" of today is the same.
The host jeered, "What happened to those Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller and Jack Javits and Hugh Scott and all those people who totally, utterly believed in civil rights?" Smearing the chairman of the Republican National Committee, he continued, "They would be scorned in the party of, of Reince Priebus, which is out there trying to kill voting rights through these I.D. laws."
Perhaps Matthews has forgotten that, as recently as 2010, the Senate Democrats had a former KKK member as a colleague. It's the current vice president who condescendingly described the first African American president as "clean" and "articulate."
On February 23, the Hardball anchor insisted that Republicans "hate," hate," "hate," "hate," "hate," "hate," "hate" Barack Obama.
A transcript of the February 24 exchange, which aired at 7:30, follows:
7:30
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Anyway, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, what Johnson signed, passed with four out of five Republicans. People don't believe the Republican Party in those days, and all but six Republican senators in the entire U.S. Senate. And the Voting Rights Act passed with similar support from Republicans in the House and the Senate a year later. Joe, you live up in New York. You know that city. You know the Northeast. What happened to those Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller and Jack Javits and Hugh Scott and all those people who totally, utterly believed in civil rights? They would be scorned in the party of, of Reince Priebus, which is out there trying to kill voting rights through these I.D. laws.
JOSEPH CALIFANO: Well, the I.D. laws, and they have been drummed out of the Republican Party. You know, one of the great things about those years that people forget is that virtually all those civil rights laws and all of those Great Society laws were passed with significant Republican support. They were bipartisan laws.
MATTHEWS: So what happened, Joe? Was Johnson right when he said the minute he signed that civil rights bill in '64 he was kissing the South goodbye, but he was also kissing the moderate Republican Party goodbye?
CALIFANO: Well, he certainly kissed the South goodbye, although we may see the South start to inch back, because, as he knew, the Voting Rights Act was the most important piece of legislation in his administration, the proud -- the thing he was most proud of.
