Tweety has been doing God's work of late, but let us never forget the guy who had a thrill go up his leg when George W. Bush stuffed a sock into the crotch of his flightsuit drag. I'm still waiting for him to apologize to us for that.

Labels: Chris Matthews, dissent, Iraq War

Good thing I have an electric oven.

Labels: American Idiots, Chris Matthews, hack journalism

Yesterday Chris Matthews pointed out to Ron Christie [insert your own sound clip of closet door closing here], the toadying former aide to Dick Cheney the FACT, the double standard that Cheney and the entire Republican Party REALITY of the Bush Administration's lack of response to both the threats before the 9/11 attacks and to Richard Reid, the December 2001 shoe bomber. Of course he had to, given Joan Walsh's ferocious presentation of facts. But Tweety didn't stop there; he went on to point out that everyone on the right (and that includes Joe Lieberman) is using the attempted bombing on Christmas Day as an excuse to beat the drums for an expanded war in the Middle East.

Watch:


What's hilarious about this exchange is the Republicans regard the Democrats as the "Pussy Party", a bunch of overwrought, overly-emotional girly-men, not the real manly-man chest-beaters like Dick Cheney. Except who is it that's running around like a chicken without a head because a depressed, angry, alienated 23-year-old decided to get laid by 72 virgins in heaven? And yet here is Cheney's ventriloquist's dummy, complaining that Barack Obama isn't emotional enough.

So why is this an example of Why I Hate Chris Matthews? Because it shows that TWEETY KNOWS BETTER, even more often than what we saw last night, he does crap like this:

The press loves the boogeyman story because it makes them feel like crusaders for freedom and allows them to make common cause with macho right wingers. It's far more exciting than dull stories about losers who don't have jobs --- you can see the exhilaration coming off of them in waves. They love it.

Case in point, Chris Matthews, who is ready to force everyone to be cavity searched in the ticket line:

Matthews: You know what when we get on an airplane, we give up all kinds of checks we don't do by just walking down the street. I think we give up a certain amount of rights just getting on an airplane and I think you've got to recognize that your safety is tied up with everyone else on that plane's safety and anybody else that gets hit on that plane. You don't own the right to be on that plane because you're getting on an airplane so you do have to yield some civil rights...And by the way, Cliff, you know it and I know it, they're going to get smarter and smarter and sooner or later they're going to get all kinds of people to do their dirty work for them. They're the enemy. They're going to use any means they can to get us. They're out to kill us. Let's be as smart as they are because they are already smart.

Run fer yer lives!

Apparently, Matthews thinks that there is some Koranic law that requires all attacks against America to take place on an airplane. If some terrorist with imagination succeeds in a mall or on a bridge will we have to submit to profiliong and screening there too? Sounds like it.(And if he thinks these would-be terrorists like Richard Reid and Abdulmutallab are super criminals, no wonder he's petrified.)

And that's why we hate Chris Matthews -- because he's not stupid. He's not even a craven political opportunist like Pete Hoekstra, trying to pull in campaign cash from a bunch of unemployed people in Michigan who can no longer afford to fly anywhere but who can't see a connection between the money squandered by the Bush Administration on pointless and badly-conducted wars and the fact that they have no health care. He's a media opportunist, and that may be worse.

(cross-posted at Sweet Jesus I Hate Chris Matthews.)

Labels: Chris Matthews, Dick Cheney, fearmongering, hack journalism, wingnuttia

Last Sunday I was working (for a change) and decided to tune into the Sunday gasbags. After about five minutes of The Chris Matthews Show, during which Gloria Borger wanted to know where was the visual of Barack Obama out there in a hardhat and wishing he was more like Bill Clinton (bet you never thought you'd hear THAT from Borger) and panelist John Heilemann gleefully opined that without health care reform, Barack Obama's presidency will be "in ruins", I was ready to turn it off and then stick an icepick into my own forehead anyway. I've almost forgotten what it was like to live in a country in which while pundits might disagree with a president's policy, they didn't want so badly to see three years out of a four year term lie "in ruins". As much as I detested George W. Bush from the minute he declared his presidential run, on the twelfth of September in 2001, I hoped he knew what he was doing, and was willing to accept the partisan hit in terms of Republican dominance if he did. After all, presidential failure does not make for a nation that is a place you want to be.

But today's pundit corps, in its increasing lust for a blithering idiot like Sarah Palin, who makes the Miss South Carolina pageant contestant who blathered about the Iraqi people not having maps look like a rocket scientist to be president, can't accept that sometimes the health of the nation is more important than fantasizing about fucking the president; that someone who's stupid but "colorful" might make good copy to fill up the 24 x 7 cable news cycle, but could REALLY leave the country "in ruins".

I don't know why John McCain is still sought out for these programs, other than as a constant manifestation of the clubbiness inside the Beltway; the Russert - Sally Quinn - Cokie - Broder Axis of Idiotic Punditry that seeks to decide the success of a presidency based on their own little Social Register of acceptable hacks. It's clear that McCain's rage over being denied the prize that he feels is rightly his as payment for having been a POW has affected his cognitive abilities, for these days he's blathering almost as incomprehensibly as his erstwhile running mate:

MR. GREGORY: We're back with Senator John McCain.

Welcome back to the program. A lot to discuss here, a lot to react to. Let's get to your big issue this week, the issue of withdrawal. You heard Secretary Gates say here today, July 2011 is a date certain for the beginning of the withdrawal. Do you have a problem with that?

SEN. McCAIN: Yes. But let me also say, David, I support the president's decision. I think it's the right decision. I think that it can lead to success. It's a tough decision on his part to send young Americans into harm's way. As Secretary Gates said, casualties will go up, tragically. But I think he made the right decision, and I think that he is--the reality is he's not only tough decision to send young Americans into harm's way, but his--significant elements of his own party are, are opposed. So I strongly support the decision.

The problem with the date certain now is that not only there's a problem with that itself, but there's a, a significant contribution between what Secretaries Gates and Clinton were saying and what the president's spokesperson...

MR. GREGORY: Contradiction. Contradiction.

SEN. McCAIN: Contradiction...

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

SEN. McCAIN: ...between what--and what his spokesperson said just a couple of days ago when he said the president said--he said--I'm directly quoting the president, that "withdrawal date is engraved, chiseled in stone, and I am the chiseler." Now, that's pretty straightforward. So what has that done? It has caused reaction such as you saw with the prime minister of Pakistan. Policymakers throughout the region--Pakistan, India, Iran, as well as Afghanistan--are now trying to figure out whether they can really go all in and support this effort, or do they have to accommodate? Because if we leave, they have to stay in the region. So it needs to be resolved. It needs to be resolved in this way, that we will not leave on a date certain. But we have every confidence--I do, I have every confidence within a year to 18 months we can achieve significant success. We were able to do that in Iraq. And we will leave and not allow the Taliban to make comments like Taliban prisoners are saying, "You've got the watches and we have the time." We don't want to send that message.

Got that? "Significant success in Iraq". O rly?

Bzzzzzzzzst! Sorry, Senator, your answer is wrong:

In what appeared to be a coordinated assault, a series of car bombings across Baghdad on Tuesday killed at least 101 people and wounded scores more, according to preliminary accounts by police and hospital officials.

Five bombs, including at least one suicide attack, struck near a university, a court, a mosque a market and in a neighborhood near the Interior Ministry. The blasts began shortly after 10 A.M. and reverberated through the city for the next 50 minutes, sending enormous plumes of black smoke into the air.

American helicopters, drones and airplanes circled the city in the immediate aftermath, while sporadic gunfire could be heard at one of the sites, near the main courthouse for western Baghdad and Zawra Park, which includes the city’s zoo and amusement areas.

A suicide car bomb in Dora, in southern Baghdad, struck a police patrol outside the main gate of the Technical Institution, a vocational college. Three police officers died there; many of the other victims were students.

The attacks were the worst in Iraq since twin suicide bombings destroyed three ministries on Oct. 25, killing at least 155. They matched a pattern of spectacular attacks in the capital, followed by weeks of relative calm. In August, two suicide car bombs struck the country’s finance and foreign ministries, killing at least 122.

The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has blamed the attacks on Al Qaeda in Iraq and remnants of the Baath Party in exile, though officials have yet to provide concrete evidence pointing to those involved.

The latest attacks came on the day Iraq’s Presidency Council was expected, finally, to announce a date for the country’s parliamentary elections. On Sunday, under pressure from President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Iraq’s political leaders avoided a constitutional crisis and agreed on the rules for holding the election and distributing seats to the winners.

Many officials have expressed fears of intensifying violence ahead of the election, with insurgents and terrorists seeking to undermine Mr. Maliki’s government.

Is this John McCain's idea of "significant success"? If so, I'd hate to see what abject failure looks like.

Labels: Chris Matthews, David Gregory, hack journalism, idiocy, irrelevant has-been pundits, John McCain

The highly closeted manly-men of media really haven't been the same since George W. Bush took off the flightsuit with the sock-stuffed crotch and revealed himself to be the mean, small little man that the saner among us always knew he was. Now, as Digby reveals, they have a new lust object:

Let me first say that Sgt Crowley is an obviously intelligent person who is very confident in front of the cameras and makes a strong impression in a press conference. He will go far if he chooses to pursue a career in public life. He is also an intimidating son of a gun, putting the reporters in their places with a steely look and a stern "hold on, let me finish" that was sort of startling.

But the dizzy, gushy adulation on the part of the gasbags is so over the top I'm feeling embarrassed in that "oh no, I walked in on my grandfather watching a porno" kind of way. Dear God.

Lou Dobbs is drooling and smirking, Chris Matthews is (without success) trying to keep that thrill up his leg under control and Roger Simon literally squealed in delight the second the press conference was over. This is the most manly, macho, guys guy they've had the pleasure to pleasure since Junior Bush insulted reporters on a daily basis, and you can tell they've been missing it big time.

I think it's pretty clear that if Obama wants to get the press back on his side he needs to start pushing them around. These boys just love a man who hurts so good.

Labels: bloggers, Chris Matthews, closet cases

I try not to watch this crap anymore. The cable company here has done me a strangely backwards favor by taking away my ability to stream MSNBC or much of anything to my desktop besides dreaded network TV. So its odd these days that I'm catching Tweety when he's on as opposed to on YouTube or DVR when he's done something idiotic that is worth a couple of minutes of my time. This morning, in the here and now, I am reminded how much of a hack Tweety is, and I'm wondering how the panel manages to sit there, controlled by the "stories" of the week, as prescribed by the M$M talking points, and following the mundane surface doings of the new President, without screaming a la Howard Beale. Its all so predictable and boring, and maybe Tweety needs to consider that if he really wants those ratings that he needs, he might try to talk about the real stories and what they mean, if he's even capable of that.

So, if Obama is going to travel to Normandy to mark D-day, then we have to go over the foibles of other presidents who fell down stairs and offended one person or another; Bill Clinton looking through binoculars with the lens caps on, or worse, smoking a cigar in public after the Lewinsky scandal...wink, wink...And how will Obama fit into the meme that they are busily preparing for him? Its all so exciting that I can hardly wait! Of course, Obama spoils the fun time and again because he is so too slick.



Look, I know that even these political head brainy shows are a microcosm of the American psyche, and that there was never a NASCAR or Grand Prix fan who wasn't on the edge of their seat waiting for the crash. I know that we look for someone to trip and fall or, more recently, embarrass our country diplomatically, but I was sort of hoping that we were going to send President Obama out into the world to smooth over the impression of the ugly, stupid American that Bush spent eight years honing. It used to be that we waited for the hockey fight or Abbot and Costello to get lost in the haunted mansion as a way to get our ya-ya's out, but somewhere between Gerald Ford falling down the stairs of a plane, eliciting fond ribbing and Clinton's cigars, a huge helping of leader hatred was thrown in, and it has somehow become a sport to expect something any minute that is gonna stamp a presidency with a meme that will follow it into forever. So far the Obamas have avoided this, causing some strange sorta anger and shot in the dark labeling attempts; socialist, liar, not doing what he promised in the campaign...whatever...the reality is that things are so much better than they would have been with McCain, and though we should expect the best, lets not throw out the baby with the bathwater...or something like that.

The important question to ask yourself is what are these main stream talking points turning us away from; What are we missing here? I keep hearing that President Obama is not following his campaign promises exactly to the letter, but I'm not so sure that we want someone in that office who isn't able to adapt on the fly. I'm as worried as the next person, and I'm willing to fight for the more important issues, like Afghanistan and gay marriage, but I'm also acutely aware that in the big picture we need to look at who he has nominated to a lifetime appointment on the supreme court! Look at what is happening that is really going to shape trends in humanity in the next 100 or 200 years? What will our world be like with 2 or 3 new judges on our highest court that resemble the actual reality of the make up of America? This is huge! This is the kind of long term decision that along the way might grant the wishes of people who are so focused on a single issue that they are ready to jump ship immediately. Sheesh...Americans have no patience for sure, but this is ridiculous, and self destructive.



To spend so much time on one piece of a speech from eight years ago, indicates to me that they have nothing! Further, what Judge Sotomayor said is true! Is Limbaugh or Tweety or anyone else going to say with a straight face that Alito's rulings don't have something to do with his conservative, Italian, white upbringing? Isn't the point that a judges follow the rule of law, regardless of their backgrounds, but also bringing their background into their decisions that one interfere with the law? All indications are that she is a judge with a record of such decisions, and if this is all they can pull out, then we had better get ready for a different looking Supreme Court.... yay!...and in turn, we will see the kinds of changes that the people of this country want; not what special interests can conjure with swift boating and hysteria.

This is less an issue of what we Americans want, than a shaping of the story in a pathetic, grasping way by the disgruntled minority. Its unbelievable to me that the usual suspects still are giving a free platform to the usual suspects to say the same old crap. I know that the news guys miss Bush as much as the comedians do because there was so much to work with there, but maybe we'll have to get back to our favorite TV shows, America's Got Talent or whatever it is that allows us to make fun of each other, and extend again some respect where respect is due. Maybe along that way we can demand some focus on the fucking war(s) and how we are going to go forward!

If every public servant can be swift boated in this way (did I mention that this is extrapolated from one passage in a speech from eight years ago?) and if the story can be twisted and fed back to us as something that we somehow want to obsess about, then the inmates still have control of the asylum and maybe its time for a change of management at these networks, or at least some reregulation of media content in general.

Lets discuss Afghanistan and the torture issue. Lets discuss indictment of the criminals and what that would mean to us going forward. It occurs to me that the fear of Judge Sotomayor is more about the fact that she does have respect for the rule of law (for the people as opposed to bending and changing it in favor of large corporations.) The grasping by the right, and the insane racial comments tell me that they protesteth too much and that this may be someone who will fairly represent us regardless of who they're duck hunting with on the weekends.

If you want to contact the folks at NBC about their inane programming choices click here.

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: Chris Matthews, mainstream media, Supreme Court

This evening Chris Matthews, or Tweety as he is known amongst his "fans....not!", democrat again because its in style, and raring for a fight against the very people that he has been massaging for the past 8 years, said that while interviewing Ari Fleischer last night on Hardball that a statement had gotten by him that he didn't notice until he watched the rerun at 7PM. Maybe it was a slow news day, but I'm wondering why Ari Fleischer gets a podium at all...I'm wondering how its possible that these Bush criminals think that they can get on TV and lie again and again. The denial and the bold spewing of shit is interesting on a psychological level, but hey, we can discuss what happened without having them around to keep up the party line, right?

I guess that the bookers wanted some turmoil and someone to throw the hard balls at, and I suppose that in his new persona as a dem again, he may be doing some good to let the likes of Fleischer get up and try to keep up the old, old talking points and slap them down as a simple illustration of the situation that we just got out of. Maybe if you show the American people a fight, and what is known as "good TV," its an actual service.

Well as Ari finished up his absolutely inane recitation of the talking points, and how they couldn't have possibly done anything in response to the memo that Bin Laden was gonna strike in the US, he said straight out that Saddam Hussein attacked us on 9-11. Now, we have to know that's not true and that it was one of the big lies that got us into this mess. Its shocking that anyone is still saying that, and its shocking that this straightforward statement goes by the wide eyed Tweety in the headlights. Maybe his producer was talking in his ear, but I woulda hoped that that same producer would have immediately said "hey Chris, did you get that?" I mean, it took till an hour later and he saw it himself on the rerun without anyone mentioning it to him? Ho hum, I guess that the staff over at MSNBC has been so inundated with unchallenged lies, that even now that the tables have turned a little, they just let them roll on by.



Tonight Matthews brought it up and commented on it...whatever. I hope that every dope who saw that smack down last night was in the audience tonight for the comeback, because the insidious planting of this information has to stop, and if Tweety is not up to it, maybe he should let someone else take over these sorts of interviews. I'm thinking Rachel Maddow or Sam Seder; either of whom is smart and quick enough to have torn him to shred and still brought the segment in on time.

Y'know, one thing that Fleischer said that was true is that Matthews is disingenuous. He is just the kind of rat who jumps from ship to ship as it suits him. In my opinion, and as much as I love to hear the turncoats disavow that which they supported to the horrible detriment of this country, its too fucking late for Matthews to rehabilitate himself. He seems less a hard ball journalist these days than a dazed and confused wild animal trying frantically to find the angle that's gonna let him hold his job. Gee, wouldn't that be like so many Americans already weathering the new depression? Welcome to reality Tweety; the reality that you helped create.

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: Chris Matthews, lies

Chris Matthews sounding like a petulant four year old? Priceless:

Labels: Chris Matthews, meltdown

Now I'm confused.

Tweety has been madly in love with John McCain for the last eight years. There isn't a talking head on television who uses the word "maverick" to describe the hackery that is today's John McCain more than Chris Matthews.

So where the heck does this come from:

Labels: Barack Obama, Chris Matthews

Because after all, what is a collapsing economy, a vanishing job base, an intractable war, and an upcoming energy crisis when you have the national threat of a guy who drinks orange juice instead of coffee:

SHUSTER: As for Barack Obama, he campaigned today in northern Indiana, shaking hands and chatting with people at a diner near South Bend. Then Obama headed to Gary, Indiana, where he spoke in front of a raucous crowd at Roosevelt High School. Obama's theme was the economy. He sharply criticized John McCain's support for extending the Bush tax cuts. And Obama said, McCain's housing plan, announced today, does not go far enough.

[...]

SHUSTER: Well, look, Chris, seriously, though, keep an eye on these college towns in Indiana, because I was just talking a few minutes ago, there are -- in a close primary, especially in a conservative state --

MATTHEWS: Right.

SHUSTER: -- you have a lot of people in -- who may be Democrats in a place like Indiana. Watch turnout in places like Bloomington, Terre Haute --

MATTHEWS: So you think the college crowd can beat the regular people there, if it comes down to that, in terms of Hillary's support?

SHUSTER: In a state like Indiana, if Obama can turn out the large crowds in the college towns --

MATTHEWS: Did you see him there?

SHUSTER: -- but that's --

MATTHEWS: He's not that good at that -- handshaking in a diner.

SHUSTER: No --

MATTHEWS: Barack doesn't seem to know how to do that right.

SHUSTER: -- he doesn't do that well. But then you see him in front of 15,000 people in some of these college towns, and that's why, Chris, we've seen Chelsea Clinton and Bill Clinton in Bloomington and South Bend and Terre Haute. I mean --

MATTHEWS: What's so hard about doing a diner? I don't get it. Why doesn't he go in there and say, "Did you see the papers today? What do you think about that team? How did we do last night?" Just some regular connection?

SHUSTER: Well, here's the other thing that we saw on the tape, Chris, is that, when Obama went in, he was offered coffee, and he said, "I'll have orange juice."

MATTHEWS: No.

SHUSTER: He did.

And it's just one of those sort of weird things. You know, when the owner of the diner says, "Here, have some coffee," you say, "Yes, thank you," and, "Oh, can I also please have some orange juice, in addition to this?" You don't just say, "No, I'll take orange juice," and then turn away and start shaking hands. That's what happens [unintelligible] --

MATTHEWS: You don't ask for a substitute on the menu.

SHUSTER: Exactly.

MATTHEWS: David, what a regular guy. You could do this. Anyway, thank you, David Shuster. I mean, go to the diners.

Here you have a guy that can do it. Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania is out on campaign. He campaigned all throughout the state lately for Barack Obama.

Isn't that interesting, Senator Casey, that Barack Obama, your candidate, can walk before 15,000 people with complete calm and assurance, but he seems a little out of place in A) a bowling alley and B) a diner? What is the problem with your guy?

CASEY: Chris, he was fine in the bowling alley. His score was a little low. But I was able -- it was the only thing I was able to beat him at during our bus tour. But he had a great response.

Oh My Freaking God. He can't bowl and he doesn't need caffeine. What kind of pussy IS this guy Barack Obama anyway? Doesn't he know that Real Men Drink Coffee....BLACK coffee (no pun intended, but if the shoe fits...). And they bowl and they like to shoot squirrels off the back porch. And here comes this fancy Negro (sic) with his fancy suits and his hifalutin' language and he thinks he's better than us good ol' boys of the Washington Press Corps?

How DARE he?

/snark (in case you thought I was serious.)

Labels: Chris Matthews, David Shuster, hack journalism, idiocy

Well, now Ive seen everything....

I guess the heat got too hot in the frying pan at MSNBC, and after a phone interview with Morning Joe last week, "Standing by his words..."
and an insane visit with Jay Leno this week, much the same, chuckling and guffawing about how he is the non PC, wild man of politics...grasping on the slippery slope, the vines snapped tonight and there he was at 5PM, looking dolefully into the camera, and telling me something serious.
Something to the effect of; I know I'm wild and crazy; I know I shoot from the hip; but thats who I am. I said some things about Hillary and they were mean...and probably wrong...and unfair too...and I hurt people!! But, I LOVE POLITICS...I love Johnny and Baracky andHill...I love Mittsy and bootsy and bitsy and Bushy....I LOVE YOU ALL!...(and thats why I hit you!)
CAN I , PHULEEZE, STAY ON THE AIR??...Stop the complainin' to the bosses here!!
Now lets get on with the show!

I dont buy it...no, I dont...not even a little...
I wish I had been a fly on the wall in those meetings...imagine what goes into making Matthews make a sincere and personal apology into the camera, between him and us?

And in breaking the 4th wall, (of which 2.5 are made of freakish bluster, even though he technically "talks" to us,) acting as if he sincerely sees us and is communicating from the heart, he proved that he really shouldn't do that; Leave that territory to Keith Olbermann and his brilliant comments. It came off as forced and disingenuous. But what else would we expect from out Tweety?

c/p RIPCoco
c/pSweetJesusIHateChrisMatthews

Labels: Chris Matthews, lies, sociopathy

It snowed in Baghdad yesterday.
In a scene straight out of solemn black and white stories of cease fires at Christmastime, residents of the war torn city marveled at the beauty of the white crystals falling, even if they melted upon hitting the torn apart streets. It hasn't snowed in Baghdad for as long as anyone can remember.

We are living in strange times, my friends.

This past week has been backwards crazy like that; on the heels of Olbermann's O'Reilly puppet theater the other night, in which O'Reilly unsuccessfully messes with Obama security, and then reports of Hannity being chased through NH by Ron Paul supporters, stirred up because Faux News didn't allow Paul to participate in the debate... Along came Dan Abrams complaining that he felt lately that Hillary was being shoved at us by the media! Oh really? The sweet indignation of just realizing what has been happening all along.


....and now Obama is suddenly the second coming!? What was Dan thinking when he was the program director of this very station and he supported the chronically low ratings of Scrappy-doo-Tucky-Carlson, the Libertarian fool, and the non stop rantings of Tweety Matthews, acting as if Hillary was a done deal and there was no point in even discussing other candidates. So sure were the M$M pundits about Hillary, that I started switching it off, because I am just fucking weary of being told what to do by pasty white men.

Yeah, Abrams' outrage rings a little hollow. NOW Dan is with us, in the face of the big bad M$M machine? Well, its possible, I suppose, since MSNBC is maybe the best of the worst of the M$M, but God, who in their right mind allows the likes of Willie Giest to ascend to the role of snide janitor, much less sidekick to the repugnant Morning Joe, and who kept Carlson employed against the usual formula of ratings and sponsors? I wasn't a fly on those walls, but if appearances mean anything, Tucker rode along on his relationships rather than ratings, long after it was clear that any retooling could help him in any way, and once the suits got involved there were slap-downs of Tucker and the "rumors" that Tuckie was on his way out (...also, didn't Tucker thank his 10 viewers on air, and then get reprimanded for it by the bosses?)

Granted, they have got Rachel Maddow on every show in a row, just about every night! (and, having quietly shot a pilot already, maybe she can get Kent Jones a gig there...he is sorely missed on Rachel's AAR show!) One good move doesn't clean the slate, but if they do start to build a decent lineup based around Keith, with Rachel taking the nine o'clock slot, it could be great programming for the upcoming Democratic majority! If New Hampshire is any indication, the snotty conservative pundits who used to have a stranglehold on all of the airtime they wanted, haven fallen from favor, along with their masters in the White House...

After writing the above rant the other day, I was surprised, pleased, and honored to receive an invitation to join Jill's newest project: a blog called Sweet Jesus I Hate Chris Matthews!
Not only was I pleased that she would consider my pitiful missives that are coming pretty irregularly lately, but also I'm kinda thrilled that we are all on the same page about this thing. I spend alot of time wondering if I'm just a crazy fool who was born at the wrong time, in the wrong world, and when I get any sort of confirmation of my sanity and/or remaining humanity around me, I feel so much better! Thats what got me started writing this opinion sort of stuff (and who watches more MSNBC than me??) and thats whats allowed me to go on through the morass of the Bush years and the press playing along like some sort of hired PR team.

And, it wasn't only me and Jill; it was also the entire newscycle, that left old Chris, by last Thursday, saying things like "the popular feeling is that the media...well, me actually..." influenced the outcome of the elections.... So, after years of being a sort of political kingmaker, in servitude to whosoever's stock was going up, and manipulating the American people by playing along with the farce that is his shtick; that no one could have known that any one thing or another was gonna turn out badly in this nightmare called the Bush years; no one could have known? I knew! So many of us knew! How come there were printed bumper stickers, way back then, that said "ATTACK IRAQ? NO!!," (to which has been added a new horrific array of other versions and countries,) right here in my neighborhood?

And regardless if who Tweety Matthews has ever written a speech for or been on staff with, it is an inarguable fact that he, and most of the other M$M pundits were decidedly leaning towards the talking points that were coming out of the White House in their reportage of the news leading up to this fiasco, and ever since. Its not even like any of the press would have had to look far or confirm all that much of the reams of information that was being dumped in their laps, already having been researched and confirmed. The only would have had to put their jobs on the line to report it.

So, when Tweety Matthews and his producers felt it prudent to give the stage to Michelle Malkin, as if she deserved to be on any show further towards the mainstream than the Jerry Springer Show; when they chose to allow old Tweety to literally drool on Ann Coulter, as if this is the kind of woman that anyone (especially a college crowd, which he was entertaining that week,) should aspire to be like some mean trannie with an ax to grind and books to sell, its so far beyond the pale, and begs some programming and social questions at the very least....Unless, of course, MSNBC aspires to be more like Fox News.

The pale? Well, here is a guy who finds all of this politics stuff so fun and interesting, like alot of us do. He rubs his hands together and turns all red, practically jumping up with anticipation of the upcoming primaries and what they could possibly mean. But somewhere along the line, he seems to have disconnected with the reality of what he is doing ,and what it means in the life and death struggles of not only our soldiers around the world, but of the growing number of Americans who are suffering due to the economy and our lack of health care.

So, even with the turn back towards the middle, and the network's seeming attempt to start to show a little deference to what is actually happening in the country, there is still a bit of problem with the ongoing bipolar swings of not only Tweet, but the bunch of them. When you start to wish that all pundits could be as stable as old Pat Buchanan (even if you disagree with him,) you're in trouble. When you start to think from time to time that Morning Joe has a point or two right, you're in big trouble...but across the board, we all think that something is wrong, and getting wronger, with Tweety.

On the heels of this week, came word that Timmeuh Russert is going to give Hillary an entire hour on Sunday; and entire hour! Not only was Timmeuh featured on Hardball to promote this hour, but Tweet went on about how it was going to be the hardest hitting, most important interview in the whole wide world!! And this, as part of the umpteenth time that Tweety was musing on how Hillary should and would concede; bow out of the whole show, gracefully...you know, back off.

It makes me think of how Kos has supposedly been trying to manipulate the republican primaries by having dems vote for Romney...met by such outrage! Such venom!...on both sides....But How are we supposed to view a 1 hour "hard hitting" commercial for Hillary to display her newest self? And how are we supposed to take an entire segment of Timmeuh and Tweet's delight at being able to present her newest self?

Crazymaking; after so many months of beginning every interview with anyone even remotely involved in the election process with a question like "With Hillary as the obvious candidate of choice for the democrats, what do you think of....?" Then planning her fall...now he views this interview as the most historic, interesting, and hard hitting thing to ever happen!
Either he is just trying to go with the flow as he sees it day by day, he is seriously bi-polar and not in control of which way his mania is leading him on any particular day, or this has all been a plan to try to shape the discourse....And, if so, I don't think that its working. Its clear anyway that he is not all that fond of Hillary...or women in general.

The feeling that I'm getting is that in the shadow of being so wrong all the time lately, fearing that his power is slipping as a new generation of more liberal pundits makes their way into his world, and the reality of electing a woman as president looms large, he is very confused about how to act, but is sure that he must keep being the boisterous Chris Matthews that he always was. Whats clear is that something is wrong. Ive watched him almost daily for years, as something that I turn on in the background while I putter in the evening, and something that my entire family watches, and there is something amiss there.

Look for Tweety to pull out some of his personality to match Hillary's new campaign of showing people more of who she is emotionally. I want to start a pool about tears; the tears of Hillary, the tears of Tweet, the tears of all the clowns! (cue: circus music)

c/p RIPCoco
c/p Sweet Jesus I Hate Chris Matthews!

Labels: Chris Matthews, MSNBC, Tim Russert

Welcome, haterz!

If you've come here from Sweet Jesus I Hate Chris Matthews, let me first apologize for not picking up the place a little and not having any cake in the house. But frankly, I hadn't expected so many visitors.

I set the site up a few days ago on a whim, simultaneously thinking that someone really ought to set up a central point for All Things Tweety, and wondering why no one had done it before. I put up a starter post, opened the doors to others who felt the need to vent their bile after watching Hardball, and figured it would be one of those far-flung corners of the blogosphere, updated occasionally and visited more occasionally. That in two days it's spread like wildfire gives me some hope that maybe...just maybe...the Washington pundit corps, including Tweety, have been chastened just a bit, and that Americans may start greeting what they say with more skepticism than they have lo these last seven years.

Labels: blogs, Chris Matthews, hack journalism

After reading from Melissa at lunchtime that Tweety was back on his Hillary Hatred Horse today, I decided that no matter how dirty a job it was, someone had to do it.

Behold Sweet Jesus I Hate Chris Matthews.

So far the awesome Melissa and the equally awesome Richard Blair have signed on as contributors, with hopefully more bright lights of Blogtopia(™ Skippy) to come.

But Chris Matthews may have inadvertently done a service with his fear and loathing: he may have actually made younger feminists, post-feminists if you will, understand what it was like for women in the 1970's and earlier

Like Rebecca Traister, for instance:

Is it possible that for the first time in my life, my reaction to a political news cycle could have mirrored a larger national feeling? Could Matthews and his threatened brethren, who came damned close to putting this Hillary disbeliever on the path to feminist redemption (who knows how I'll vote; but I do know that I am happy that I'll now likely have the opportunity to cast a vote for the candidate of my choice and not of MSNBC's), actually have shaped what happened on Tuesday in New Hampshire in a similar fashion? Exit polling and analysis be damned, we'll likely never really know what electoral alchemy landed Hillary Clinton an unexpected victory. Finally, around 11:30, Matthews was forced to suck it up. Looking like he was chewing on a lemon, he said of his nemesis, "She stood there and took the heat under what looked to be a difficult time. I give her a lot of personal credit. I will never underestimate Hillary Clinton again."

An unlikely promise. But here's a message from the women of New Hampshire, and me, to Hillary Clinton's exuberant media antagonists: You have no power here. Now be gone, before somebody drops a house on you!

From Maureen Dowd to Chris Matthews, we've seen a microcosm today of exactly what happens in this society to women who talk too much, who don't look like supermodels, who have reached an age when all the botox in the world won't make them 25 anymore. And it isn't just Hillary. If you saw Chris Matthews with Elizabeth Edwards (another tough old broad, albeit one with a warmer demeanor) last week (I'll try to dig up the video), you know that while he reserves his worst barbs for Hillary, any woman will do.

All of this may have made me angry, but it hasn't made me stupid. Hillary is still the candidate who voted for Kyl/Lieberman, something we shouldn't forget while George W. Bush is thrusting his defiance at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again just when the election season is getting going. But while I may disagree with Hillary Clinton on policy, and I may not be willing to vote for her, I'm damn well going to defend her right to be a candidate.

Especially if it means I get to rip Tweety to shreds.

Labels: blogs, Chris Matthews, hack journalism

Tweety: Media Putz of the Decade. Kudos to Elizabeth the Great for swatting him around like a pesky fly.

Labels: Chris Matthews, hack journalism

The clock starts ticking at 5 PM on Wednesday, next time (presumably) Hardball is live.

Let's take a stroll down memory lane, shall we? To October 11, 2000's Hardball:

MATTHEWS: Does Al Gore have a truth problem, and is it going to hurt him?

ESTRICH: He's got this little problem, but it's not really about truth. I mean, you have to say about Clinton that when he lied, at least it was worth it to lie.

MATTHEWS: Right. Let me put it this way --

ESTRICH: Gore -- this is like --

MATTHEWS: -- you're not answering the question --

ESTRICH: -- [former Rep.] Dan Rostenkowski [D-IL] --

MATTHEWS: -- I want to try it again. No --

ESTRICH: -- and postage stamps.

MATTHEWS: -- no. If you apply to college, or you apply for a job, and you say, "I discovered Love Canal, I invented the Internet," these little --

ESTRICH: Oh, no.

MATTHEWS: -- problems are serious questions of character and resume inflation.

Now let's look at Willard Mitt Romney:

Mitt Romney acknowledged yesterday that he never saw his father march with Martin Luther King Jr. as he asserted in a nationally televised speech this month, and historical evidence shows that Michigan's Governor George Romney and the civil rights leader never did march together.

Romney said his father had told him he had marched with King and that he had been using the word "saw" in a "figurative sense."

"If you look at the literature, if you look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of in the sense I've described," Romney told reporters in Iowa. "It's a figure of speech and very familiar, and it's very common. And I saw my dad march with Martin Luther King. I did not see it with my own eyes, but I saw him in the sense of being aware of his participation in that great effort."

But historical evidence, including news accounts at the time, shows that George Romney never marched with King, though he supported King's agenda.

Susan Englander, assistant edi tor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University, who is editing the King papers from that era, told the Globe yesterday: "I researched this question, and indeed it is untrue that George Romney marched with Martin Luther King."

She said that when he was governor of Michigan, George Romney issued a proclamation in June 1963 in support of King's march in Detroit, but declined to attend, saying he did not participate in political events on Sundays. A New York Times story from the time confirms Englander's account.

Does it all depend on what the definition of "saw" is?

The last time we heard Chris Matthews say anything substantive about Mitt Romney was December 13, when he talked about Romney's "As long as you believe in a Great White Alpha Male in the Sky, you're an American" speech. As the "My father marched with Martin Luther King" story has developed over the last week, and Romney has devolved into Clintonesque parsing, Matthews has been strangely silent. Given Matthews' harping on statements falsely attributed to Al Gore, is his fawning, nearly homoerotic praise of Romney from August 13, going to keep him from giving Romney the same treatment he gave Al Gore in 2000?

UPDATE: OK, so he expressed some mild exasperation on Friday's show. That still doesn't equate to the relentless hammering he gave Al Gore in 2000.

Labels: Chris Matthews, hack journalism, Mitt Romney

I really think it's time we faced the fact that no matter how many times Chris Matthews claims to be disgusted with the right and with the war in Iraq, his closeted manlove of tough talk will ultimately get the best of him every time. This man is so in love with the mythical "big tough guy" of American mythology that it trumps everything else -- the war in Iraq, Alberto Gonzales, the spying on Americans, the funnelling of ever more money into the pockets of the already obscenely wealthy -- everything Republicans stand for. All pales before the Mighty Republican Penis.

ThinkProgress has the video. Some excerpts (emphases mine):

That was a powerful press conference by Pres. Bush. I thought in those last couple of moments, those of you who watched, were given a rare opportunity to hear the real philosophy of this administration with regard to the war in Iraq; a powerful rendition by the president of why we're there. When he talked about how we can support emerging democracies in the Middle East, and that's the only way we can prevent future 9/11s, you're getting to the heart of why this administration is fighting that war in Iraq. It's not just about nation-building, it's not just about funding an ally in the war against terror. It's about building a counter force against the sources of all the anti-Western hostility in that part of the world.

I thought, in listening to the President, I was listening to one of the great neoconservative minds who's worked in this administration, the former deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz, who at lunch with me way before this war began made the case you heard tonight -- the only way we stop 9/11s, the only way we prevent attacks on this country, is to kill the hostility towards this country, and the only way to do that is to build democracies in that part of the world, in the Middle East, where young people in their 20's feel they have opportunities and not where they feel frustrated and feel that they're repressed by governments that although they may be allied with the United States, do not give them freedom. This president is ready to fight like a rock through the rest of his term. He made it clear that he's going to fight as long as it takes to develop a democracy in Iraq; there's not going to be any change come September.

With regard to Iran, he was very subtle today...he talked about the consequences of the fact that Iran is sending IEDs and other arms to be used against American soldiers in Iraq, he said they're going to pay a price for that, he wants Maliki to go along with that, he doesn't care of Maliki smiles when he meets with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today, he does care if Maliki, who we're behind in Iraq, doesn't get the message across to stop sending weaponry against US GIs and against the Iraqis across that Iraq//Iranian border. That was a powerful message, but very subtly delivered

On the subject of bridges, the sexual metaphor continues:

...I believe the president blamed Congress today for pork barrel; instead of building bridges and fixing bridges according to need, according to a reasonable set of national priorities, what Congresspeople do with their offices is use their membership in the public works and the appropriations committees to bring home pork. He stuck it to them.

Rammed 'em. Hard. Forcefully. You can almost hear Tweety start to breathe hard.

When George W. Bush gets up in front of a podium and with his whiny, angry, reedy little voice puts on the bellicosity, Matthews forgets everything he's ever said about this war and fondly remembers the flightsuit -- the one with the padded codpiece that gave him that funny little feeling in his tummy and perhaps even lower.

MediaMatters has more about Matthews' obsession with male....size:

While discussing the Democratic presidential candidates on the August 8 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews asserted: "I don't see a big, beefy alternative to [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] -- a big guy. You know what I mean? An ... every-way big guy. I don't see one out there. I see a lot of slight, skinny, second- and third-rate candidates." Matthews prefaced his comment by saying, "I guess I'm thinking of an Eddie Rendell were in the race -- the governor of Pennsylvania -- or if [former Vice President] Al Gore were in the race or someone else who's a good heavyweight to be running."

As Media Matters for America noted, during MSNBC's August 7 coverage of the AFL-CIO Democratic presidential forum, Matthews asked Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson about former Sen. John Edwards' (NC) performance: "Why did they seem to be glancing blows that didn't grab the audience? Is the fact that he's a small man -- I mean, literally, physically?" Robinson responded: "He's not physically that small."

Isn't it time Chris Matthews came out of the closet already?

Labels: Chris Matthews, hack journalism