The NY Post:
So, should viewers of Tuesday’s Re publican presidential debate expect an exchange of views between the candidates – or between the candidates and one of the event’s moderators?
It’s a fair question, given the jaw-dropping comments Thursday evening from MSNBC blowhard – and scheduled debate moderator – Chris Matthews.
Matthews was celebrating the 10th anniversary of his “Hardball” program at a Washington event, when he let loose a broadside at the White House.
Bush & Co., he declared, had “finally been caught in their criminality.”
He compared this White House’s behavior with another one, saying, “Spiro Agnew was not an American hero.”
Of the vice president, Matthews said, “God help us if we had Cheney during the Cuban missile crisis. We’d all be under a parking lot.”
Now, “Hardball” is an opinion show, and Matthews is certainly entitled to his opinions – however offensively he chooses to express them.
But why should any Republican candidate expect fairness from Matthews now?
So many things in this piece are delightful- is the Post contending that Spiro Agnew, driven from office for bribery, is in fact an American hero? You can guarantee this piece will be viral on right wing blogs. At any rate, I agree with the Post. No one outside the insular inner circle of the conservative media fluffersphere can be trusted to be fair. Let an outsider in, and all sorts of facts and truth might break out. Some possible replacements for Matthews:
Rush Limbaugh- We could make the debate a twofer- celebrate the candidacy of these fine republicans while marking the end of Rush’s probation!
Sean Hannity- After all, he is fair AND balanced! What is not to like?
And, if all else fails, we could see is John Hinderaker is busy.
*** Update ****
From the comments, some past performances from obviously hateful liberal and sufferer of BDS, Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Bob Dornan, you were a congressman all those years. Here’s a president who’s really nonverbal. He’s like Eisenhower. He looks great in a military uniform. He looks great in that cowboy costume he wears when he goes West. I remember him standing at that fence with Colin Powell. Was [that] the best picture in the 2000 campaign?
[…]MATTHEWS: Ann Coulter, you’re the first to speak tonight on the buzz. The president’s performance tonight, redolent of the best of Reagan — what do you think?
COULTER: It’s stunning. It’s amazing. I think it’s huge. I mean, he’s landing on a boat at 150 miles per hour. It’s tremendous. It’s hard to imagine any Democrat being able to do that. And it doesn’t matter if Democrats try to ridicule it. It’s stunning, and it speaks for itself.
Zifnab
When the Republicans get steamrolled in ’08, how long do you think it will take before someone announces how it seems like the institution of Democracy itself only promotes the terrorists?
Can’t trust the media, can’t trust the debate moderators, can’t trust 70% of the American public, can’t trust the soldiers who may or may not be phoney. Is “paranoid” a viable platform for a political party?
Incertus (Brian)
Ah, John, I feel sorry for you. The wingers are going to give you no end of grief for this. You’ve been complimented on the front page of the Great Orange Satan.
Margaret
Welcome to my world. Matthews has been talking over and dismissing progressive candidates for years now. Matthews also said that the Bush White House and Darth Cheney in particular have been putting pressure on his bosses to control the message in a very Orwellian style. Chris Matthews has always been an opinion show just like Hannity, O’Reilly, Cavuto, Rush, Carlson, Beck, Scarborough, Hume and on and on. Progressives have Olberman. Yeah, it’s so “liberal” out there….
RSA
This insularity is kind of funny. First is the assumption that voters will see little difference between the current candidates and Bush, who isn’t running. While this may be true, Matthews wasn’t attacking Republicans in general but the White House in particular. Second is the the thought that anyone who comments negatively on the current President should be prevented from moderating a debate for that party’s candidates. Did the Post make a similar observation about moderators of Democratic Presidential candidates back in the Clinton-bashing days, pre-2000? Somehow I doubt it.
Dug Jay
I’m not sure that what the Post is recommending differs from what the Democrat candidates did when they refused to appear on the scheduled Fox debate a few months ago.
John Cole
In winger world, you are right. MSNBC is liberal and Fox is non-partisan in that created reality.
Here on planet earth, though, if you look at the actual ideological spectrum, Fox news is right-wing hackdowm, MSNBC is center/center right (Matthews, at least), and the NY Times is center-left.
So while the Post will contend it is the same, it isn’t.
W.B.Reeves
You mean other than the fact that the Candidates were/are partisan politicians engaged in partisan politics and the Post is supposedly a journalistic enterprise?
As RSA points out, criticism of the sitting administration doesn’t necessarily translate to a general criticism of, or bias against, every member of the ruling party. That really depends on whether the candidates choose to lash themselves to the mast of Bush’s Pequod regime.
Not to mention that Matthews’ record during the past six years hardly suggests the sort of knee jerk hostility towards the GOP that Fox has exhibited towards anyone to the left of Dick Cheney.
Incertus (Brian)
Six years? I’d go for nearly double that, considering how much of a Clinton basher he was during Bill’s tenure.
whippoorwill
I use to really like Matthews and his show Hardball. But now, one day he’ll say something thoughtfull and honest, and the next he’ll be drooling on the shoes of Ann Coulter or Laura Ingraham. Or talking about how manly Fred Thompson is with his “Aqua Velva” persona. Not to mention wildly conflicting commentaries on Bush and Cheney and their acolytes. Maybe he’s trying to impress NBC wingnut executives or still suffering after effects of Malaria, but he’s just too creepy for me to take seriously anymore.
laneman
The right wingnuttosphere is not on this planet – – though you know that.
The Other Steve
To be fair. I wouldn’t want Matthews hosting a Democratic debate either.
In Matthews mind, pissing off everybody means he is fair and balanced.
But in reality, it just makes him a fucking idiot.
The Other Steve
BTW. Isn’t Hugh Hewitt available to host a debate?
He could ask questions like who could possibly be more qualified for the Supreme Court than Harriet Miers?
norbizness
This is how:
MATTHEWS: What’s the importance of the president’s amazing display of leadership tonight?
[…]
MATTHEWS: What do you make of the actual visual that people will see on TV and probably, as you know, as well as I, will remember a lot longer than words spoken tonight? And that’s the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when he was younger, obviously. What does that image mean to the American people, a guy who can actually get into a supersonic plane and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin like an actual jet pilot?
[…]
MATTHEWS: Do you think this role, and I want to talk politically […], the president deserves everything he’s doing tonight in terms of his leadership. He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics. Do you think he is defining the office of the presidency, at least for this time, as basically that of commander in chief? That […] if you’re going to run against him, you’d better be ready to take [that] away from him.
[…]
MATTHEWS: Ann Coulter, you’re the first to speak tonight on the buzz. The president’s performance tonight, redolent of the best of Reagan — what do you think?
COULTER: It’s stunning. It’s amazing. I think it’s huge. I mean, he’s landing on a boat at 150 miles per hour. It’s tremendous. It’s hard to imagine any Democrat being able to do that. And it doesn’t matter if Democrats try to ridicule it. It’s stunning, and it speaks for itself.
Bubblegum Tate
Also by stealth Islamocommienazifacist Glenn Greenwald.
Me
“In winger world, you are right. MSNBC is liberal and Fox is non-partisan in that created reality.
Here on planet earth, though, if you look at the actual ideological spectrum, Fox news is right-wing hackdowm, MSNBC is center/center right (Matthews, at least), and the NY Times is center-left.
So while the Post will contend it is the same, it isn’t.”
Really? What’s your criteria, that you say it’s so? “My guys aren’t as biased because…because…because I say they aren’t.” Fox News is “right wing” while everyone else is “center” something. Here on planet earth that’s called a bunch of hooey. I’ve always wondered, though, and I really mean this: Do you guys believe these statements when you make them, or are you just taking one for the team by appearing less than…bright?
whippoorwill
“Science-y” Must be wingnut dissection science. Or Comparative Fucktard Wingnuttery. No No. It must be studies in post -modern bedwetter republicanism.
good catch mr. . Incertus [Brian}
Fred
Considering the only 2 MSNBC hosts with the brains to mediate a debate are Matthews and Olberman, Matthews seems the obvious choice for a Republican debate. Though, since most Republican debates are 50% bashing Dems, 40% talking nonsense and being generally uninformed and 10% Giuliani evading answering in the first place, I’m not sure a moderator is needed anyhow.
Redleg
Stupid people like Coulter wanted to pretend that Bush was actually piloting that jet. What rubes she must think people are.
RSA
Wingers can pretend that this part of Matthews’s spiel
was a backhanded compliment: blue-blood Ivy League MBAs generally aren’t too convincing as cowboys, no matter how much they like to shoot off guns.
whippoorwill
Piloting what jet? Coulter was obviously taking about Bush piloting his penis onto that carrier.
Chuck Butcher
In my own little way I’ll pile on with the progressive bloggers, you do a good job John. I’m much too far left for you to like a lot, but like many lefties, I don’t like you because you agree with me, I like you for standing up for principles – a different thing. Though I’d never vote for him (assuming the unlikely primary win) I like Ron Paul. There’s a huge difference between principled stands on our foundational law and policy issues, so he can’t have my vote, but I can admire him.
Balloon Juice maintains a level of principle, that in your case would serve the Republican Party well, too bad for them. I am not happy to see an opposition party implode, though I’m real happy to see it happen to the current iteration of Republicanism. I am far enough left to have a very real appreciation for opposition politics, I fill that role in the Democratic Party.
Tsulagi
LOL! Wow. So is she talking about Commander Guy’s chauffered ride out to the Abraham Lincoln parked off San Diego for 24 hours while he went through remedial training on how to get into a flight suit? Or is she getting excited about the Depends wadded up under his suit thinking it’s something else?
One thing you can say for Annie, she doesn’t have a gag reflex when it counts.
Horselover Fat
In Leni Riefenstiehl’s “Triumph of the Will,” Adolf Hitler, wearing military clothing, lands in a small plane at a military base, where he is then surrounded by a crowd of admiring soldiers. One wonders if the people who thought up the aircraft carrier photo op plagiarized the concept from Riefenstiehl.
Helena Montana
I predict that the manly scent from all those Republicans in one room will make chris matthews swoon from ecstasy.
TenguPhule
1. FOX defending the right to lie to the public and still be called news.
2. Mislabeling Democrats and Republicans repeatedly.
3. Posting such lovely headlines like ‘Are Democrats and Terrorist Messages on the Same Page’ and other shit along those lines.
4. Billo
daniel rotter
John Kerry went on Bill O’Reilly’s TV show even after the latter, on his radio show, called the former a “sissy.” Also, if the Republican presidential candidates can’t face a moderator based on a comment that wasn’t even directed at them, then how can they face Al-Qaeda.
daniel rotter
Actually, the last word of the last sentence of my post should read “Al-Qaeda?” My apologies.
jcricket
Don’t forget that he’s a fa**ot too.
He is obviously self-hating, because he loves the Iranians so much and they don’t believe in gays, so he obviously doesn’t believe in himself.
I personally believe that children are our future. Teach them well, and keep them off of right-wing blogs. Or something like that.
bago
Years pass…
Hey. It’s progress.
Keith
And don’t forget the hard-on that Matthews has for Tom DeLay:
MATTHEWS: Tom DeLay, you are not in this buisness for the money. You live modestly [in Sugarland, home of many Rockets and Astros] You commute back and forth from Washington to Houston, Texas. Why? What drives you every day?
And of course, the most hilarious comedy routine of all time:
MATTHEWS: Do you think that’s unfair to say that you went over there [Scotland] on a junket?
DELAY: It’s incredibly unfair.
MATTHEWS: Why? Who paid for the trip?
DELAY: A legitimate conservative organization.
MATTHEWS: But wasn’t there a pass through?
DELAY: No, there was no pass through.
MATTHEWS: They came up with the money themselves.
DELAY: That’s exactly right. They raised their money themselves.
Gus
Coulter’s right. It’s hard to imagine a Democrat landing on an aircraft carrier in a jet being flown by someone else.