Chris Matthews, here's your big bowl of STFU

Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 13 2008 @ 01:59 PM EST

love chris mathews

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 22 2008 @ 09:38 AM EST

Just found this blog, and enjoyed the screed. I too find Matthews loathsome, and have since I first saw him on TV. He’s committed to an old-school, backroom, ethnicity-based politics, which is why he hearts Giuliani so much. (And fellates him . . .) There are not so many of this type left in politics—they became Reagan Democrats or they died off or became Limbaugh conservatives after Reagan, and in general their ethnicities of choice (Irish, Italian, Slav, Black) reconfigured around the reality of Hispanic immigration and a very changed urban landscape of influence and corruption. (This is not even to mention the way that a reconfigured race politics changed ethnic politics in the 90s, and especially aft 9/11, when Muslims/Arabs became the new ultimate other, a role they share with Latinos. Barack Obama is not the first viable African American presidential candidate for no good reason, nor does he appeal to certain elements in the Center-Right for no good reason. History has shifted, at last, off the Black/White axis.) Our one true remaining absolutely naturalized binary, however, remains sex and gender. If anything, we’ve regressed sharply from the feminist gains of the 70s through the early 90s since 9/11, out of anxiety perhaps, but also because of the culture wars having a serious effect through the management of fear. Add in the gay panic and the evangelical rabid dogs (and a few Ted Haggards to confuse the matter) and you’ve got a ripe brew.

So Matthews is nostalgic, and appeals to nostalgic people; the problem is that his analysis is presented as if it is relevant to anything in the present other than nostalgia. When it is offered as serious “punditry” rather than the griping of an Andy-Rooney-esque old man in his dotage, it infuriates people.

Plus he’s just sort of a putzhead. And a cynic. And not very smart.

He is pushy, and I guess our friend Jeff or whatever upthread sees that as “tough” whereas I just see it as rude and aggressive with almost anyone—including fellow journalists he’s decided are attractive enough to warrant the completely inappropriate sexual attention of this no doubt erectilely-dysfunctional blowhard in his 60s who is trying really, really hard to look like he is in his 40s. He’s a lech, on top of it all.

But tough questions? Hardly. And *rarely* if ever to a republican or a “tough guy” of either party. Jeff, name one hard hitting interview where Matthews actually hammered a powerful Republican until he broke a lie apart the way Jon Stewart routinely does—Jon Stewart mind you, a comedian who also tore Matthews apart on his show a couple of months back.

Very occasionally, Matthews will penetrate, so to speak, a politician’s spin space—as he does brutally with Didi Myers in the clip above. But watch him kiss DeLay’s or Rudy’s anal sphincters some day and then tell me he’s fair. He takes on Myers because she’s a woman, and because she shows weakness, he bullies her over and over with the same inane point, as if she was an important person in the Clinton campaign.

One of the worst non-journalists (because there is absolutely no commitment to objectivity or source checking in his “work” and he is purely cynical about power) and so-called “pundits” on television. Bar none. And a total embarrassment to MSNBC at this point.

They should replace him with Rachel Maddow. That would be very interesting to see. I actually like the rapport between Maddow and Pat Buchanan, too—Pat, who comes from the same school of bullshit politics as Matthews, is at least chivalrous and reasonably eloquent—so a joint show for the two of them could work.

But shitcan Matthews, MSNBC, before you’ve got an Imus situation on your hands, again.

[ Reply to This | # ]