Ruthless People @ 1:

Are we still doing frist?

Yes, unless you comment first and then we aren't.

I'm just teasing you.

Chris Matthews has just become noise. His ego is what keeps him breathing.

pissed off patricia @ 2:

Ruthless People @ 1:

Are we still doing frist?

Yes, unless you comment first and then we aren't.

I'm just teasing you.

I can take it....usually :)

Ruthless People @ 1:

Are we still doing frist?

No it's foist...or primero....

He is mentally ill. And has the most annoying voice on TV. Did I mention I hate the way he cuts everyone off? Did I mention I can't watch him for more than 15 seconds? I have to take my meds now....

after the second time i watched "hardball" (seven years ago) i knew matthews was a putz.

on the rare occasions recently when he has said something even vaguely flattering to a democrat, people around here have been a little generous in their praise of him.

see chris matthews' mouth? see it open? hear those words? they're either lies or a setup.

the difference between bill and Chris is bill is a moron and Chris is just talking out of his ass.

Chris swooned when bush walked out on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln wearing that flight suit.

Great video. Matthews is one of the most influential pundits??? The guys has ADD for gods sake. He can't stay on topic. He jumps from subject to subject like a crazed monkey. I saw him on the Colbert show when he really tried to hurt Stephen with some karate moves. Very unsettling. Well you have to be somewhat unbalanced to spend two hours every night dispensing complete BS.

It's always amusing to hear the reich-wing twits accusing Matthews of being a librul leftist.

Welcome to my world of rage about what Mathews gets away with. There are websites devoted to his rants and Tourettes like racist/sexist/anti decency remarks & bloviations. Media Matters has an entire page devoted to his outrageous comments. Every now and then after he feels the heat, he gets surrogates to speak for him. In Feb, after he had to apologize to Sen Clinton, he got Ed "the big dumb thug" Schultz from AirAmerica to dis her so he could triangulate his contempt.

There are entire websites devoted to protesting his unchecked outrages. This is a good one
http://thecurvature.com/2008/06/06/chris-matthews-racism-watch/

What I do is regularly send messages to capus & griffin @ NBC and complain specifically. phil.griffin@nbc.com, steve.capus@nbc.com.

He's aware of this and tries to stop just short, but seldom does. If we spent 5 minutes calling him out and complaining, maybe this would cease.

i love brave new films and robert greenwald, i do... and i can get intensely angry w/matthews... but... i would rather greenwald focus his laser-like attention on more pressing matters. matthews is just a water carrier.

really, though, after watching matthews for years and years the one thing i could say about him is that he is consistently inconsistent. one day he is raging on about the lies that got us into iraq, the next he is admiring bush's 'straight talk', etc. the clips are, obviously, edited to show one side of matthews. but, if LGF were to take a whack at something like this they could fill just as many clips of him slamming trent lott, of bush, or cheney.

matthews is just too flip-floppy, too wishy washy to direct so much attention on.

matthews' ego is HUGE, and he seems to hold his opinion up above most others, yet his ego is INSANELY fragile.

My brother BIGBONEDED is going to love this one. He despises Tweety with a purple passion.

What is up with Tweety's hair? He colors his hair more than I do...

"Are we still doing frist?" - what does this mean?

Unlike Billoney, Chris Matthews is a cult of personality waiting to happen. He's a sycophant-wannabe. He wants an authority figure to dominate him so badly that his need is almost palpable. Billo is a coward and a bully but he's not a follower - Matthews is an empty little man who wants to bask in the light of reflected glory.

I am reminded of the Simpson's episode when Kent Brockman quickly capitulated to the space ants. Tweety would do exactly the same, except he would comment on how good the ants look in flight suits.

he is predictably....unpredictable........i don't let him influence my thoughts many times i'm like did he really say that and seems to be getting worse....after showing obvious favortisim(sp)he tries to offset it....he speaks before he thinks

Raza Sohail @ 17:

When O'Reilly talks about 'far left propaganda' or 'nutbags' I usually laugh it off as the ramblings of a deranged lunatic, which they usually are. But I completely disagree with these kinds of videos and look at them as propaganda. The fact that people are sitting here and talking about getting him fired because they disagree with what he says is simply astonishing.

I'm no fan of matthews, but he puts forward a certain point of view in his own way. His style can be careless at times, and he makes his bias obvious, but to try to get him fired because he puts a republican slant on things? Give me a break guys. Should Olbermann be fired because he puts a liberal slant on his show?

And I have to say, that little whisper at the end of the video, just makes it look more like a GOP attack piece, not a fair portrayal of who Matthews is. As an outsider, I find this entire discussion disappointing.

Accurate investigative journalism is the job of the media. He does none of that. His job is way too important for a third rate intellect like his.
I understand why you refer to yourself as an outsider.

I started calling Matthews on his style/substance/content by e-mailsto him 5 years ago, I guess before it became fasionable. The guy has always been poison. But occasionally, he comes up with something worth saving him for.

abiodun @ 36:

I started calling Matthews on his style/substance/content by e-mailsto him 5 years ago, I guess before it became fasionable. The guy has always been poison. But occasionally, he comes up with something worth saving him for.

Lots of monkeys all with typewriters phenomenon.

dennis @ 37:

Charlotte @ 21:

eh. Matthews just has political ADD. He doesn't shill for either side imo.

The Republicans think he shills for Obama as much as you think he shills for McCain. See:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/06/10/matthews-voting...

the real question is why Fox News gets away with KNOWING lies. That's what people should be really up in arms about. At least the putzes on MSNBC aren't blatantly reading off talking points from the White House.

Well, no, they just read off the talking points from the left-wing blogs from that day. Then the left-wing blogs high-five the MSNBC putzes the next day. And around and around it goes.

That is a real laugh. Matthews uttering left wing blog tp's?
Back to Fox for you!

I laugh when I read that some of the posters here who want to give this RNC "brown eye" lover late in the game "credibility". Like Judy Miller, Novak, Friedman, Chrissy is an accessory to genocidal mass murder. Chris Matthews is your prototypical jail house bitch who will switch sides in a heart beat and will do any "favor" you want so long as you don't beat him. Don't trust him.

Matthews is a kid, a manboy. Politics to Matthews is like a candy store and he is like a kid in a candy store. He doesn't care if it's blue or red, he just want some candy! I don't watch him anymore, too conservative for my taste.

Ken Max @ 44:

Matthews is a kid, a manboy. Politics to Matthews is like a candy store and he is like a kid in a candy store. He doesn't care if it's blue or red, he just want some candy! I don't watch him anymore, too conservative for my taste.

your right he loves it red or blue.........he just wants to be part of it.....he has fans and haters just like politics division
personally i get more out watching charlie rose complete sentences....reasonable explaination time

thank you for exposing this asshole for what he is. He really likes to go on liberal leaning shows and pretend like he's this great liberal thinking mediator. He laughs, chuckles and smirks his way through, all the time pretending he's a liberal. The clips show him for what he is: he's the media's equivalent of Lieberman. In other words, he's a spineless turncoat who is after ratings and the prestigious network anchor position. He at this juncture could actually qualify since the news anchor position no longer requires morals or ethics. Chuckle that one up. After November there has to be a way to purge all of the enablers. Sadly, Chris Matthews is nothing more than mouthpiece for the conservative or Republican agenda.

I'd give my 5$ to see Brokaw slap Tweety until he breaks down in tears (3-4 swings . .tops). It's what he wants.

I think John Amato first blogged this one:

Why don't the damn Democrats give the president his day? He won today. He did well today.
~Chris Matthews

Dr. (terrorist fit jab) Matt @ 51:

We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits.
~Chris Matthews

Picked up no doubt from Think Progress....or some other left-wing blog.

i remember that he says this crap to get a reaction he just a talking head nothing else he tries real hard to align himself with anybody but not good at it.....what's he good being unpredictable....in a predictable way

i think most of you are taking this a bit too far...

yes, his show can be tough to watch with the constant interrupting.
yes, he says stupid things, at least once a show.
but to say he is conservative is just completely false. i get that he has his "man-crushes" as the blogger world seems to call them, and i agree they are real. but when in comes to facts and politics, he is one of the most liberal commentators on tv (sad to say), and the biggest media name to be outwardly against the war from the beginning. he is totally in the tank for obama, just reams apart conservative guests and their talking points (especially over the past 18 months or so), etc. so, fine, hate him for being a sexist jerk (which he probably is), but don't hate him for being conservative, cause its bullshit.

This guy LOVES to hear himself talk. And talk. And talk. His guests just sit there in silence. He THINKS he knows American history, and World history. WRONG.
Nobody gets to get a word in edgewise, otherwise he'd be shown up for the fool he is.

Brave New Films has hit the nail on the head.

America continues to suffer because of these right wing "journalists".

Can we really curtail it?

Unlike O'Reilly, Matthews spends a lot of time trashing the Republicans.

Chrissy lost me with his Ann Coulter fuckfest last summer. In fact, I rarely watch MSNBC anymore. Unless I need to see what's going on in prison - LOCKDOWN!-

:-D

KO was the last show that I would tune into on MSNBC and then his ego and hatred for all things Clinton took him over the edge too. Tweety has always been unwatchable. I now consider MSNBC just another Faux network and not worth my time.

One more interresting nugget on Chris Matthew; He is the ONLY "so called" democrat to ever substitute on the Rush Limbaugh radio show. It was during the 90's and he spent the whole 3 hours trashing the Clintons.

[ Deleted. Site Monitor]

Matthews seems to me to know political history. I'm less than thrilled by his continuous interruptions, but he does get opinions out of his guests.
As for Oberman (sp?), he voices my own held opinions but he's way over the top. I can't listen to him at all.
But I'll take Matthews over Wolfie on CNN, where every story is important, no matter how dopey it might be. I ain't in no Situation Room, nohow.

fire matthews???
no. fire everyone. the pundits, the editors, and the producers that contribute to the current state of schlock-time news.
why has dan rather been the only one to get the axe?

Pretty please fix the typo on "here me out on this" --> "hear me out on this"

A Buffalo, N.Y.-based humor magazine called The Beast annually lists its 50 Most Loathsome People. They file "charges" against each loathsome individual, and sentence him to an appropriate punishment. (Warning: The Beast is not a uniformly liberal magazine, so, if you choose to follow the links, the humor might sting. This year's top 50, however, seemed aimed at conservatives for the most part.)

In 2007, Chris Matthews was #16:

Charges
• Calling his show "Hardball" is like rechristening ping-pong "Thermonuclear Warfare."

• Displays the slurred, unmodulated speech and unfocused antagonism of an aggrieved middle-management drunk.

• Can read a scurrilous political attack into any paragraph at twenty paces.

• Continues honing his pointless questions as his guests attempt to answer, cutting them off with an affected imperial weariness when their responses are insufficiently inane.

• Apparently ignorant of the implications of satellite technology, Matthews shouts louder at geographically more distant guests.

• Has repeatedly called Ann Coulter "brilliant."

• Referred to Gerald Ford's yuletide demise as the former president's "Christmas card to the country."

• Unable to laugh like a normal human, Matthews compensates by simply shouting "ha!"

Exhibit A
"This country is based on generalizations!"

Sentenced to be . . .
Hillary's White House Press Secretary and personal toilet steward.

He's not a journalist , he's not even an honest " analyst , he's an agenda driven mouth piece for the right , filled with petty comments about Hilliary's eyes " dead people ' , her clapping " geesh , how does he even qualify for even being a pundit .

And David Gregory says the same nonsense , just now saying " there is a serious debate whether troop casualties or pulling out the troops is more important . First of all they are allowing McCain to FRAME the issue , w/o any challenge .
FACT , the majority of IRAQIS want all U.S. troops out of THEIR country , yet nobody brings that up with McCain , during his " its all about troop deaths " , well its NOT .

1. It's also about what the Iraqis WANT and their SOVEREIGNTY.
2 About the lack of clean drinking water killing thousands .
3. About the lack of electricity for the majority of Iraqis .
4. About Deplorable hospitals or non existent hospitals .
5. About the BILLIONS of dollars spent on McCain's .... OCCUPATION for BASES , paid for by U.S. tax payers , that's draining our economy , not to mention the build up of bases in Africa . BILLIONS and BILLIONS .

The lapdog agenda driven puppets won't bring up these issues with McCAIN and WHy we should pay for his OCCUPATION !

I always feel like Keith Olbermann would like to slap old Tweety up side the head when they are on together. Ha! I can feel Keith's pain. Do it Keith.

I liked the way Keith Olbermann straightened Tweety out when he and Keith were covering the primaries.Keith did not let Tweety get over on him ever and it was refreshing to see and hear.More than once Kieth told tweety, in no uncertain terms ,to shut the fuck up and I don't think Tweety even knew that he was being insulted. Way to go Keith!

Raza Sohail @ 83:

Wow, so much hate. you guys really need to lighten up. so what if he's 'agenda driven'. Why chastise him if his agenda doesnt match up with yours? or if he goes after Hillary instead of Bush?

We should all be embracing different points of view and opening ourselves up to other ideas. Not clamping down and pretending that those who disagree with us are somehow the scum of the earth and need to lose their livelihood. Sometimes lines can be crossed, and its fair to expose these guys for it which is one of the reasons I like blogs like C&L. But this self righteous attitude is as bad as what some of the blowhards do on tv.

Nonsense. This isn't about hatred. It's about a media that purports to be objective and is anything but. Nothing Matthews says in this clip is helpful public political discourse, but the media pretends that it is.

Having all sides represented in editorial segments is fantastic when discussing issues. But the media no longer discusses issues. It only discusses degrading rubbish like Sen. Clinton's cackle.

Everything Matthews does is a disgrace, and it belittles us as a serious nation to have him on the air as a serious analyst.

To be completely honest I think that video was more or less a complete pile of bullshit. You can really cherry pick a lot from a guy when he is on television one hour a night, 5 days a week for how many years now? Combine that with the fact that due to the context of the show 90% of the dialog is complete ad libbing, and opinion... I could make a 2 minute clip painting the guy to be the biggest, bleeding heart liberal on the planet if I wanted, shit, I am sure you could come up with 2 minutes of him saying or acting in a way that would make him out to be just about any caricature you would like.

Matthews is great at what he does, and I think it's really quite petty that he is being picked apart like this. But whatever, let the insults reign down on the idiot who doesn't agree with Robert Greenwald (whom I really admire to be totally honest.)

Fire away boys....

My friends and I have sent letters, emails, and made phone calls. The frat boys over at MSNBC must love this guy.

He is so freaking obsessed and driven by every move and sound the Clinton's make that he can think of nothing else. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up in a mental institution.

He is so full of hate. An evil bastard and lack any talent.

While this little non entity rails about Hillary sounds like "Satan", the Clintons are out raising millions of dollars so that HIV babies in 3rd world countries can get medication. For this fact alone, Matthews should be fired and kick his fat ass out of the country.

raza. these are not news shows; they are for entertainment only, an endless stream of opinion and shock-u-tainment; they do not offer alternative views, they offer morton downey jr. "shoutdown" matches. and if all of these news entertainment shows are pretty much cookie cutter retreads put out there by 4 or 5 corporations, then how can there be much variety of opinion?

If you want to watch real news, go watch PBS. The fact is, there is entertainment value in news. I'll give you guys some news, Hillary's cackle...FUNNY. Cheney shooting a guy, even funnier. Like I said, try not to be so self-righteous. Tweety isnt perfect. Im sure he's made mistakes. But he's not the villain you make him out to be.

Karen @ 86:
Nonsense. This isn't about hatred. It's about a media that purports to be objective and is anything but. Nothing Matthews says in this clip is helpful public political discourse, but the media pretends that it is.

Everything Matthews does is a disgrace, and it belittles us as a serious nation to have him on the air as a serious analyst.

First of all, nothing Matthews says in this clip is helpful to public political discourse because they are 'snippets' of his actual segments. How can every single sentence anyone utters be helpful to public political discourse? To expect that is nonsense. Someone else said this before me, pick ANY commentator, and i'll give you a 5min clip of gaffes such as these. You need to analyze a person on the whole, not by some silly clips of his gaffes.

Secondly, I doubt your honor, or your nation's for that matter, can be berated by the opinions or ramblings of one person. So please, try not to be so melodramatic.

I say it was cherry picked. I've seen the other side.

This is not what this blog needs.

Raza Sohail @ 94:

If you want to watch real news, go watch PBS. The fact is, there is entertainment value in news. I'll give you guys some news, Hillary's cackle...FUNNY. Cheney shooting a guy, even funnier. Like I said, try not to be so self-righteous. Tweety isnt perfect. Im sure he's made mistakes. But he's not the villain you make him out to be.

I have no problem with spoofing the news or finding entertainment value in it. That's why I love the Daily Show.

I have a problem with stations and talking heads who purport to be serious, but offer nothing but a 24-hour avalanche of infotainment, smears and horse race chatter. You cannot fairly admonish me simply to go elsewhere for serious news as though I unjustly expect it from the likes of MSNBC, CNN and FUX. They advertise themselves as serious news.

Karen @ 86:

Nonsense. This isn't about hatred. It's about a media that purports to be objective and is anything but. Nothing Matthews says in this clip is helpful public political discourse, but the media pretends that it is.

Everything Matthews does is a disgrace, and it belittles us as a serious nation to have him on the air as a serious analyst.

First of all, nothing Matthews says in this clip is helpful to public political discourse because they are 'snippets' of his actual segments. How can every single sentence anyone utters be helpful to public political discourse? To expect that is nonsense. Someone else said this before me, pick ANY commentator, and i'll give you a 5min clip of gaffes such as these. You need to analyze a person on the whole, not by some silly clips of his gaffes.

Indeed to judge someone based on nothing but these kind of snippets is unfair. But, having watched Matthews in action, I find these snippets certainly representative of his treatment of Hillary Clinton at large. Moreover, his overall approach to politics is a disgrace. I hardly expect every sentence he utters to be a gem of political wisdom. I hardly expect him never to make mistakes. But Matthews is but one of many talking heads who purports to play "Hardball," but whose reports, interviews and analyses are inane and counterproductive.

Secondly, I doubt your honor, or your nation's for that matter, can be berated by the opinions or ramblings of one person. So please, try not to be so melodramatic.

His blither is indicative of a much larger problem.

Karen@99

Guess my point is, Karen, that Tweety is incapable of rationality, so that leaves him incapable of objectivity, at least in the real world. When your political preferences are based on scent, well, you're fucking nuts. So every now and then he's right. Doesn't mean he can be trusted.

Karen@101

Kewl.

I guess that's why you and I don't chat so much- we see a lot of things the same. I know we have our differences, but, all in all...

Just sayin'...

Funny, I just thought about this, but I'm the guy who always notes how surprised people here seem to react when Tweety snuggles up with Dems. He does it enough so that Republicans could make a mirror of the vid up top.

Again, I don't trust the guy's sanity, but he crosses the median a lot.

Raza Sohail@105

It was about a year ago, Matthews went on about Fred Thompson, Man's Man, and how the scent of Thompson's aftershave made the guy seem presidential. There was no irony. Matthews was buying into the voices nostrils in his mind.

So, yeah, can't be trusted.

I have been watching Hardball over the years now and I think that video is not representative of Chris Matthews. And let's be honest here folks, most of his critiques of the candidates are true. It is time to put this "ultra-sensitivity" to rest. Of course the man is going to make an occasional slip of the tongue, everyone does it. I have asked myself before "why is Hillary always clapping?", and it is a Chinese custom, so what's the big deal? Mitt Romney is a very clean cut conservative. Then the clip where Matthews appears to be gushing over Rudy, I hope anyone here who enjoys Olbermann like I do can appreciate that a pundit can prefer one candidate over the other. Is all that I am saying is that you could make a similar video that shows Chris Matthews in a completely different light. Saying he is a softer Bill-O is not a fair comparison by any means. Aren't there worse people we should be focusing on? What is the religious right up to these days? What other small government agencies are being raped by the Bush Administration that we don't know about yet? What is the despicable right-wing smear machine about to try and pull on our candidate???? I think it's time to appreciate that not everyone is going to share the same global ideal and Chris Matthews isn't that far off of our goals to deserve this constant badgering. Let's get our priorities straight.

Where were you guys when he was bashing Hillary?

Matthews is an adolescent, neo-con dupe who has no concept of a citizen-based democracy and the public good. Like most of TV's talking heads, he is a shill for special interests (read corporations) and should be first ignored and then belittled.

Raza Sohail @ 105:

Karen @ 101:

Andy K Jong Il @ 100:

Karen@99

Guess my point is, Karen, that Tweety is incapable of rationality, so that leaves him incapable of objectivity, at least in the real world. When your political preferences are based on scent, well, you're fucking nuts. So every now and then he's right. Doesn't mean he can be trusted.

I agree with you. I guess I was responding more to the folks who were taking issue with both of us. :)

can't be trusted? incapable of objective journalism? incapable of rationality? all because he doesnt agree with YOUR point of view? Seems to me O'Reilly has a point when he rants about left wing blogs.

Seems to me you aren't actually reading what we're saying. Matthews, his talking-head colleagues, his stations and their counterparts CLAIM TO BE SERIOUS, OBJECTIVE NEWS. If they claimed to be more of what you say they are, your point would stand. But they put themselves out there as hard news and serious discourse. Whether he leans left, right, Libertarian or Martian is not the issue -- at least not with me.

I met Matthews at a book signing and confronted him about his laughable "America..." book. He gave me the ol' Philadelphia Slick/W. C. Fields routine. Last year, I saw it remaindered in hardcover for $0.99.

If you don't show him "respect," for which he is undeserving, he has no use for you.

His faux "I'm a working class stiff, just like you" shtick is a ruse--he has a multi-million dollar vacation home on Nantucket, same as Russert. They're a couple of whores who hit it big and moved to an elite part of a deep blue state.

He truly is an a$$.

Tweety is just a sad, old, fart. A political "wannabe" who never made it. His brother Jim is a two-bit Republican in Montgomery County, PA - one of the richest, most Repug counties in PA or even, the nation (Blue Bell, PA is in Montco.) I live on the poor side of town.

Jim served in the Navy (I think) while Tweety went off to the Peace Corps - not saying there's anything wrong with the peace corps, but it doesn't help the commander-in-chief resume. Tweety is also a very big Catholic kinda' guy - he'd be really happy if Pope Benedict stepped in and took over the world. Mea culpa.

Not many people in these parts pay much attention to his continual blathering.

Raza Sohail @ 119:

So because he represents serious news media, not the daily show, he cant make a joke or two? Come on Karen.

A joke or two? If it were an isolated joke or two, I'd have no problem with it. It's not a joke or two. It's a pervasive avalanche of inanity and misinformation.

My point is, you dont HAVE to trust him. You dont have to take everything he says on face value. Listen to it, understand it and then DISAGREE with it.

That's good advice for watching any program that purports to inform. It does not, however, excuse or exonerate its hosts when they continually misrepresent themselves and feed the public misinformation.

your point of view seems to come from a belief that the people watching his show will believe every single thing that comes out of his mouth. Thats simply not true, which is why he doesnt have to be trustworthy.

Your point of view seems to focus on the individual influence of one person. The problem is endemic to the media at large, and the nonsense-posing-as-serious-analysis becomes problematic when it has spread so much that it is has become the norm.

To argue that he need not be trustworthy because not everyone will believe his every word is to argue that fraud should be legal because not everyone will be defrauded all the time.

If youre listening to a political show, heres a piece of advice, NOBODY is trustworthy. so yes, my question was very serious.

It is wise to approach all news with skepticism. It does not follow from that adage that news people may dispense with objective, informative new reporting.

Watch the film, now tell me he's not a neocon bootlicker.

Watched the film. Carefully edited sound bites to make it sound like he's endorsing right-wing talking points instead of doing his job, which is discussing, spitballing, whatever you want to call it.
Frankly, as a Dem, I find this level of hysteria over anyone who doesn't always say the right thing while speaking off the cuff to be pathetic. I'll wager that if anyone posting in these comments had to do Matthew's job, they'd be crucified within a week by the reactionary crybabies who post here.
Sorry to be so 'mean', but grow a thicker skin and quit freaking out.

My personal view is that if tweety was nicer to Hill, most of these posts would go away. Why do we have to treat political figures with such delicate care?

103 Smitty Says: Jack Jett @ 91:

I strongly disagree with the poster who says this has been cherry picked.

We use to play a game where we would turn on Chris Matthews and guess how many minutes it would take for him to bash a Clinton. He never made it over 7 minutes without some rude remark.

That’s funny! Initially I made a deal with myself back in Feb that every time Matthews & Olberman bashed Hillary I would send $1 to Hillarys campaign. One day it got to $35. Then I stopped listenening to matthews & tivo’d Olberman to skip past all primary coverage. I literally couldn’t afford to watch.

I stopped watching Chris after his Coulter lovefest. After being a loyal viewer of Countdown for five years, I stopped watching Olbermann when his bias against Sen Clinton became revolting. I don't miss either one of them. I can see the 'best of' snippets here.

raza,
because i want to see the news.

Bill Lumbergh @ 127:

"The argument is not that Matthews is just as off-the-wall right wing as O’Reilly. The point is not that he engages in exactly the same kind of propaganda.

The argument is that he is dishonest and offers misinformation, and does not get called out for it the way O’Reilly does because Matthews seems more intelligent and friendly."

Or maybe it's because Matthews does not 'engage in exactly the same kind of propaganda'. Perhaps the less reactionary among us realize that he's just expressing an opinion, that often times may be wrong. To compare that to the monotone propaganda of BillO is laughable.
How quickly people forget the video clips posted right here at C&L that pat Matthews on the back when he expresses the 'right' opinions.
When was the last time BillO said anything that wasn't an outright lie or talking point?
Again, some of you just sound hysterical.

The point was that he is a different version of O'Reilly, and it has nothing to do with whether he's left-oriented or right-oriented. He's dishonest. His analysis is inane. His kind of "news" program is counterproductive.

I have no problem with his voicing opinions with which I disagree. That has nothing to do with what I'm saying.

Raza Sohail @ 125:

Karen @ 120:

To argue that he need not be trustworthy because not everyone will believe his every word is to argue that fraud should be legal because not everyone will be defrauded all the time.

No. you are being completely paranoid. How can you compare misinformation on tv to fraud? Information is not a commodity. Nobody can claim ownership of it. This is why the 'exchange of ideas' is so important. Its also important to 'keep an open mind' and realize that ideas, even those that repulse you, ones that you disagree with, are important to discourse and need to be heard, understood and addressed. You can't silence everyone that isnt as 'correct' as you are. Its snobbish and self-righteous.

By the way, I wasn't comparing misinformation to fraud (though one could). I was comparing the line of reasoning you were using.

Karen @ 134:

By the way, I wasn't comparing misinformation to fraud (though one could). I was comparing the line of reasoning you were using.

ofcourse you were comparing misinformation to fraud. how can you possibly draw a comparison between my line of reasoning and yours without comparing the central premise? I'm not surprised you are such a big Hillary fan. You seem to enjoy getting lost in semantics rather than getting to the heart of the argument.

Raza Sohail @ 136:

Karen @ 134:

By the way, I wasn't comparing misinformation to fraud (though one could). I was comparing the line of reasoning you were using.

ofcourse you were comparing misinformation to fraud. how can you possibly draw a comparison between my line of reasoning and yours without comparing the central premise? I'm not surprised you are such a big Hillary fan. You seem to enjoy getting lost in semantics rather than getting to the heart of the argument.

You've inferred yet another falsehood about me. I have not been a Hillary Clinton supporter since the early 1990s. I did not support her during the primaries at all.

Raza Sohail @ 136:

You are so out of your fucking depth. Quit while you're only leagues behind.

Are you people nuts?

Matthews doesn't even come close to Bill O Reilly; He berates Bush and the Republicans on a daily basis.

Start thinking more clearly or I'll have to stop reading this site.

Cannot stand him. Complete buffoon with a microphone.

Moreover, if we do get Obama elected as our next president, I will be expecting C&L and others throughout the " the internets" to hold his feet and all Dems to the fire just as much as we have the Repubs.

I rarely listen to him more than a minute or so of his rantings - usually just to catch what's coming up next with Keith Olberman. Chrissy is close enough to O'Really as can be found on the non-neocon broadcast planet. He should have been fired about 1,000 times for the crap he slobbered about Hillary. And I don't even particularly like Hillary, but the maligning "opinion" oriented comments uttered by him and others in the "news" media need to stop.

Give us the facts and STFU. We'll take care of the rest. Or, maybe we'll just flip the channel to Oprah or freakin' Truck Drivers in Alaska.

Karen @ 137:

The reason she may be a front runner is her husband messed around.

She may have gotten the Des Moines Register's endorsement thanks to her husband's lobbying its female editors and publisher.

I think the country wants a boss like that. A little bit of fascism there. Just a little bit.

Another empirical claim. Again, where's the evidence for that?

See what you did there? Another semantic twist. You cleverly switched 'empirical fact' with 'empirical claim'. There are not facts my friend, these are opinions. Just as he cannot provide evidence for them, you cannot provide evidence against them. Which is what makes the 'opinions', not 'facts'. Again, please rise above the semantics and try to understand what i'm saying. This video contains no factual inaccuracies. Bill O provides plenty of those, so does Hannity and a lot of others. Matthews' problem is with his opinions, which you seem to disagree with.

And you shouldnt be insulted by my comments. I dont think i've crossed the line at all. Perhaps you need to toughen up just a little bit.

Oh common, how many torches are we to bear? There are bigger concerns in the world.

Raza Sohail @ 145:

Karen @ 141:

I was comparing your line of reasoning. You are hyperextending my analogy.

I could have as easily pointed out that the same reasoning could be used to exonerate thieves who steal car radios from unlocked cars because people should no better than to leave their cars vulnerable.

Yes you could easily have pointed that out. But what youre doing here is confusing a 'physical commodity' that one can prove ownership for, with 'ideas' that are free and belong to nobody. Your analogy is flawed at heart because you base it on the assumption that ideas 'belong' to someone. They dont. Ideas, even bad ones, are free to be distorted, mangled and shared with whomever one please. To make sense of your analogy, we would have to assume that Matthews is feeding information directly into my head and that I have no control over the matter. This is quite plain and I'm not sure why you continue to get lost in semantics.

The fact that one is a tangible piece of property and the other one intangible has nothing to do with anything.

My argument is that the mere fact that people should be wary that wrongs will be done does not exculpate the wrongdoer. It doesn't exculpate the wrongdoer when he steals a tangible item or feeds you misinformation. The mere fact that you can be skeptical of Matthews' reporting does not exculpate him for giving you misinformation. And that's that.

If someone lies to you, is it ok because you should be wary that people will lie to you? Does that get them off the hook? You suggest that because you're ultimately in control of what you believe, it's ok for someone to lie to you. That makes no sense.

Raza Sohail @ 146:

Karen @ 137:

Another empirical claim. Again, where's the evidence for that?

See what you did there? Another semantic twist. You cleverly switched 'empirical fact' with 'empirical claim'. There are not facts my friend, these are opinions. Just as he cannot provide evidence for them, you cannot provide evidence against them.

The distinction I focus on is between EMPIRICAL and NORMATIVE. I said that we needed to distinguish between empirical facts and normative opinions. You said that the "entire clip" was about "normative opinion." I have demonstrated that it was not.

So, you resort to emphasizing the distinction between empirical "claims" and empirical "facts," without conceding that his words are not of a normative nature. I will concede that his "claims" are not technically "falsehoods," since they are but irresponsibly voiced claims without evidence to back them up, but if you think that distinction actually exonerates Matthews in the debate we're having, it is you who is stuck on semantics.

Moreover, you point out the nature of his empirical opinion as though I had not recognized it as such. I did. Specifically. And I argued that part of the problem was the reporting of empirical opinion as though it were genuine news. This has nothing to do with whether I agree with Matthews. It's about the conflation of empirical fact, empirical opinion and normative viewpoints, as though they're all one and the same, as though there is no objective reality, as though there's no problem with spouting anything on one's mind, and reporting it as serious news.

Which is what makes the 'opinions', not 'facts'. Again, please rise above the semantics and try to understand what i'm saying. This video contains no factual inaccuracies.

If someone makes an empirical claim, the burden is on him to present the evidence for it. But in today's "journalism," the claim is enough. Then viewers can just decide on their own gut feelings whether they "agree." That's part of the problem with today's media, and no one evinces it more than Matthews. He should not go on the air and make empirical claims willy nilly without the evidence for them. It is part and parcel of spreading misinformation. He's putting it out there as news. That's the problem.

Bill O provides plenty of those, so does Hannity and a lot of others. Matthews' problem is with his opinions, which you seem to disagree with.

Yeah, O'Reilly does this. Hannity does this. Matthews does this. Olbermann does this. That's the problem. It has nothing to do with whether I agree. How many time do I have to say that? You have no idea what I believe or with whom I agree.

By the way, I would venture to say that Matthews is worse than the other two, as the other two are at least widely known as unabashed editorialists and pundits, whereas Matthews has the reputation of a genuine reporter. That was the whole point of this C&L post to begin with.

Would it help if I were to concede that yes, this clip only points out Matthews' indiscretions that benefit conservatives, and that he does the same thing for the other side? Because I have no problem admitting that. I don't like it either way.

And you shouldnt be insulted by my comments. I dont think i've crossed the line at all. Perhaps you need to toughen up just a little bit.

You said that you weren't surprised that I, like all Clinton supporters, get lost in semantics, and can't focus on what's really important. You made an derogatory generalization about all of Sen. Clinton's supporters. I'm as tough as they come, and while I don't appreciate it when people say such things and degenerate the discourse, it's nothing I'll lose sleep over.