After MSNBC's Chuck Todd suggested that Mitt Romney is going to have to offer something to the "tea party" right-wingers in the Republican base if he's going to win the Republican nomination and ultimately the general election and that they might find him acceptable if he came out with some new tax plan they found acceptable, Chris Matthews went off on a rant, but actually described pretty concisely what Mitt Romney's problem is when relating to any of the people who were showing up at those rallies. He's never had to struggle for anything in his life.

Matthews blasted Romney for his offshore tax havens, for the fact that he's perfectly content to live in an America where he's part of the ultra-rich one percent and for trying to claim he didn't inherit his wealth when it's quite obvious he was born on third base.

MATTHEWS: I don't think Mitt Romney shares that. There's nothing in this guy's face, nothing in his background to suggest a yearning, an immigrant's aspiration if you will for a better society. He's got all he wants. His family has all they want. They've gotten their take. And by the way, when you spend your money, or you're sheltering it overseas, when you're hiding your money from the tax collectors so you can have an even fatter life, you know, you don’t really identify with the person out there who's trying to scrabble along and make it in our society, who is a true patriot, left, right or center. Why are you hiding your money overseas if you are a patriot? It seems like you are part of the problem. In fact, you're one of the bad guys.

So I think he has a very, very difficult time identifying with the yearnings of the American people for a better country and he’s earned that problem. He has a problem that he's earned. He has not identified with the revolutionary struggle of this country for its last 200 years. He is not anywhere in his bones, a revolutionary, anywhere in his bones, is he dissatisfied with the America he was born to.

He was born to that weird small portion of America that had it handed to him. He says he didn’t inherit it, he inherited everything. He inherited his education, his status, governor father, his father was head of an auto company. Everything about him basically handed to him, except the money that came from that.

Now for him to say he's part of that revolutionary spirit of the tea party, he wouldn’t be caught dead at a tea party meeting, it's below him. And I think they know it. And I don't think any way, Chuck you suggest that there's a way for him to pretend he's a leader of the movement. He's not even in the movement left, right or center. He's never been in any movement. Did he ever rally against the war in Vietnam? Did he ever take off his sports coat and show a protest at anything that's ever happened in American life? No, because he's been fat and happy. He's benefited from the way things are, from the status quo... How can he pretend to be at the barricades Rachel? I don't know any consultant that can help him do that.

I could hear right-wingers heads exploding simultaneously as Matthews was speaking.

And one last note on this segment in regard to Chuck Todd's remarks. When is the last time you ever heard one of our Villagers in the media insist that Democrats had better do something for their progressive wing because they're making a lot of noise? They will never say that, but they'll always claim that the Republicans had better yield to their AstroTurf "tea party", a.k.a. the Koch brothers and their ilk, and their demands. I know Matthews was talking about those showing up at the rallies that have been duped by them, but Todd was carrying water for the leadership, which is nothing but the extreme right wing of the Republican establishment and is not grass roots.