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All's fair in love, war and politics for Chris Matthews. And there is one particular theme that he just can't seem to let go of, and he's asked absolutely every guest on Hardball for the last week the same thing, as evidenced by this clip from last Wednesday: Doesn't John McCain deserve respect or credit for not invoking Reverend Wright in the waning days of the campaign?

Think about that. McCain has flailed wildly over the last few months, calling Obama a friend to terrorists, a socialist, a Marxist, a communist among many, many other attempts at smears, but somehow we're all supposed to be impressed that he doesn't bring up Rev. Wright? Nevermind that he has 527 support doing it for him, the fact that McCain himself doesn't say anything is praiseworthy to Chris Matthews. Should we likewise be impressed that McCain hasn't actively encouraged his supporters to call Obama the n-word, even though they've managed very well on their own? What other non-actions should we praise McCain for, Tweety?

Meanwhile, whatever restraint McCain may have displayed in this matter was utterly nullified by the massive last-minute ad buy by Republicans, running an anti-Obama ad featuring Wright, that ran incessantly on cable TV (notably MSNBC) the last couple of days.

And finally, though I know C&L readers already know this, but I harbor a secret hope that a Hardball producer reads C&L and can maybe just clear this up for Matthews, as he has bought the Fox-driven Rev. Wright smear hook, line and sinker, here is the full context of the snippet that FNS played over and over to show Wright's "anti-American hatred." I would hope that if Matthews had actually ever saw this video, that he'd admire McCain's reticence just a little bit less.

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The media-manufactured controversies over Barack Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, aren't going to go away if the media can help it. It's much easier to talk about them than admit to propagandists on your booking lists. Rev. Wright agreed to his first public interview, and will be on Bill Moyer's Journal, which will air this evening on PBS. But advance video has the punditocracy a-twitter with the meme that Wright "throws" Obama under the bus. But the media also has a history of purposefully taking Wright's words out of context.

However, take a closer look at that panel assembled. Joe Watkins (introduced as Rev. Watkins, as he holds a divinity degree), who has worked for the Dan Quayle, Bush 41 and the current president, Kevin Madden, whose last gig was as Mitt Romney's spokesman as well as working on Bush's 2000 campaign and Lawrence O'Donnell, the lone Democrat, who formerly worked for Patrick Moynihan and was the Chief of Staff for the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works before jumping to Hollywood and The West Wing and Big Love. Could the deck be stacked any further against anything Wright says? Watch as Madden and Watkins slam Obama by attributing words that Wright did not say, much to the frustration of O'Donnell.

This is great. He’s not using those words and every pundit on TV talking about this wants to force those words into Rev. Wright’s mouth. He’s not using them so we’re pretending he’s using them.

image by Driftglass

Dear New York Times,

Word has it that the Times’ publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., decided last fall that it was time to add another Republican columnist to the paper’s op-ed page, and the decision early on was to find a “lightning-rod conservative.” For reasons that I’ve never entirely understood, you picked the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol.

Now, it’s always difficult for any large institution to admit a mistake, especially on the heels of some high-profile embarrassments. I understand that. This is especially true when someone in a position of authority makes a poor employment decision, hiring the wrong person for an important job. (I suspect it’s tempting to adopt the president’s approach, and pretend that the unqualified hire is doing a heckuva job, no matter how humiliating the person’s on-the-job performance.)

But there comes a point at which the paper’s reputation matters more than the embarrassment that would come from admitting a mistake.

If Kristol were just a conservative hatchet-man, his columns would simply be predictable. After nearly five months of columns, however, the problem is more jarring — his work is that of an awful columnist, a weak writer, and a boring political observer. This isn’t about ideology; it’s about talent, or in this case, the lack thereof.

Take today’s column, for example. Without a hint of satire, Bill Kristol devoted his entire 800-word column in the nation’s most important newspaper to scrutinizing Passover press releases.

He is, in other words, making the New York Times look silly.

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Tweety finally brought up the name of Hagee and McCain today on Hardball. Wow, look what an article will do.

In an interview that will appear in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, controversial televangelist Rev. John Hagee declares, "It's true that [John] McCain's campaign sought my endorsement."

McCain has attempted to distance himself from some of Hagee's views, much as Barack Obama is doing in relation to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But unlike McCain, Obama has not stood on stage with Wright and accepted his accolades this year.

Interviewed by Deborah Solomon, Hagee refused to discuss his statement that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for a gay rights parade in New Orleans, calling it "so far off-base."