Here's the deal: DON'T YOU EVER mention Sarah Palin's name without having a chyron floating beneath you that says,
FULL DISCLOSURE: WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HER TO GET RATINGS. OBVIOUSLY THIS WOMAN HAS NO QUALIFICATIONS TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE.
It's missing from this amazing, and I mean that in a bad way, clip from Heather at C&L, who also summarizes:
Matthews and Buchanan... describe the Palin and Bachmann rally and their featured speakers as...an amazing event...very fascinating political figures... very good on the stump... much more exciting than Mitch McConnell or John Boehner... the new "star power" of the Republican Party... dazzling... dynamite... extremely attractive women... rodeo queens...
Jerking off to her "appeal" is no way to be a self-respecting pundit, Chris. When you neglect the obvious facts, you look, well, as mentally out of touch as, you know, Pat Buchanan.
Because seriously, my love/hate, hate thing with Chris Matthews feels like it's gone on for DECADES:
But yeah, hell, I did love him again yesterday when he turned away from the wingnut California congressman regarding the birthers and Obama's certificate of live birth canard.
If crazy Delaware lady wants her country back, she should start by not buying ugly made-in-China hair grabber clips at WalMart. And I want to know how many generations back her people came over on the boat. Betcha less than four.
None of that is important. The essential point that must be driven into the corporate media boardroom tabletops is this:
Matthews proved that going after the crazy GOP racism, fascism, and corporatism makes for good television.
A Dick Cheney trial could save the bacon of network news! It could be bigger than MJ, Chuck. Stephen Colbert is ready:
Why is it that the corporate masters of televised media never ever get it, that history will only judge them kindly when their news programming is on the side of real American values, like equality and the tenets of the Constitution?
Tuesday, May 26
Chris, darling! It's not enough that we bloggers are some of the very few people in the entire media dating pool who can tolerate your indiscretions. We're dazzled by your encylopedic political mind, even when you let Pat Buchanan catch a ride with us to the dance. And such a Valentine on the Charlie Rose show last night! I'll bet you say that to all the girls...
Matthews: This is really deep Charlie. I think that I'm not absolutely sure of myself on issues. I know that my opinion, and I know that other people that I have different ones. And I feel like ending every show with not everything I say can be wrong. I mean I do think it's possible everything I said is wrong. I have a very strange view.
Some of the bloggers jumped on me. And this is what I think explains what some people think about me. When we first went into Iraq...
Rose: What do you think they think about you?
Matthews: Well they don't quite get me. They, I'm first of all a grown up and they resent that, but secondly, and also, I have a job...they don't like that either. That's really going to fester them with anger. But when we first went into Iraq and when they set it up this way or not and whether or not Mike Deaver still had his hand in this or not, you know like it all looked good, they all tore down the statues and everything looked great, I thought you know I've been dead wrong about this.
Rose: At that point everything was great.
Matthews: I thought I was wrong, but I thought it was good for the country.
Are you this subtle in the backseat of a car? Nothing about the lies leading up to war, the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We're taking down statues in a country that does NOT have WMD's or yellowcake or Osama Bin Missin' but at the time it sure felt good to you? On behalf of the country? Great foreplay, and then you rip my bra off and tell me I'm not a grown-up but you are, I don't have a "job" but you do? And THAT'S why I'm festering with anger?
Chris, that tingle up your leg is my 800,000 volt keychain date rape stun gun. I'll take a cab home.
No longer can the American media be relied upon to bring us fact-based information. The news media has entered the ideology business much like talk radio. This will greatly harm the nation, as unbiased information is critical for an informed citizenry. The collapse of journalistic standards was a huge but largely untold story in 2008.
Bill O'Reilly at Townhall.com. No I am not making that up. Here's the dangerous link if you dare.
This seems to be ideology week amongst the pundits, with EJ Dionne leading the charge that progressives don't need no stinkin' ideology (emphasis mine):
Many of the programs that conservatives have pushed have been based more on faith in their worldview than on empirical tests. How else could conservatives claim that cutting taxes would actually increase government revenue, or that trickle-down economic approaches were working when the evidence of middle-class incomes said otherwise? ...Right now, being empirical is in the progressive interest. Note that data show that the parts of the stimulus package most congenial to liberals (increases in unemployment insurance and food stamps; fiscal aid to the states; government spending on public projects) are also the parts with the most economic bang. In other words, progressives don't need ideology to make their case.
There is only one reason for progressives to hide what is called an ideology: anytime Progressive ideology is mentioned, we're called socialist, anti-American, commie pinkos by the Noise Machine of the Rupert Murdoch media empire (I'm gonna have to stop you there, Blue Gal).
So instead we talk in "practical" terms about empirical solutions, and abandon the thinking and philosophy behind them, because, frankly, Bill O'Reilly has pussy-whipped us.
I do think we liberals are addicted to processing as much as outrage. (Grace the Spot owns processing as a lesbian thing but it's not exclusive to them). That's why we listen to NPR, do online cryptoquotes and get creative with our sexy sides. We spend a lot of time in the realm of the intellect, because it's our happy spot.
Now we have a Democratic President who is also black (read, transformative change) and also intellectual. And our expectations are extraordinarily high, at exactly the time that the world's problems are extraordinarily awful.
My sense is that Obama is attempting, with great calculation, to mute the noise machine that would use name-calling to stop his wonk-oriented governance. His process is bound to drive us commie eggheads a little nuts.
PS. Don't make me try and love you now, Chris Matthews. Good job keeping KO from flame-jumping out of his shorts, though. He makes the point exactly about Bush and ideology at the 2:45 mark:
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