Barack Obama's tax compromise victory has got tingles running back up Chris Matthews' leg.
After showing a clip of the President at Friday's bill signing, the "Hardball" host raved to guests Eugene Robinson and Howard Fineman about the Commander-in-Chief's "cute smile we all love...That wonderful, boyish smile" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Columbia University announced Thursday that Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson will join the Pulitzer Board, which gives out the renowned journalism awards each year.
Robinson, who won a Pulitzer for his coverage of the 2008 presidential race, will strengthen the leftist complexion of the board, which already has a meager presence of conservative minds. In fact, Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot seems to be the only "openly" conservative member of the board.
The Baltimore Sun's media critic is still fuming about MSNBC's pathetic coverage on election night.
In his piece published Saturday, David Zurawik called the cable news network a "liberal prep school" while claiming the behavior of folks like Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Lawrence O'Donnell, and Keith Olbermann was "so egregious" that the "entire realm of TV journalism was diminished in the public mind":
In the introduction to the Oct. 4 "Colbert Report" on Comedy Central, the host said, "Then, the Tea Party reaches out to kids - I assume for help with spelling."
That's a harmless enough little joke, except that it comes from the man who once called Sara Palin "a f***ing retard."
In keeping with hi theme of contempt for conservative America, without pause, Colbert said, "And my guest Eugene Robinson has a new book about the four groups that make up black America."
Chris Matthews thinks American businesses are refusing to spend money in order to intentionally harm the economy as part of a long-term plot to "screw" President Obama.
Such political paranoia was actually uttered on Monday's "Hardball" as the host chatted with Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post and Charles Mahtesian of Politico.
Readers are strongly advised to prepare themselves for the kind of conspiracy theory normally reserved for the likes of Michael Moore, Oliver Stone, and members of the far-left who actually believe George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had a hand in the 9/11 attacks (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):
The late Peter Jennings, shortly after the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994: “Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week.”
Appearing as a guest on Friday’s Countdown show on MSNBC, during a discussion of conservative talker Glenn Beck’s "Restoring Honor" rally, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson dismissed Dr. Alveda King – niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and former Georgia state representative – as a "figurehead or puppet" of Beck because of her scheduled participation in the rally.
And, even though she and her father took part in the Civil Rights Movement and even endured having her home bombed in the 1960s, Robinson went on to suggest that she really is not one of the "keepers of [Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s] legacy" because she is supposedly "estranged from the rest of the King family."
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Friday, August 27, Countdown show on MSNBC:
A truly astonishing thing happened on MSNBC Monday: three devout, liberal Obama supporters said the President is responsible for people thinking he's a Muslim.
During the opening segment of "Hardball," in a discussion about Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally and how the host and attendees view Obama's faith, Newsweek's Howard Fineman said, "Barack Obama probably should have joined a church here...some things in politics you have to do at least for the symbolism."
A bit later, the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson concurred: "Howard Fineman was in the earlier segment, but I tend to agree with him. I think -- I expected that when President Obama came to town, he and the family, as he said, would look around, find a church to go to and join a church and go there regularly."
Minutes later, Matthews also agreed saying, "You`re responsible for your reputation" (videos follow with transcripts and commentary):
Former New York Governor George Pataki on Wednesday got into a heated discussion with Chris Matthews over the Ground Zero mosque and the Republican opposition to it.
In the middle of his second "Hardball" segment on MSNBC, Matthews played a clip of Rush Limbaugh saying on the radio earlier in the day, "If this is a nation that is Islamophobic, how do we elect a man whose name is Barack Hussein Obama?"
This led Matthews to ask his guest, "What do you think of guys that keep putting out lies like that?"
Over the course of the next five minutes, Pataki basically took over the show not only putting Matthews in his place, but also doing the same to his other guest, Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post (video follows with transcript and commentary):
What kind of shameless shill do you have to be to claim the President is on a winning streak as his poll numbers plummet, the economy teeters on a double-dip recession, and his Party is facing historic losses in both chambers of Congress?
A Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and former managing editor of the Washington Post, that's who.
Consider that just days after numerous polls were released showing America's confidence in Barack Obama at an all-time low, and stallwart supporters such as CNN and the New York Times' Maureen Dowd claimed that even George W. Bush was better at delivering a coherent message to the American people, Eugene Robinson wrote the following Friday:
Mark August 18, 2010, on your calendar as the day New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd published a piece bashing Barack Obama and praising George W. Bush.
This comes less than 24 hours after CNN.com did exactly the same thing over the same issue.
Needless to say, Dowd's position in her column entitled "Our Mosque Madness" went completely contrary to public opinion regarding the building of an Islamic center at Ground Zero.
But before we get there, let's first take a look at a few paragraphs destined to give many readers whiplash as they slam on their reading brakes in disbelief:
On August 5, 2010, The Washington Post published a short editorial by Eugene Robinson with the title "Charlie Rangel's no crook." But on October 9, 2009, the same Eugene Robinson penned a column titled "Charlie Rangel's Cloud: An Ethics Case Could Drag Democrats Down." The closer we get to elections, Robinson seems to get progressively less impressed with the case against Rangel. This is his new Rangel-name-is-cleared line:
Charlie Rangel's no crook. He’s right to insist on the opportunity to clear his name, because the charges against him range from the technical all the way to the trivial.All right, there’s one exception: On his federal tax returns, Rangel failed to declare rental income from a vacation property he owns in the Dominican Republic -- a mortifying embarrassment for the one-time chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the tax code. But certain facts about this transgression rarely get mentioned. For one thing, Rangel’s so-called “villa” can’t be very palatial, since it cost only $82,750 when he bought it in 1987. For another, Rangel has already filed amended tax returns and paid everything he owed, plus penalties and interest.