There's something to be said for candor, even -- make that, especially -- from a goo-goo leftist.

None of this disingenuous denial that Vice President Joe Biden maligned Republicans as terrorists, or the weaselly pseudo-defense that Biden didn't actually say this, he merely agreed after a House Democrat did. (audio clip after page break)

At the conclusion of a fractious national debate about the debt ceiling, a truly marvelous moment occurred Monday when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) returned to the House floor after being shot in the head almost seven months ago.

Apparently unable to control himself, the sadly getting more and more disgraceful Chris Matthews chose to mar the emotional homecoming by connecting her shooting to the Tea Party and "the violent level of the right-wing" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Throughout his tenure, there have been several facets in which President Obama has been demonstrably weak on leadership, with the debt debate coming to the forefront in recent months.  Now however, lost in that news cycle has been another failure of leadership for the President – his own request to tone down violent rhetoric in this country.  For it was mere months ago that Obama stood in front of a crowd in Tucson that had anxiously sought leadership amidst the chaos of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting; a teachable moment that had The Guardian gushing about how the President had delivered “calm amid the toxic rhetoric.”

That moment of calm has long since dissipated.  Where once the President had denounced discourse that places “the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do”, we hear Republicans blamed for holding the American people hostage to their economic policies.  Where once we were urged to talk “with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds”, we now hear Tea Party members being denounced as terrorists.

Make no mistake, this ratcheting up of terrorism and hostage-taking discourse directly coincides with recent events in Norway.  The instant that Oslo terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, was labeled as a ‘right-wing Christian’, liberals finally had their moment to seize upon - not just a chance to label conservatives as extreme ideologues but a chance to label them as violent ideologues.  This message has been a coordinated and vicious attack amongst the media, the Democrats, and most assuredly, the President.

Remember all that talk four months ago in the wake of the Tucson shootings that political commentators needed to tone down their rhetoric?

MSNBC's Chris Matthews certainly doesn't, for on Monday's "Hardball," he called Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) Medicare plan a 'killer politically" and a "death certificate" for Republicans (video follows with transcript and commentary):

You might think most rappers aren’t exactly Shakespeare, but left-wing radio talker Randi Rhodes was implying that connection on Wednesday when it came to the rapper Common’s "poetry" at the Obama White House. "He’s brilliant, he’s absolutely brilliant," she asserted. And conservatives would oppose Shakespeare, too:

Look, the conservatives, if Shakespeare were alive, and he went to the White House to get, you know, some sort of a reading, they would be outraged about him -- talking about killing his brother, and the father had to go, and a mother he slept with -- They'd be out of their fricking minds with this. They don't understand culture! Or literature!

Rhodes also asserted on Wednesday that it was somehow a Tea Party member that shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, despite ample evidence to the contrary.