Following a revealing interview with former JFK mistress Mimi Alford on Wednesday's NBC Rock Center, left-wing MSNBC host Chris Matthews, along with liberal historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Richard Reeves, were invited on the broadcast to give a sycophantic defense of the womanizing president. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Touting his new book, "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero," Matthews proclaimed: "The greatest heroes are often the most flawed." The Hardball host went on to gush over how Kennedy "colorized American politics....made it a technicolor movie, he made it exciting." In his characteristic fashion, Matthews concluded: "And so with it all, the total picture still arouses the country."
John F. Kennedy
By Kyle Drennen | February 9, 2012 | 12:25 PM EST
By Noel Sheppard | January 30, 2012 | 12:30 PM EST
The ridiculous media hypocrisy concerning all the fuss over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's wealth and income tax rate was perfectly demonstrated on MSNBC's Morning Joe Monday.
After claiming that Romney's "tax issue is not remotely" past him, John Heilemann, the National Affairs editor for New York magazine, admitted that he never reported John Kerry's income tax rate during the 2004 campaign (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Noel Sheppard | January 30, 2012 | 11:31 AM EST
There was a truly delicious moment on MSNBC's Morning Joe Monday as the gang discussed the Republican presidential race from Florida.
When host Joe Scarborough recollected John F. Kennedy buying the West Virginia primary in 1960, Hardball host Chris Matthews, one of JFK's biggest fans, was seen visibly uncomfortable shifting position in his chair (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Jack Coleman | January 26, 2012 | 12:14 PM EST
Thanks for sharing, Rachel, and confirming what we already knew.
The oh-so bright light in MSNBC's nightly firmament could barely contain her revulsion after Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels cited a familiar metaphor for America, that of the shining city on a hill, while delivering the official Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address. (video after page break)
By Jack Coleman | January 11, 2012 | 7:32 PM EST
Chris Matthews loathes Mitt Romney and reveres John F. Kennedy. Oddly enough, when Matthews vilifies Romney, you'd swear he was talking about Kennedy.
Matthews, author of the JFK hagiography "Elusive Hero," had this to say about Romney last night during MSNBC's coverage of the New Hampshire primary while jousting with former Granite State governor John Sununu (video after page break) --
By Matt Hadro | November 29, 2011 | 1:34 PM EST
Liberal columnist Frank Rich claimed on Monday's Piers Morgan Tonight that the "radical right" which began during the Kennedy administration is now the base of the Republican Party. Both he and CNN's Piers Morgan also drew parallels between the environment which led to Kennedy's assassination and the politically-charged atmosphere now.
Rich's most recent column – which NewsBusters has dissected – asserts that the same "hate" which fueled the assassination of President Kennedy is now alive and well in the Obama era.
By Jack Coleman | November 28, 2011 | 11:11 AM EST
Nearly a half century after John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, many liberals now grudgingly accept that it was a left winger who killed him. But it was the harsh right-wing rhetoric of early '60s Texas that compelled the assassin to pull the trigger, liberals also insist.
The latest iteration of this transparent exercise in ideological face-saving comes from Frank Rich in a New York magazine piece dishonestly titled, "What Killed JFK -- The Hate That Ended His Presidency is Eerily Familiar."
By Tom Blumer | November 22, 2011 | 9:54 PM EST
On Monday, Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters noted how former New York Times op-ed writer (and before that, theater critic) Frank Rich, who now plies whatever his trade is at New York Magazine, criticized MSNBC's Chris Matthews for writing a "man-crush of a biography" about John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated 48 years ago today.
Monday evening, Allahpundit at Hot Air identified a particularly egregious contention in that same very poor Rich piece, namely that "the hate that ended his (JFK's) presidency" which inspired avowed communist and Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to commit his heinous crimes (Oswald also shot Texas Governor John Connally in JFK's motorcade and killed Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit later that day) came from the right. Really. What follows are selections from Rich's risible self-righteousness:
By Noel Sheppard | November 21, 2011 | 9:34 AM EST
By Kyle Drennen | November 8, 2011 | 3:25 PM EST
Appearing on Tuesday's NBC Today, author Stephen King touted his new novel about the Kennedy assassination, "11/22/63," and saw parallels between Kennedy and Barack Obama: "...both men who hadn't had a lot of political experience who vaulted to national prominence, beautiful wives, beautiful children, and also that whole component of people who feel almost hateful toward those people." [Audio available here] [View video after the jump]
Touting his own book on Kennedy on MSNBC's October 31 Hardball, host Chris Matthews condemned the "viciously right-wing" forces in Dallas, Texas that saw JFK as a "traitor" and then seemed to link them to the assassination.
By Ken Shepherd | November 2, 2011 | 4:03 PM EDT
"F*** you!" is how MSNBC's Chris Matthews reportedly objected to the notion that he used the services of a ghostwriter for his new book, "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero."
In a November 2 blog post, Forbes.com's Jeff Bercovici detailed the Hardball host's testy reaction to the suggestion that just as Matthews's boyhood hero heavily relied on Ted Sorensen, Matthews had a professional scribe assist him on his latest project (emphasis mine):
By Scott Whitlock | October 31, 2011 | 3:29 PM EDT
While hyping his new book on John F. Kennedy on Friday, Chris Matthews seemed to connect "vicious" "right-wing" "hate" to the assassination of the nation's 35th president. At no time in his Hardball editorial did Matthews admit that the President's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a pro-Communist leftist, who, at one point in his life, defected to the Soviet Union.
Speaking of Kennedy's trip to Dallas in November of 1963, Matthews connected, "[Kennedy] was living the life of an American politician, trying to figure things out politically, trying to figure out what was in the water down there in Dallas that made some people so viciously right-wing. An hour later, he was gone." [MP3 audio here. See video below.]