Fresh off his humiliating defeat on Jeopardy! Monday night, MSNBC's Chris Matthews actually introduced a pair of guests Tuesday as "two of the most smartest people."

Almost as funny, "two of the most smartest people" in the Hardball host's opinion are Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Coming up, JPMorgan lost a whopping two billion bucks just in the last couple of days. That’s got a lot of people saying, “Told you so.” Barney Frank’s coming here along with Robert Reich, two of the most smartest people in the progressive side to talk about why we need more regulation on banks so taxpayers don’t have to bail them out. They’re both coming here, Reich and Frank. And this is Hardball, the place for politics.

And you wonder why this guy thought the six-letter capital of Russia was Istanbul.

Even worse, despite his intellectual challenges, Matthews is still one of the most intelligent people on MSNBC.

There's a joke in there if you ignore how sad a statement it is about this so-called "news network."