With much of the political world tuned into CNBC for the first Republican presidential debate, MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews ran wild on Wednesday and fessed up to the fact that Hillary Clinton has “got allies in the media” and not “some evil forces” out to attack Clinton as some liberals believe.
Prior to Matthews’s admission, MSNBC political analyst and former Democratic Vermont Governor Howard Dean praised NBC News Clinton correspondent and MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell for her September 4 interview with Clinton that he dubbed “refreshing” because it “stop[ped] the pack journalism of all the e-mail stuff.”
Pressed by Matthews to elaborate, Dean expanded upon his backward blaming of the media for the candidate’s multiple scandals:
The pack journalism has to do with the e-mail fascination. There’s nothing to it. Never has been. It was a story that was covered for four straight months, mindlessly, based on a whole bunch of stuff printed not true in some of the most recordable papers in the United States.
Responding to Dean’s bloviating, Matthews had a few lines of his own by owning up to the true intentions of the liberal media that “there are a lot of force groups” out there “working for Hillary” and thus there’s little to the notion that “there’s some evil forces out there against them.”
Instead, Matthews ruled: “There’s a lot of countervailing forces out there as well, right...She has allies. She’s got allies — in the media.”
The relevant portion of the transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews on October 28 can be found below.
MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews
October 28, 2015
7:34 p.m. EasternCHRIS MATTHEWS: Governor Dean, your thoughts about why they were so stupid as to give her 11 hours of television time — free.
HOWARD DEAN: Well, here is the interesting thing, Andrea Mitchell is actually the person that started off — started this trend of actually looking at her as a human being. I think she did her very first cable interview with Andrea about foreign policy and other things she knows a lot about it and it was refreshing to stop the pack journalism of all the e-mail stuff and actually look at who she is. When you look at who she is, she is a pretty compelling person to be president of the United States. I’ve known her for 25 years. The reason I endorsed her early is not because I don't like Bernie Sanders, I do, it’s because I think she’s best suited to be president of the United States — all the people on both sides and on the last — ever since Andrea’s interview, she has a series of interview where people look at her as a human being —
MATTHEWS: Okay, okay, Governor, this isn't Reliable Source, okay? With Howie what's his name. Let me just tell you. Are you blaming Hillary's bad rollout for her book, Hard Choices? are you blaming that on Diane Sawyer and Terry Gross and the other women interviewed her up front or on Hillary?
DEAN: No, but that — when she rolled her book out —
MATTHEWS: You say that’s pack journalism. What is this pack journalism shot of yours?
DEAN: The pack journalism has to do with the e-mail fascination. There’s nothing to it. Never has been. It was a story that was covered for four straight months, mindlessly, based on a whole bunch of stuff printed not true in some of the most recordable papers in the United States.
MATTHEW: That may be true, but the FBI isn't a part of the pack.
DEAN: The FBI is not investigating Hillary Clinton —
MITCHELL: It continues — and it’s not investigating Hillary Clinton. It is investigating the security of the server but should point out the State Department is going to be releasing thousands more pages this Friday before the end of the month and again, every month, they are going to be — there are going to be people poring over these e-mails. So, she is not out of the woods yet on this. There still a lot we don't know about it and she would have done herself a huge favor last March, if she had just come out that day at the security council, at the U.N., said, you know, I really screwed up.
MATTHEWS: And there are a lot of force groups like Correct the Record and Media Matters working for Hillary, so this idea there’s some evil forces against them. There’s a lot of countervailing forces out there as well, right?
DEAN: I don't think they’re evil forces, I think they’re lazy forces.
MATTEWS: She has allies. She’s got allies — in the media.
DEAN: That’s true.
