MSNBC's Matthews Returns Squarely to Obama Fold: Opposition Is 'Purely Ethnic'

June 6th, 2013 11:52 AM

After briefly criticizing President Obama for the recent scandals surrounding his administration a few weeks ago, MSNBC's Hardball host Chris Matthews is back to his usual role of playing cheerleader for the Obama administration. Appearing on the June 5 program, Matthews showed his audience that the “thrill up his leg” feeling he has towards Obama is clearly back.

Speaking with The Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman and The Daily Beast’s Peter Beinart, Matthews went on a tirade against Republicans continued opposition to Susan Rice, Obama’s newest National Security Advisor, asking Howard Fineman:

Isn’t there any Republican hesitation, Howard [Fineman], you and I have watched this game for a long time, hesitation about beating the hell out of an African-American woman again. I mean, don't they feel any hesitance on just the gender and the ethnic front. [See video after jump. MP3 audio here.]

Matthews doubled down on his tired liberal talking point that opposition to Ms. Rice was racist, claiming that:

Here they are, the old white guys, kicking the hell out of another African-American candidate for something. Doesn’t they say wait a minute this isn’t going to look good for the Republicans?

Matthews was visibly distraught at continued Republican opposition to Ms. Rice, who was sent out on five Sunday talk shows following the terrorist attack in Benghazi to repeat false talking points that the attacks were spontaneous demonstrations prompted by a YouTube video.

After asking Peter Beinart about why Republican’s use the word “lie” when referring Benghazi, he dusted off a tired saw Matthews repeatedly pulls out when attacking Republicans as motivated by race or ethnicity (emphasis mine):

Why do they get the idea, if it isn't ethnic, and I'll just leave the possibility that it's not. Why do they just assume evil on the part of Obama?

 As if that weren’t enough, Matthews went into full tirade mode defending President Obama, resurrecting his shtick about how President Obama is the perfect American:

I mean he's raised his whole life has been crystal clear and clean as a whistle and transparent. We know his whole life through all the great excellent education he's had. The good pro bono work he's done through his life. He's never been a money grubber. He’s never doing anything wrong in his life legally ethically, whatever. His family is picture-perfect. The way he’s raised those daughters. Everything is clean as a whistle. And yet, they just refer to him as evil. They just refer to him as a liar.

Matthews summed up his rant by repeating his racist suspicions one last time:

I've got to believe it's ethnic with these people. They just got a problem with this guy being president, is there any other evidence to justify why they keep calling him a bad man? And that's what they do.

It would be nice if Matthews would do some actual journalism rather than acting as a stooge for the Obama administration by excusing everything they do as simply racist attacks by Republicans. Unfortunately, Matthews along with the rest of the “Lean Forward” network seem perfectly content excusing the Obama Administration for their scandal plagued tenure acting as a surrogate for the DNC rather than an actual news network.

 

See relevant transcript below.


MSNBC

Hardball w/ Chris Matthews

June 5, 2013

5:04 p.m. Eastern

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Isn’t there any Republican hesitation Howard [Fineman], you and I have watched this game for a long time, hesitation about beating the hell out of an African-American woman again. I mean, don't they feel any hesitance on just the gender and the ethnic front. Here they are, the old white guys, kicking the hell out of another African-American candidate for something. Doesn’t they say wait a minute this isn’t going to look good for the Republicans?

HOWARD FINEMAN: Well, mostly that doesn't occur to them. It might possibly have occurred to John McCain, whose comments were muted. He said, he said well, I disagree with the choice. But I'm going to do my best to work with her. So he had the right you know, he had the right tone for that crowd. But to answer your specific question, most of them it doesn't occur to them.

MATTHEWS: Because we’re going to get a lot more in this show tonight about women in the Republican Party. Not just the rape stupid comments last time around. These stupid comments about young guys are kind of sexually aroused or whatever, therefore there's going to be a lot of rapes. I mean stupid charges they’re making. 

FINEMAN: Quickly, look at the people that the president has put forth yesterday and today in terms of gender and racial diversity.

MATTHEWS: Two women and African-Americans. Yeah I think he's saying, live with it, buddies. Anyway, some Republicans showed no sign of being willing to let this Benghazi thing against the congressman go or the new nominee actually the appointee now for National Security Adviser. Jason Chaffetz won’t quit. He told The Daily Beast quote she used her good name to try to convince the American people of this bogus story. She has to take some responsibility for that the president is obviously not holding her accountable. It’s what is so troubling about the entire Benghazi incident; people are getting promoted for a job poorly done. And take a look at the ridiculous statement from Senator Rand Paul who’s getting more ridiculous every day today on guess where Fox. Let’s watch.

RAND PAUL: I think the president has been struggling to regain the moral authority to lead the nation and this doesn't really encourage anyone. To reappoint or to promote basically the person who is guilty of misleading us over the Benghazi tragedy. I can't imagine one that we would be keeping Ambassador Rice in any significant position much less promoting her to an important position. How are they going to have the authority for people to believe what they're saying when he's promoting someone who directly and deliberately misled the public over Benghazi? The Benghazi tragedy is really not going to go away until we have some answers. Really why was there this elaborate cover-up.

MATTHEWS: You know, I used to think Rand Paul had at least a philosophy that you could justify, sort of the Ayn Rand objectivism and now he's just a pol. I mean look at this the president is struggling to regain the moral authority. The president’s numbers on personal ethics are excellent. There’s no struggle here about his personal integrity. Anyway, also on Fox Karl Rove, talking about integrity, the man who said President Obama didn’t win the election even after Fox called the race went after the president this time for his choice of obviously of Rice also questioned Ambassador Rice’s well why not, honesty. Let’s watch.

KARL ROVE: We saw today a statement by the president's people that he was going to get more partisan and that he was going to get more in the face of Republicans. This is clearly--

BILL HEMMER: This is the first example of that, do you think? This is the first of a wave?

ROVE: Well, one of the examples of it and look, I don't understand it. She's a capable, able person. But she went out and lied. Not only did she go on television, less than two months before the election and tell a lie in order to protect the president's political position. But she did so at the risk of undermining our relationship with Libya.

MATTHEWS: Peter this new word lie now of course the Jay Carney, the president, a much-respected press secretary is a paid liar. Susan Rice is a liar. The discourse coming from that side, I don't use that word liar. I don't like it being used. Because it gets to motive and you don’t know what is in another person's heart. You never do know unless you go into a court of law where the person actually perjured themselves and lied against their own knowledge. How do these people get away with talking like this, I mean anywhere, even on Fox? I don’t get it.

PETER BEINART: Because I think they're talking to themselves and there's a passionate minority of people in this country who really do believe this. The problem is it's a clear minority and probably getting smaller as we found out during the election. I think what’s happened is all of these scandals have given republicans a kind of allowed them to believing that somehow because Obama and the Democrats are going to implode and Hillary Clinton will be brought down by this, they're not going to have to do the really wrenching hard work of figuring out how they start to attract the new America demographically that's emerging. They're taking cover from that in these scandals.

MATTHEWS: Peter, again to you. Why do they get the idea, if it isn't ethnic, and I'll just leave the possibility that it's not. Why do they just assume evil on the part of Obama? I mean he's raised his whole life has been crystal clear and clean as a whistle and transparent. We know his whole life through all the great excellent education he's had. The good pro-bono work he's done through his life. He's never been a money grubber. He’s never doing anything wrong in his life legally ethically, whatever. His family is picture-perfect. The way he’s raised those daughters. Everything is clean as a whistle. And yet, they just refer to him as evil. They just refer to him as a liar. I've got to believe it's ethnic with these people. They just got a problem with this guy being president, is there any other evidence to justify why they keep calling him a bad man? And that's what they do.

BEINART: Well I think on Benghazi in particular, they're up against a really desperate to believe that Barack Obama doesn't take terrorism seriously. It plays into that narrative. And I think that's why Benghazi is so appealing for them. Because it plays into a larger narrative. Despite the fact that he killed bin laden that actually basically he's a guy who is a typical liberal who doesn't recognize terrorism when it's staring him in the face. I think that's why Benghazi is just catnip for them.

MATTHEWS: Anyway I think he sits with Tom Donilon who can be tough, too. A tough pol and a tough public official as we all know. Those guys went after the bad guys on that list of al-Qaeda people.