Luddite Matthews Worries About 'Robot' Pages in U.S. House of Representatives

August 9th, 2011 6:16 PM

Chris Matthews is just a caveman political commentator. Our technology confuses and frightens him.

The "Hardball" host went off on an odd tangent -- akin to President Obama's ATMs-kill-jobs riff -- on today's program about the end of the U.S. House of Representatives page program, grousing about how robots are replacing people (video embedded below; MP3 audio here):

 

Well, here's a great old Washington institution that has fallen victim to the budget ax: the congressional page program. Do you believe it?

The House of Representatives has ended the program for good. It's brought young people to work in the Congress for the past 175 years. House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told their colleagues that BlackBerrys and other technology has largely rendered the pages obsolete. Ending the program will save about $5 million a year.

More robots! We'll be right back.

Boy, isn't this the story of America? Roblets [sic] robots, replacing people.

Matthews of course failed to mention that the U.S. Senate will still continue its page program. 

To be fair, a lot of senior citizens like Matthews are dreadfully frightened by robots, and for good reason!: