If you had any question who the folks at MSNBC would prefer President Obama run against next November, what happened on Wednesday's Hardball should make it crystal clear.
About thirty minutes after host Chris Matthews apologized for his network's pathetic Ku Klux Klan smear of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, he disgustingly attacked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich saying, "You don't give WMD to someone known even by his old former allies to be in a crunch, or even whenever things get edgy, to be himself a weapon of mass destruction" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CHRIS MATTHEWS: "Let Me Finish" tonight with this: Think about Newt Gingrich with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons at his disposal. Interesting thought, isn't it? A man known to be a bomb thrower with real live bombs in his hands.
You know, this idea, that the genius of our Constitution is making the president the commander in chief, it ensures that the top position in the military is the person the American people themselves elect. Well, the other part of this constitutional requirement is that we the people elect as our president and make commander-in-chief someone who has the temperament to handle this extraordinary power.
Newt Gingrich has thrown around words lately that are classic bomb throwing. He ridicules the highly nationalistic Palestinians, dismissing them as an invented people, that they are all terrorists.
So, what do you think about having this guy out there in the Middle East debate, throwing bombs around like that against people on the other side, in a region where certain people who are not our friends talk much the same way, throwing insults and accusations around for the single purpose of taunting the other side?
Now, Newt is asking Republican voters to give him the presidency, to give him not just the bully pulpit but the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and all the weapons, conventional and nuclear, in the world's greatest arsenal.
His oldest associates say he can receive results even if he is erratic, yet when they had him as a leader, he was out as speaker long before they were. They knew what they were dealing with. Newt was hardly the sort of individual you'd give license to over the world's greatest stockpile of nuclear weapons. You don't give WMD to someone known even by his old former allies to be in a crunch, or even whenever things get edgy, to be himself a weapon of mass destruction.
America needs many things but a nuclear armed Newt Gingrich is not one of them.
As NewsBusters reported, this came about 30 minutes after Matthews said:
MATTHEWS: During the 11am hour on MSNBC today we reported on a blog item that compared a phrase used by the Romney campaign to one used by the KKK way back in the 1920s. It was irresponsible and incendiary of us to do this, and it showed an appalling lack of judgment. We apologize, we really do, to the Romney campaign.
As NewsBusters reported moments ago, even MSNBC's Al Sharpton apologized for his network's smear on Romney.
Any guesses who these folks want Obama running against in less than eleven months?
When do you think we'll hear apologies for Matthews' smear on Gingrich?
Readers are advised not to hold their breath.
