Today’s installment of the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2014,” as selected by our 40 expert judges, the “MSNBC = Mean-Spirited, Nasty, Belligerent Chris Award.”
Chris Matthews has already won the “Ku Klux Con Job Award for Smearing Conservatives with Phony Racism Charges,” and scored a dishonorable third-place finish in the “Move Along, Nothing to See Here Award for Denying Obama’s Scandals.” But the Hardball host and former Democratic political operative spewed so much venom in 2014, we had enough material to warrant a category devoted exclusively to his vicious bashing of conservatives.
Taking first place, a Matthews’ eruption from the January 7 edition of Hardball where the host predicted a Republican victory in the fall elections would mean a return to “something like Jim Crow days” and “victory for the haters.”
“If only the people who voted in 2010 show up this November, you can kiss all this goodbye. You’ll see the beginning of the end to what could have been — what many of us believe should have been — an historic turn toward full democratic government in this country....It will be a double-downing of efforts to suppress the votes of those who voted for him in historic numbers, the return to something like Jim Crow days, redolent of all the old anti-black gimmickry of that time — literacy tests and poll taxes and all the rest. The goal will be to erase not just Obama from the history books, but any evidence that someone of his background should ever think of being President. It will mean victory for the haters.”
Taking second place, the mean-spirited swipe Matthews took on October 27, aimed at the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in North Carolina:
“What’s worse, Thom Tillis or Ebola?”
Coming in third, a Matthews’ end-of-the show commentary on February 13 where he accused the GOP of moving from the “party of Lincoln” to “the party of Jefferson Davis.”
“Someone should ask Reince Priebus, him being the leader of the Republican Party in this country, why his party is so compelled to deny people the right to vote. Wasn’t it Abraham Lincoln — who would run the risk of being called a Republican-In-Name-Only today — who won the Civil War so people, especially African Americans, could be regular voting citizens?...Doesn’t it [the Republican National Committee] have a responsibility, a moral responsibility, to tell the parties across the country that the party of Lincoln shouldn’t become the party of Jefferson Davis?”
And in January, Matthews spent 12 minutes on his January 15 show pushing the idea that, because of Bridgegate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was this generation’s Richard Nixon:
“A mean-spirited political trickster trying to run up the score in an easy reelection. Sound familiar? Well, this is not yet a Watergate, but the more we learn about Chris Christie, the more he does look like Richard Nixon.”
Tomorrow: the Audacity of Dopes Award for the Wackiest Analysis of the Year. As always, you can check out all of the awards and the Quote of the Year at www.MRC.org.
