Matthews: Is Palin an Empty 'Vessel,' Like Clarence Thomas

September 16th, 2008 6:18 PM
You'd think Chris Matthews would learn his lesson. First he insulted Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell as "showcase appointments," only to apologize for it later. Then, on Tuesday's "Hardball" he essentially called Sarah Palin an empty "vessel" with no "independent thinking" of her own, just "like a Clarence Thomas." [audio excerpt available here]Matthews made the following gaffe during a…

'All of Us,' Andrea

September 16th, 2008 4:13 PM
When Andrea Mitchell says "all of us" thought a certain way, whom does she have in mind?On her  MSBNC show this afternoon, Mitchell stated that "all of us" originally thought John McCain had made a political mistake when he changed positions and came out of in favor of expanded oil drilling.  Mitchell was chatting with former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers and Republican strategist Doug…

McCain Calls Mika Out: 'I Know You're a Supporter of Senator Obama

September 16th, 2008 9:11 AM
It might not do John McCain any good politically.  But once in a while, it's refreshing to hear an MSMer called out on political bias.  It happened this morning when John McCain told Mika Brzezinski "I know you're a supporter of Senator Obama."  Mika resorted to her favorite defense to the bias charge, mentioning that she has a brother who works on the McCain campaign and asking the Arizona…

Biden Versus the 'Bucket of Fluff

September 16th, 2008 7:23 AM
The woman introducing Joe Biden to a Michigan crowd yesterday called Sarah Palin a "bucket of fluff."   Biden then told the crowd that Barack Obama is too smart and too well-educated to live in a Republican neighborhood.  Now that the Dems have put Obama's smarts and education on the table, will the MSM demand Obama finally release his Columbia transcript? Of all the people the Dems might have…

Matthews: McCain Sounds Like Herbert Hoover

September 15th, 2008 7:06 PM
Chris Matthews spent most of Monday night's "Hardball," laying out a blueprint for how Barack Obama can hit John McCain on the economy, as he compared the GOP presidential nominee to Herbert Hoover.Opening the September 15 show, Matthews greeted viewers with the following teaser:CHRIS MATTHEWS: Why is John McCain talking like Herbert Hoover? Depression or just depressing? Let's play "Hardball…

Capehart: Obama Wins the Day By Channeling America's Anxiety

September 15th, 2008 5:17 PM
On a day when markets are in turmoil, you might think that the role of an American president, current or aspiring, would be to assure his fellow citizens—and the world—that our economy is fundamentally strong.  That's what John McCain did.  In contrast, Barack Obama suggested that the American economy is fundamentally weak.  WaPo's Jonathan Capehart has declared Obama the winner of the exchange,…

'I Want Her to Decimate This Woman

September 15th, 2008 9:53 AM
Decimate: 1. to destroy a great number or proportion of: the population was decimated by a plague. 2. to select by lot and kill every tenth person of. Is that the definition of the post-partisan politics Barack Obama claims to be preaching?  You know, the kind where there's no blue-state America or red-state America: just the United States of America?  Maybe Chevy Chase didn't get the email. …

Brokaw Goes Brazile: Uses 'Jesus a Community Organizer' To Bash Giulia

September 14th, 2008 6:52 PM
How offensive was Donna Brazile's line about Jesus being a community organizer and Pontius Pilate a governor, uttered to make an invidious comparison between Barack Obama and Sarah Palin?  Enough that even ardent Obama-phile Chris Matthews rapped Dem congressman Steve Cohen's knuckles for repeating it on the House floor. But, incredibly, on today's Meet the Press Tom Brokaw used Brazile's line to…

Did Chris Matthews Twist Palin's Israel Reply to ABC's Gibson

September 13th, 2008 12:26 PM
On the September 12 edition of Hardball, Chris Matthews so twisted what Governor Sarah Palin said in reply to Charlie Gibson's question about Israel's defense decisions that her reply is hardly recognizable in Matthews' hands. By slyly adding his own additions to Gibson's question and Palin's reply, Matthews attempted to make Palin look naive on the foreign policy question. In essence, Matthews…

Mitchell: Obama 'Clearly' Wasn't Talking About Palin

September 11th, 2008 9:10 AM
Make it a trio of mindreaders at NBC/MSNBC.  As noted here, yesterday Howard Fineman and David Shuster went Carnac on us, emphatically declaring that Barack Obama didn't have Sarah Palin in mind with his lipstick line.  On this morning's Today, Andrea Mitchell joined her network stablemates [no pun intended!] in delving into Barack's brain and assuring us he meant no harm.ANDREA MITCHELL: Barack…

MSNBC's New Star: Dems Have Never Fought the Culture War

September 10th, 2008 10:55 PM

Matthews: Obama's 'Pig' Not Sexist but Palin’s 'Community Organizer

September 10th, 2008 7:04 PM
Chris Matthews spent the entirety of Wednesday night's "Hardball," debunking the idea that Barack Obama was referring to Sarah Palin, when he made his "lipstick on a pig," remark as the MSNBC host questioned if it "insults...everyone's intelligence?" But didn't Matthews insult his viewers' intelligence, on Monday, when he accused Palin and Rudy Giuliani of using coded racist language when they…

How Does Howard Know? 'Obama Wasn't Making Fun of Palin

September 10th, 2008 4:46 PM
H/t reader MB.  Fineman the Magnificent? Here's how Howard Fineman begins his MSNBC column today [emphasis added]:No, Barack Obama was not making fun of Sarah Palin when he talked about some Republican putting “lipstick on a pig.”He was trying to be colloquial, and John McCain’s campaign knew as much – even as it was going theatrically ballistic.To which I have a simple question: how does Howard…

Olbermann: Obama '100% on the Spot' on Iraq Surge, Bush is 'President

September 10th, 2008 3:38 PM
Tuesday's Countdown show on MSNBC showed a portion of Keith Olbermann's interview with Barack Obama in which the Countdown host ridiculously claimed that Obama was "just about 100 percent on the spot" in his predictions of the troop surge in Iraq, and downplayed the signficance of the reduction in the number of Iraqis who are the victims of violence. Olbermann: "Your predictions about the surge,…