Kurtz, AP differ on Matthews' objectivity, but both agree he doesn't favor Republicans
SUMMARY: On CNN, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz asked: "Republicans were willing to participate in an MSNBC debate with a guy [Chris Matthews] who used to work for Jimmy Carter and Tip O'Neill. Should Democrats be refusing to debate on Fox News?" Similarly, an Associated Press article implicitly contrasted Matthews, presented as not overtly partisan, with MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann. Neither Kurtz nor the AP mentioned the numerous instances in which Matthews has showered praise on several of the Republican presidential hopefuls.
On the May 6 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, host and Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz asked: "Republicans were willing to participate in an MSNBC debate with a guy who used to work for [former President] Jimmy Carter and [former House Speaker] Tip O'Neill [D]. Should Democrats be refusing to debate on Fox News?" Kurtz was referring to Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball and the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show, who moderated the May 3 Republican presidential debate sponsored by MSNBC and The Politico. At no point did Kurtz mention that Matthews has showered praise on several of the Republican presidential hopefuls, and during the debate itself, Matthews invited attacks on the Clintons by asking a question that did not in any way address the Republican candidates themselves or their views on issues.
A May 6 article by Associated Press television writer David Bauder also ignored Matthews' gushing over some of the Republican candidates, but took a slightly different tack on Matthews -- suggesting that notwithstanding his Democratic roots, Matthews is not overtly partisan, unlike his MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann. In the article, which focused on MSNBC's decision to have Olbermann anchor the channel's debate coverage, Bauder set up an implicit comparison between Matthews and Olbermann, whose selection as anchor, Bauder wrote, amounted to "the MSNBC equivalent of Fox News Channel assigning the same duties to O'Reilly." In contrast, Bauder wrote: "Even for television hosts unafraid to say what they think -- Chris Matthews, for instance -- there's still a little mystery about what they'll do inside a voting booth."
In fact, as Media Matters for America has documented, Matthews has asserted that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) "deserves" the presidency. On the March 29 edition of Hardball, Matthews stated: "John McCain certainly deserves to be president, based on his contribution to this country over the years." Matthews has also lauded McCain as a "maverick," "kind of a party renegade," and a "lone gun." On the June 14, 2006, edition of Hardball, Matthews said that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) "may well be the perfect candidate to replace [President Bush]" and that he "spoke a lot like the best of [former British Prime Minister Winston] Churchill." Matthews has also claimed that Giuliani "has street cred" on the issue of "protect[ing] this country against the bad guys." Additionally, as Media Matters has noted, Matthews continues to tout Giuliani's purported elimination of the urine smell in New York City subways. On the January 19 edition of Hardball, Matthews said of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R): "He has the perfect chin, the perfect hair, he looks right. He looks like a Mountie. He looks like from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police."
As Media Matters documented, during the debate on MSNBC, Matthews asked, "Would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House?" Later, when he reiterated the question, Matthews asked, "Should the Clintons come back to the White House, especially Big Bill?" Matthews has obsessed over what he has referred to as Bill Clinton's "social life," "personal behavior," "current behavior," and "personal life." Matthews has also stated that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) voice sounds like "fingernails on a blackboard" to some men and that her criticism of the Bush administration's homeland security spending priorities made her look "witchy." Matthews has also wondered if there is a "gigantic monster," a "big, green, horny-headed ... monster of anti-Hillaryism that hasn't shown itself."
From the May 6 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources:
KURTZ: All right. We have agreement on that.
Now, Republicans were willing to participate in an MSNBC debate with a guy who used to work for Jimmy Carter and Tip O'Neill. Should Democrats be refusing to debate on Fox News?
AMY HOLMES (Republican strategist): No.
JOHN ARAVOSIS (AMERICAblog.com blogger): Yeah.
KURTZ: Why are they?
HOLMES: Why are they refusing? Maybe they are worried that they're going to get tough questions the way Chris Matthews was pushing, you know, Mitt Romney on his Mormonism or Giuliani on abortion.
ARAVOSIS: Because Fox News isn't a real news network. It's a Republican Party propaganda organ.
Chris Matthews, on the other hand, has gotten a lot of criticism from the left that people feel he's gone too far right over the years. So, I think at least Matthews is debatable what side of the party he's on. Sort of like George Stephanopoulos now [former Clinton administration aide and host of ABC's This Week].
Stephanopoulos has pretty -- cleansed himself of the liberal thing. I mean, he goes after everyone.
Fox News doesn't go after everyone. They go after liberals.
From Bauder's May 6 Associated Press article:
In an angry commentary on April 25, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann accused Rudolph Giuliani of using the language of Osama bin Laden with "the same chilling nonchalance of the madman" to argue that Republicans would keep Americans safer than Democrats from terror.
Eight days later, Olbermann hosted MSNBC's coverage of the first debate among Republican candidates for president.
Olbermann's popularity and evolving image as an idealogue [sic] has led NBC News to stretch traditional notions of journalistic objectivity. The danger for MSNBC is provoking the same anger among Republicans that Democrats feel toward Fox News Channel.
The Giuliani campaign privately expressed its concern to NBC News about Olbermann's role in the days leading up to last Thursday's debate.
[...]
For many years, the rule for journalists was simple: maintain strict objectivity. Even for television hosts unafraid to say what they think -- Chris Matthews, for instance -- there's still a little mystery about what they'll do inside a voting booth.
[...]
Clearly there's a taste in America for both a partisan and nonpartisan press.
The middle ground is where it gets tricky.
Having Olbermann anchor -- as he will continue, with Matthews, for big political nights throughout the campaign -- is the MSNBC equivalent of Fox News Channel assigning the same duties to O'Reilly.
Fox has never done that, perhaps mindful of the immediate controversy that would result. Fox has tried to differentiate between its news operation and its prime-time opinion shows, even as its critics believe strongly that's bunk. In this case, MSNBC doesn't try to separate news and opinion people, even as it tries to separate news and opinion.
The Democrats show themselves to be weak-knee'd liberals interested in only giving sound bites within friendly confines.
Again they look like they prefer to cut and run but only this time from the dreaded Brit Hume.
I would think the Democratic rank and file must be embarrassed again by their leaders who haven't the guts to go on TV with a Fox commentator.
they do it every sunday. they're just not going to allow faux to put their "fair and balanced" label on a democratic party debate. and it's the republicans who are afraid. that's why cheney will only go on limbaugh, to have his butt smooched by rushbo.
In case you missed it Cheney is not running for office. It seems to me that we are talking about candidates who want his and his bosses job being willing to face a little 'fair and balanced' questioning and not a lame duck veep's choice of radio talk shows.
As an aside, I do believe I've seen Cheney many times on the Sunday news talk shows. So unlike my good friend Solon who would simply say, "LIAR"! I won't. I just offer this as a friendly reminder that I do believe your comment is innacurate. :-)
uh no, you were talking about "leaders". you did not specify candidates. and as i pointed out, the democrats are on fox every sunday. biden, who last time i looked was a candidate, is on faux all the time. and yes, cheney has done the sunday talk shows, but i don't recall anything lately. why don't you suggest he go on one of them soon? the fact is that cheney always runs to limbaugh and the other righties when he's trying to put out the administration spin. limbaugh is afraid to have somebody like reid on, because he doesn't want to get shown up in front of his dittoheads.
mefirst
Sheesh. If you want to go backwards go ahead. I thought it would have been understood in the context of the thread that we were discussing Democratic candidates. I guess I have to spell everything out.
Oh, even though it is off topic, and I don't believe Cheney was mentioned in the thread, (I'm sure someone will check for me.) I'll just give ol' Dicky a ring on his cell and tell him to drop whatever he had planned and hop on over to Timmy's show now that you mentioned it.
While I'm getting Cheney to go on Sunday, why don't you talk to Biden et al about appearing in a debate with the other candidates on Fox. Hmmm.. whom do you suppose will show up first?
you made a broad comment about democratic leaders, and i made one about republican leaders, and you whine about "off topic". guess you're just afraid of the debate. and you said the democratic leaders/candidates, whatever you want to call them, "don't have the guts to go on tv with a fox commentator". i pointed out that many of them will and have done that on a regular sunday basis. so therefore, your statement was false.
Mefirst tends to go off topic, and paint the board with personal attacks. Do not understand why since he seems to start with intelligent debate but ends up smearing other posters.
As for this story, Matthews laid out the Clinton question to get a response to smear Senator Clinton from those 10 fools that he knew would be hateful and it was. If he does not favor Republicans, who does?
Now Doris, that (what you just said about MeFirst above) is a personal attack.
It's not true, was unnecessary in this context, and was only said because MeFirst has put you in your place accurately on other occasions. Revenge comments out of nowhere are personal attacks. Copying your own words and then using them to show a pattern of behavior is not a personal attack. You were not personally attacked. You just personally attacked MeFirst.
You can call it what you want. I have been victimized and attacked personally on here. I called out on that , you do not like it that is your problem.
Mefirst seems pretty restrained here, limiting his comments to the posts on this topic. You're the one initiating the broad-based personal attacks this time.
you have not been following the board.
doris, where exactly were did i "smear" you on this thread? oh, i didn't, which would bring one to question why you would jump to the defense of someone spouting right wing talking points on this particular thread. and i made no attacks on another american, called him no names, but you and your "friend" evilrepublicansnow show up to accuse me of smearing. where is the smear here? i think it brings into question your motivations.
Actually no , you I believe and mefirst have targeted Doris for some sick reason. She has been a victim of personal attacks on here. I have been attacked too. I can take being attacked from Republican nazis on this post , but when some called Progressives and Democrats attack me for no other reason but to smear the Progressive name and take the topic off line , its crossing the line.
i looked through your post for something that was even remotely related to the topic here, and couldn't find any. again, the question is what is your motivation?
Actually, I'm more embarassed that people like you are also Americans.
The last paragraph displays an obvious lie by this Bauder. He says, "Fox has tried to differentiate between it's news operation and it's prime-time opinion shows". BULLS#%t! Hume, Gibson, Cavuto, ALL OF THEM, ALL THE TIME, display NOTHING BUT contempt for Democratic ideas and candidates. They also show contempt for their viewers by peddling their special brand of "news" to them. Faux news is NOTHING BUT a wholly owned subsidiary of the RNC and THAT is why some Democratic candidates have said "ENOUGH" with the lies, we will not help to lend an aura of legitimacy to such an embarassment of a "news" agency
I think Matthews long admired the way Republicans maintained political power... not necessarily their ideology. Matthews is first and foremost a poltical junkie, but he's all over the place, poltically. He worked for Jimmy Carter and Tip, O'NeilL, but he reportedly comes from a conservative Republican family. He went after Bill Clinton and he's in love with Rudy Giuliani. But Matthews is also against the Iraq war and the dishonesty of Bush and Cheney in getting us into it. My problem with Matthews is that he no longer asks the probative questions he once did... and/or he won't shut up to allow a guest to answer even a good question. I saw him tonght and several times he cut off George Tenet's answers to question. Not that I would necessarily believe everything Tenet has to say, but I wanted to hear his complete responses to questions. Matthews used to just cut guests off when their answers reached the "spin cycle" but now Matthews questions are so rambling and incoherent he cuts off the guests before they even get started in their responses sometimes. I want to hear differing points of view. Nowadays, though, there is too much babble on Matthews' show and not enough substance.
Actually, I think Keith Olbermann is embarassed to be sitting next to Chris Matthews at the same desk. Matthews sometimes has rants that border on innebriation and he hogs the mic. Keith would be much more evenhanded with commentary if he were on his own. The guest commentators would be more balanced as to party affiliation as well.
Matthews is a friend of the Republicans, he loves to sit and chat and talk about Hillary and women. Matthews is as biased as anyone on FAUX. The problem is he has the msm confused.
I like matthews. I dont think he is at all anything like anyone on fox news as has been suggested here. Sure he likes some republicans, but he also like some democrats. Does he lean more one way than another. OF course.
I love Keith to death but he leans more left than Matthews right. Also, matthews tries to be fair. When he gets things wrong, it is never to purposely misinform people (like on fox). He seems to love what he is doing, but sometimes he doesn't have intelligent arguments. But he tries to eb fair. He challenges republicans and democrats when they say stupid things. He calls his guest on terms like democrat instead of democratic. I wouldn't sit here and betch about someone like him. I would take 100 of him at fox over what we have now.
Even my 13 year old daughter passing through the room picks up on Mathews' obvious fawning over the republican candidates.