On the January 22 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, guest co-host Chris Matthews complained that, in the previous night's Democratic presidential debate on CNN -- held the previous day, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus -- too much time was spent on “black/white issues” rather than the candidates' positions on the Iraq war or health care. Pointing to a New York Times headline about the debate, “Issues Take Back Seat At Debate,” Matthews said: "[T]his is the sad thing in this debate, maybe because I care a lot about the war in Iraq and I've talked about it a lot and been skeptical of it, but why aren't we talking about that? ... There's a difference between [Democratic presidential candidate and Sen.] Hillary [Clinton (NY)] and [Democratic presidential candidate and Sen.] Barack [Obama (IL)] on the Iraq war and how they voted on it, how they supported it or didn't. Why aren't we debating that? Why aren't we debating health care, some of the things that -- instead they debated black/white issues. We know there's a race difference, we don't need to get started on that." But Matthews did not ask similar questions about the January 15 Democratic presidential debate on MSNBC, either during his commentary on MSNBC's postdebate coverage or during the January 16 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, despite the fact that many of the first 19 questions asked by the moderators -- Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, Meet the Press host Tim Russert, and Today's Natalie Morales -- focused on race and none dealt explicitly with issues of public policy. The January 15 MSNBC debate was sponsored by groups including the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Congress and IMPACTO and 100 Black Men of America.

As Media Matters for America has noted, during the CNN debate, health care was discussed for more than 13 minutes, and the Iraq war was discussed for nearly 8 minutes. Yet, during the analysis of the debate on the January 22 Morning Joe, MSNBC featured numerous video clips from the event but aired none of the exchanges relating to health care or Iraq.

In addition, none of the moderators of the January 15 debate on MSNBC asked a single question regarding health care, and the sole discussion of Iraq during the debate occurred after Clinton asked Obama if he would “co-sponsor my legislation to try to rein in President Bush so that he doesn't commit this country to his policy in Iraq,” though the moderators did ask follow-up questions after she initiated the discussion. In fact, the first 19 questions asked during the January 15 debate were about race, the candidates personally, or their campaigns; it was not until the 20th question, which concerned “foreign ownership” of “American flagship brands” in the financial sector, that policy issues were raised. The following are the first 20 questions asked during the debate:

• Williams asked: “As we sit here, this, as many of you may know, is the Reverend Martin Luther King's birthday. Race was one of the issues we expected to discuss here tonight. Our sponsors expected it of us. No one, however, expected it to be quite so prominent in this race as it has been over the last 10 days. We needn't go back over all that has happened, except to say that this discussion, before it was over, involved Dr. King, President [Lyndon] Johnson, even Sidney Poitier, several members of Congress, and a prominent African-American businessman supporting Senator Clinton, who made what seemed to be a reference to a part of Senator Obama's teenage past that the Senator himself has written about in his autobiography. The question to begin with here tonight, Senator Clinton, is: How did we get here?”

• Williams asked, “Senator Obama, same question?”

• Williams asked, “Senator Edwards, you waded into this topic tangentially yesterday.”

• Russert asked, “In terms of accountability, Senator Obama, Senator Clinton on Sunday told me that the Obama campaign had been pushing this storyline. And, true enough, your press secretary in South Carolina -- four pages of alleged comments made by the Clinton people about the issue of race. In hindsight, do you regret pushing this story?”

• Russert asked, “Do you believe this is a deliberate attempt to marginalize you as the black candidate?”

• Russert asked, “In New Hampshire, your polling was much higher than the actual vote result. Do you believe, in the privacy of the voting booth, people used race as an issue?”

• Russert asked, “Senator Clinton, in terms of accountability, you told me on Sunday morning, 'Any time anyone has said anything that I thought was out of bounds, they're gone. I've gotten rid of them.' Shortly thereafter, that same afternoon, Robert Johnson, at your event, said, quote, 'When Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood, that I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book,' widely viewed as a reference to Senator Obama's book, 'Dreams From My Father' from 1995, where he talked about his drug use as a teenager. Will you now not allow Robert Johnson to participate in any of your campaign events because of that conduct?”

• Russert asked, “Were his comments out of bounds?”

• Morales asked, “And this is a question for Senator Edwards. It comes to us from Margaret Wells from San Diego, California. Senator, she's asking, 'The policy differences among the remaining candidates is so slight that we appear to be choosing on the basis of personality and life story. That being said, why should I, as a progressive woman, not resent being forced to choose between the first viable female candidate and the first viable African American candidate?'”

• Morales asked, “Senator Edwards, as a follow-up to Margaret Wells' question, what is a white male to do running against these historic candidacies?”

• Williams asked, “Question for Senator Obama. You won the women's vote in Iowa, but Senator Clinton won the women's vote in New Hampshire, and there probably isn't an American alive today who hasn't heard the post-game analysis of New Hampshire, all the reasons the analysts give for Senator Clinton's victory. Senator Clinton had a moment where she became briefly emotional at a campaign appearance. But another given was at the last televised debate, when you, in a comment directed to Senator Clinton, looked down and said, 'You're likable enough, Hillary.' That caused Frank Rich to write, on the op-ed page of The New York Times, that it was 'your most inhuman moment, to date.' And it clearly was a factor and added up. Senator Obama, do you regret the comment, and comments like that, today?”

• Williams asked, “And one more question about that last televised debate, Senator Edwards. Afterwards, Senator Clinton said it was as if you and Senator Obama had formed a buddy system against her. Senator Clinton put out an Internet ad that was entitled 'Piling On.' Looking back on it, the campaign for New Hampshire in total, do you admit that it might have looked that way?”

• Russert asked, “Senator Clinton, your husband said that Senator Obama very well could be the nominee -- he could win. With that in mind, when you say that Senator Obama is raising false hopes, and you refuse to say whether he's ready to be president, what are the consequences of those comments in the fall against the Republicans?”

• Russert asked, “You may think you are the best prepared, but would you acknowledge that Senator Obama and Senator Edwards are both prepared to be president?”

• Russert asked, “Senator Obama, you gave an interview to the Reno Gazette-Journal and you said, 'We all have strengths and weaknesses.' You said one of your weaknesses is, quote, 'I'm not an operating officer.' Do the American people want someone in the Oval Office who is an operating officer?”

• Russert asked, “You said each of you have strengths and weaknesses. I want to ask each of you quickly, your greatest strength, your greatest weakness.”

• Russert asked, “Senator Edwards, greatest strength, greatest weakness?”

• Russert asked, “Senator Clinton?”

• Williams asked, “Senator Obama, a fresh question here. It may not come as news to you that there's a lot of false information about you circulating on the Internet. We received one e-mail, in particular -- usually once several weeks; we've received three of them this week. This particular one alleges, among other things, that you are trying to hide the fact that you're a Muslim, that you took the oath of office on the Koran and not the Bible that you will not pledge allegiance to the flag or generally respect it. How do you -- how does your campaign go on about combating this kind of thing?”

• Williams asked, “This evening on NBC Nightly News, our lead story was about the fact that Citigroup and Merrill Lynch have both 'gone overseas,' as some put it, hat in hand, looking for $20 billion in investment to stay afloat from, among other things, the government of Singapore, Korea, Japan, and the Saudi Prince Alwaleed, the man -- Rudolph Giuliani turned his money back after 9-11. This is -- strikes a lot of Americans as just plain wrong. At the end of our report we said this may end up in Congress. What can be done? And does it strike you as fundamentally wrong, that much foreign ownership of these American flagship brands?”

During MSNBC's postdebate coverage, Matthews did not ask why the candidates “debated black/white issues” instead of issues such as Iraq and health care. On the January 16 Hardball, while Matthews was critical of the debate, he said only that he didn't think the debate “was the most exciting debate in history” and that it “reminded me, sort of, of Donald Trump's Apprentice show, with everybody sitting around a table.” Matthews later said of the debate: "[M]aybe we shouldn't call it a debate. It did look a lot like that Trump show, The Apprentice, with people sitting around a very well-polished mahogany table. I didn't see the contretemps there; the frisson. I missed it if it was there. They seemed to be too genteel."

Matthews previously criticized questions asked at the November 28, 2007, CNN/YouTube Republican presidential debate, saying during an interview with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on the December 3 Hardball, "[T]hese questions are getting very liturgical. How literal do you take the [Bible]? Where did Jesus stand on capital punishment? I mean, this is beginning to look like what the Constitution calls a religious test and proscribes, bans, really, in Article 6 of the Constitution. Why are candidates for the presidency being asked religious questions?" By contrast, during a discussion with his NBC colleague Russert, the moderator of the September 26, 2007, Democratic debate, Matthews noted that Russert had asked the candidates “if they had a favorite biblical verse” but raised no objections to the question, simply describing the candidates' responses as “interesting.”

From the January 16 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to Hardball. The fight for the Democratic nomination's wide open, as well. Obama took Iowa, as we all know. Clinton took New Hampshire. And Nevada's coming up this Saturday. What's at stake out there -- or rather, down there, I'm sorry, out there, out here I keeping forgetting I'm in L.A. right now -- in the desert of Nevada. Who's going to win that one?

MSNBC's Tucker Carlson joins us last night -- to do a nice autopsy on last night. Tucker, I want you to give me your expert's opinion of some of these bites from last night. I don't think it was the most exciting debate in history. It reminded me, sort of, of Donald Trump's Apprentice show, with everybody sitting around a table. But here they are. Here's Hillary Clinton in last night's debate, running against Bill -- I'm sorry -- running against George W. Bush.

[...]

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to Hardball and the politics fix. Tonight, our round table: Dana Milbank is a columnist for The Washington Post; he's always on page two. He is author of the new book Homo Politicus: The Strange and Scary Tribes That Run Our Government. Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg, she's joining us right now. And Stephen A. Smith of ESPN.

Lady and gentlemen -- I want you to start, Margaret. Last night's debate -- maybe we shouldn't call it a debate. It did look a lot like that Trump show, The Apprentice, with people sitting around a very well-polished mahogany table. I didn't see the contretemps there; the frisson. I missed it if it was there. They seemed to be too genteel. Margaret, what did you think? Who won?

CARLSON: Well, they -- Obama and Clinton had to make up. They had to have that love-in at the beginning because it wasn't helping anybody. Particularly, it wasn't helping Obama, who's wanted and needed to be not the black candidate. He was being turned into the black candidate. So they made peace and then they moved on to other issues. And we're back to the pre-Philadelphia debate model, where Hillary Clinton is the queen of the facts, and Senator Obama is the Prince of Lightness, and Senator Edwards -- former Senator Edwards just wants to fight, fight, fight, because it's personal, personal, personal. And not that much happened.

From the January 22 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:

MIKA BRZEZINSKI (co-host): And I love this in the Daily News: “Hillary, Barack in South Carolina Insultathon.” And you know what? If you go back to The New York Times, which of course has a more highbrow look at things --

[crosstalk]

MATTHEWS: Of course. Broadsheet.

BRZEZINSKI: -- but they bring up the same thing we were talking about, when we were getting ready for the show: “Issues Take Back Seat At Debate.”

MATTHEWS: You know, this is the sad thing in this debate, and maybe because I care a lot about the war in Iraq and I've talked about it a lot and been skeptical of it, but why aren't we talking about that? Bob Woodward, the great reporter, said the other day on one of my shows, he said this is the backdrop issue. Where are we going to go on foreign policy? There's a difference between Hillary and Barack on the Iraq war and how they voted on it, how they supported it or didn't. Why aren't we debating that? Why aren't we debating health care, some of the things that -- instead, they debated black/white issues. We know there's a race difference, we don't need to get started on that.

BRZEZINSKI: And they talked a great deal about race, and I feel that this is something that's been put out there, quite frankly, by the Clintons and quite brilliantly.

MATTHEWS: Well, the roll of the dice and --

BRZEZINSKI: Fairy tale.

MATTHEWS: -- fairy tale, and the three charges about drugs by three different surrogates. And you have to wonder if they didn't want to place him in the African-American community and almost like [Gen. Norman] Schwarzkopf, put him in there, surround him, and then destroy him.

BRZEZINSKI: Yep.

MATTHEWS: And I wonder about that strategy. It's brilliant, hardball politics --

BRZEZINSKI: It is --

MATTHEWS: -- if that's what they set about to do.