Over at Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, Matthew Vadum takes issue -- and liberties -- with my description of MSNBC's Chris Matthews:
Foser is so far to the left that he thinks “Hardball” host Chris Matthews is a rabid right-winger [11]. He refers to the TV talk show host as the “Clinton-hating, liberal-bashing misogynist Chris Matthews.”
Note that Vadum just made up the “rabid right-winger” part. Sure, he included a footnote and link to make it look like it's something I actually wrote, but ... It's made-up. I've never described Chris Matthews as a “rabid right-winger.”
I have described Matthews as a “Clinton-hating, liberal bashing misogynist.” Here's why.
Put simply, Matthews behaves as though he is obsessed with Hillary Clinton. And not “obsessed” in a charming, mostly harmless, Lloyd-Dobler-with-a-boom-box kind of way. “Obsessed” in a this-person-needs-help kind of way.
More than six years ago, long before Hillary Clinton began running for president, the Philadelphia Inquirer magazine reported that, according to an MSNBC colleague, Matthews had said of Clinton: “I hate her. I hate her. All that she stands for.”
Even before that, Matthews told the January 20, 2000, Hardball audience, “Hillary Clinton bugs a lot of guys, I mean, really bugs people like maybe me on occasion. I'm not going to take a firm position here, because the election is not coming up yet. But let me just say this, she drives some of us absolutely nuts.”
Not that there was much chance his feelings would go unnoticed by even the most casual Hardball viewer.
Matthews has referred to Clinton as "She devil." He has repeatedly likened Clinton to “Nurse Ratched,” referring to the “scheming, manipulative” character in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest who “asserts arbitrary control simply because she can.” He has called her "Madame Defarge." And he has described male politicians who have endorsed Clinton as "castratos in the eunuch chorus."
Matthews has compared Clinton to a “strip-teaser” and questioned whether she is “a convincing mom.” He refers to Clinton's “cold eyes” and the “cold look” she supposedly gives people; he says she speaks in a “scolding manner” and is “going to tell us what to do.”
Matthews frequently obsesses over Clinton's "clapping" -- which he describes as "Chinese." He describes Clinton's laugh as a “cackle” -- which led to the Politico's Mike Allen telling him, “Chris, first of all, 'cackle' is a very sexist term.” (Worth remembering: When John McCain was asked by a GOP voter referring to Clinton, “How do we beat the bitch?” Allen reacted by wondering, “What voter in general hasn't thought that?” So Allen isn't exactly hypersensitive to people describing Clinton in sexist terms.)
Matthews repeatedly suggests Clinton is a "fraud" for claiming to be a Yankees fan, despite the fact that all available evidence indicates that Clinton has been a Yankees fan since childhood. In April of 2007, former Washington Post reporter John Harris, who has written a book about Bill Clinton, told Matthews to his face that the attacks on Clinton over her history of being a Yankees fan were false. Harris said: “Hillary Clinton got hazed over saying she was a New York Yankees fan. It turned out, actually, that was right. She had been a lifelong Yankees fan. But people were all over [her] for supposedly embroidering her past.” But Matthews doesn't let a little thing like the truth get in the way of his efforts to take cheap shots at Clinton: At least twice since Harris set him straight, Matthews has attacked Clinton over the Yankees fan nonsense, once calling her a “fraud.”
Matthews has described Clinton as "witchy" and -- in what appears to be a classic case of projection -- claimed that “some men” say Clinton's voice sounds like “fingernails on a blackboard.” In what appears to be an even more classic case of projection, Matthews has speculated that there is “out there in the country ... some gigantic monster -- big, green, horny-headed, all kinds of horns coming out, big, aggressive monster of anti-Hillaryism that hasn't shown itself: it's based upon gender.”
There's more, but I think you get the point.
In 2005, for example, Matthews said of Bush: “I like him. Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left -- I mean -- like him personally.” At the time the “real whack-jobs” who disliked Bush constituted a majority of the American public.
...
If Bush could do little wrong in Matthews' book, it sometimes seemed Barack Obama could do little right, as Matthews frequently ridiculed the Democratic presidential candidate for a preposterous variety of purported shortcomings. (True, Matthews also effusively praised Obama at times, often contradicting his own previous -- and future -- criticisms. Matthews rarely appears burdened by a need to maintain consistent, coherent viewpoints.)
In April, Matthews ridiculed Obama for ordering orange juice in a diner. Let that sit in a moment: Barack Obama asked for a glass of orange juice in a diner, and Chris Matthews belittled him for it. That came shortly after Matthews announced that Obama's bowling form was insufficiently “macho” and said Obama's lack of bowling prowess “tells you something about the Democratic Party.” A few weeks later, he suggested Obama was out of touch for playing pool: “Playing pool, not a bad start, but it's not what most people play. People with money play pool these days.” Last year, Matthews seemed to suggest that Obama was a flawed candidate because he isn't “beefy” enough: “I don't see a big, beefy alternative to Hillary Clinton -- a big guy. You know what I mean? An ... every-way big guy. I don't see one out there. I see a lot of slight, skinny, second- and third-rate candidates.”
More. More. More. More. More. More. And more. Again, I could go on like this all day, but you get the point.
"Misogynist":
But Matthews' questionable treatment of women extends beyond Hillary Clinton.
Matthews has described House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as "scary" and suggested she would "castrate" House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. And he has wondered how she could disagree with President Bush “without screaming? How does she do it without becoming grating?”
Just this week, Matthews claimed there isn't a plausible female presidential candidate “on the horizon” because there aren't any “big-state women governors” -- but Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell, and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius all run states with populations comparable to male governors who have recently run for president, including Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Bill Richardson. How large a state does a woman have to run before she qualifies as a plausible presidential candidate to Chris Matthews? One that is twice as large as Mitt Romney's Massachusetts? Three times as large?
Last October, Matthews mused aloud about a hypothetical couple trying to decide who to support for president. In Matthews' mind, the wife just wants to see “the first woman president.” According to Matthews, the husband has to explain the math to his wife: "[T]he husband says, 'You know, dear, you know, this is going to kill our tax bracket. You know that tuition thing we pay every couple of years for the kids, every year, we can't do that if we get a higher tax bracket. We have to pay more money.' "
After the Des Moines Register endorsed Hillary Clinton earlier this year, Matthews suggested that the paper's “female editors and publisher” succumbed to “lobbying” by Bill Clinton.
...
In 2000, Matthews responded to linguist Deborah Tannen's explanation of then-presidential candidate George W. Bush's efforts to appeal to women voters by saying, “So is this like the political equivalent of Spanish fly? That these seductive number of words you just drop out there and women just swoon.” That led another Hardball guest, Lynn Martin -- a Republican -- to point out, “You wouldn't suggest he's seducing men.”
Chris Matthews has been treating female guests as sexual objects for years. He has been judging women -- senators, presidential candidates, the speaker of the House -- on their clothes and their voices and their appearance for years. He has been referring to women as “castrating” for years. He has been applying double standards to male and female candidates for years.
This is who Chris Matthews is. He is a man who thinks that men who support women politicians are “eunuchs.”
And more.
So, that's why I described Chris Matthews as a “Clinton-hating, liberal bashing misogynist.” Because he hates the Clintons, bashes liberals, and may have a longer track record of on-air misogyny than any other media figure in America.
Your turn, Vadum.
PS: Matthews is also the guy who said President Bush “glimmers” with “sunny nobility,” compared Bush to Atticus Finch, said everybody likes Bush except “the real whack jobs” and repeatedly said John McCain “deserves” to be president.