On the August 16 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, radio host Mark Williams asserted that “every military advance we have made” in Iraq “has been ruined, one way or another, by some fat-mouthed congressman, usually a Democrat, opening his mouth on Capitol Hill.” Williams also asserted: “I hope what we get is the truth from General [David] Petraeus about every step forward on the ground being made by the military since we started this being ruined, and two steps backwards being taken on Capitol Hill by the Democrats playing politics on this and plucking the pennies off the eyelids of the newly dead.”

Later, presumably referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Williams said, " 'Nancy Botox' is out there saying, you know, “We're leaving! We're running! We're gonna go away!” Matthews responded, “You know, Mark, that doesn't help me any.”

Notwithstanding Matthews' assertion -- “that doesn't help me any” -- this was not the first time that Williams has attacked Democrats on MSNBC. As Media Matters for America has noted, on the September 26, 2006, edition of MSNBC's Tucker, Williams asserted that “people have made up their minds ... that if we vote Democrat, that just hastens the day we disappear in a nuclear holocaust.”

Williams has also asserted, on the October 16, 2006, edition of Tucker, that immigrants “by and large, the illegal immigrants mainly” are “just here to rip off a piece and to get back to where they come from,” adding that they are “drug runners, human traffickers” and “people who engage in slavery and prostitution.” Host Tucker Carlson said, “I agree with that.” Williams later appeared to claim that U.S. possession of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) would force Spanish-speaking immigrants to learn English, declaring: “As long as we have the ICBMs, they can learn English.” During an appearance on the August 22, 2005, edition of Hardball, Williams cited the “300,000 victims of Saddam's chemical weapons” to suggest that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction at the time of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. On that show, Williams also referred to his fellow Hardball guest, former FBI whistleblower and Minnesota Democratic congressional candidate Colleen Rowley as a “pathetic creature” and asked what she had done besides “flapping her jowls on MSNBC.”

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

MATTHEWS: I don't agree with you, but let's hear what Mark Williams says. I think that we've been promised by the president over and over and over again a report, a clean report from the general. He has basically been told, “Don't believe me, believe the general.” Now we're told it's all going to go through a White House filter. Mark Williams, your assessment. Are we going to get a Petraeus report or a Bush report?

WILLIAMS: I hope what we get is the truth from General Petraeus about every step forward on the ground being made by the military since we started this being ruined, and two steps backwards being taken on Capitol Hill, by the Democrats playing politics with this and plucking the pennies off the eyelids of the newly dead.

Where do we get off having an open hearing on military details of a war we happened to be involved in at the moment? You don't discuss those things in front of the terrorists. You let General Petraeus tell the appropriate committee chairmen, if they need to be told, what's going on, on the ground. They have the fight behind the scenes. They get all bloodied and battled in the backroom, in the Cloak Room, then come out kissy-face with a united front.

You don't sit the guy in front of the Congress, in front of a congressional panel, and look for congressional or campaign brownie points that you can use in the coming election.

But he does need to tell us one thing very truthfully. And that is something the troops told me when I was over there, that they tell me when they come back now and that I have heard from guys, even guys with stars on their neck, that every military advance we have made over there has been ruined, one way or another, by some fat-mouthed congressman, usually a Democrat, opening his mouth on Capitol Hill.

MATTHEWS: How is that? How has the Democratic Party hurt the war effort?

WILLIAMS: By convincing, or trying to convince us, that we have lost this, that we`re going to leave.

Chris, you know, you're -- you're -- you're from the same place I`m from, Boston. You -- you have a neighborhood problem. In a certain neighborhood, you go to the guy on the corner who takes care of the problem. Why? Because the cops aren't going to be there to protect you if you go to them.

The same thing is happening in Baghdad. The same thing is happening in Iraq. The people of that -- that community, the people of that city, have been going to the people who will help them, who will bring them a generator without reams of requisition forms. That happens to be the local friendly neighborhood Al Qaeda.

But they have gotten so savage now, actually literally ripping people's faces off with piano wire, murdering entire families, that the Iraqis are dropping dimes on them, because our military men are saying to the Iraqis, don't worry. We will be here when you're in trouble and when you need us.

Meanwhile, “Nancy Botox” is out there saying, you know, “We're leaving! We're running! We're gonna go away!”

MATTHEWS: This doesn't help me any.

[crosstalk]

MATTHEWS: You know, Mark, that doesn't help me any.