On the August 7 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, prior to the AFL-CIO's Democratic candidates' forum airing on MSNBC later that day, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell referred to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finding that 39 percent of respondents said they “feel positive” toward Clinton on the issue of her “warmth and compassion,” while 30 percent said they “feel negative.” Saying that Clinton's “negatives are still so high on warmth and compassion,” Mitchell asserted that Clinton “has to show some personality and some likability, because she really has to show that she's approachable and a little bit softer than she's been in the past.” Hardball host Chris Matthews replied: “I know. She has to smile when she puts the knife in.”

From the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll:

The poll did not ask about respondents' feelings toward any other individual candidate.

Matthews later said he agreed with Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson's assessment that Clinton has run a “smart, good campaign,” but added, “I have not seen anybody this smooth in a long time.” Matthews then said: “Is it 'Slick Hillary' now, eh?”

Media Matters for America has noted numerous instances of the media characterizing Clinton as ruthless, or cold. Matthews himself has referred to Clinton as the Charles Dickens villain Madame DeFarge more than once, claimed she looked at former Vice President Al Gore with “dead people's eyes,” and laughed at the suggestion that Clinton would poison Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). Matthews' reference to Clinton using a knife is also not the media's first. On the January 24 broadcast of National Public Radio's Morning Edition, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank asserted: “Hillary Clinton was situated immediately behind Barack Obama” during President Bush's State of the Union address, “making it easier for her to actually place the knife into his back, if that's what she was trying to do.” Additionally, on the January 19 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, host Glenn Beck said “if you live in Chappaqua, New York, and you hear a strange grinding noise coming from the Clinton estate, it could be Hillary Clinton sharpening her knives in the basement.”

From the August 7 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Andrea Mitchell, is it possible for Hillary Clinton to take a punch and smile?

MITCHELL: I think it is. In fact, one of the things you notice in the polling is that even though she's really opened up this 22-point lead, if you look down at our poll, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll last week, her negatives are still so high on warmth and compassion. Thirty percent negative on whether she's warm enough, compassionate enough. Only 39 percent positive, so she always has that double bind as a woman candidate.

MATTHEWS: Right.

MITCHELL: She has to show her toughness on commander in chief issues, but she also has to show some personality and some likability because she really has to show that she's approachable and a little bit softer than she's been in the past.

MATTHEWS: I know. She has to smile when she puts the knife in.

ROBINSON: Well, I think credit has to be given, though, because she has really run, I think, a really smart, good campaign to this point.

MATTHEWS: Oh, you're not kidding. I share that assessment.

ROBINSON: Look at the national numbers.

MATTHEWS: I have not seen anybody this smooth in a long time.

ROBINSON: She's done really, really well. If, you know -- maybe some things are happening on the state level that are in Obama's favor.

MATTHEWS: Is it “Slick Hillary” now, eh? Anyway, thank you, Andrea Mitchell. Thank you, Lynn Sweet. Thank you, Pat Buchanan. Thank you, Eugene Robinson.