A February 26 Los Angeles Times article, headlined “MSNBC serves political news with a side of opinion,” noted the firestorm sparked by MSNBC host Chris Matthews' comment about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that “the reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win there on her merit.” The article by Times staff writer Matea Gold quoted Matthews as saying of the controversy sparked by the January 9 remarks, “They created the storm; I had to deal with it,” and “I think any observant person would say what I said was true. It might have been said better, more felicitously.” But by now asserting that “what I said was true,” Matthews appears to be backtracking from comments he made when he addressed the controversy on the January 17 edition of Hardball. He said then that it was not “fair” of him “to imply that Hillary's whole career depended on being a victim of an unfaithful husband.”

Specifically, Matthews said:

Was it fair to imply that Hillary's whole career depended on being a victim of an unfaithful husband? No. And that's what it sounded like I was saying and it hurt people I'd like to think normally like what I say, in fact, normally like me. ... Saying that Senator Clinton got where she's got simply because her husband did what he did to her is just as callous, and I can see now, it comes across just as nasty, worse yet, just as dismissive.

From the February 26 article in the Los Angeles Times:

That followed an incident in January when Matthews said that the New York senator's political success stemmed solely from public sympathy that “her husband messed around,” sparking protests by women's groups.

Matthews later clarified his remarks, saying he did not mean that was the basis of her whole career. In an interview, he said he wanted to refine his comment but added that the Clinton campaign used the incident to score political points.

“They created the storm; I had to deal with it,” he said. “I think any observant person would say what I said was true. It might have been said better, more felicitously.”

From Matthews' January 17 statement on Hardball:

MATTHEWS: The truth of course is finer, smarter, larger than that. Yes, Hillary Clinton won tremendous respect from the country for the way she handled those difficult months in 1998. Her public approval numbers spiked from the mid-40s up to the 70s in one poll I looked at.

Why? Because she stuck to her duty; she performed strongly as first lady. She did such a wow of a job campaigning for Senate candidates, especially Chuck Schumer of New York, that she was urged to run for a Senate seat there herself. She might have well gotten that far by another route and through different circumstances, but this is how it happened.

The rest is history: how Hillary went up to New York, listened to peoples' concerns, and beat the odds, as well as the Republicans, to become a respected member of the U.S. Senate. So, did I say it right? Was it fair to say that Hillary Clinton, like any great politician, took advantage of a crisis to prove herself? Was her conduct in 1998 a key to starting her independent electoral career the following year? Yes.

Was it fair to imply that Hillary's whole career depended on being a victim of an unfaithful husband? No. And that's what it sounded like I was saying and it hurt people I'd like to think normally like what I say, in fact, normally like me. As I said, I rely on my heart to guide me in the heated, fast-paced talk we have here on Hardball -- a heart that bears only goodwill toward people trying to make it out there, especially those who haven't before.

If my heart has not always controlled my words, on those occasions when I have not taken the time to say things right, or have simply said the inappropriate thing, I'll try to be clearer, smarter, more obviously in support of the right of women -- of all people -- the full equality and respect for their ambitions. So, I get it.

On the particular point, if I had said that the only reason [Sen.] John McCain [R-AZ] has come so far is that he got shot down over North Vietnamese -- by North Vietnam, and captured by the enemy, I'd be brutally ignoring the courage and guts he showed in bearing up under his captivity. Saying that Senator Clinton got where she's got simply because her husband did what he did to her is just as callous, and I can see now, it comes across just as nasty, worse yet, just as dismissive.