Overlooking his own complicity, Matthews criticized “mainstream media” for “continu[ing] to act as if most people support the war”

Written by Rob Morlino

Published

MSNBC's Chris Matthews criticized the “mainstream media” for “continu[ing] to act as if most people support the war, and it's the outside weirdoes that oppose it,” when "[t]hat's not true." However, Matthews himself falsely asserted just two days earlier on Hardball that a CBS News/New York Times poll released May 9 showed “for the first time” that Americans “really have a majority view that we were wrong to go to Iraq.” In fact, eight CBS/Times polls dating back to July 2004 have shown that a majority of respondents believe the United States should have “stayed out” of Iraq.


During the May 12 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews criticized the “mainstream media” for “continu[ing] to act as if most people support the war, and it's the outside weirdoes that oppose it,” when "[t]hat's not true." Matthews added: "[W]hy does the media still act as if it's a gung-ho country on this?" But as Media Matters for America noted, Matthews himself falsely asserted just two days earlier on Hardball that a CBS News/New York Times poll released May 9 showed “for the first time” that Americans “really have a majority view that we were wrong to go to Iraq.” In fact, eight CBS/Times polls dating back to July 2004 and asking whether “the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq” have shown that a majority of respondents believe the United States should have “stayed out.”

Matthews made his false claim about the CBS/Times poll during an interview with Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS). Two days later, he asserted that “the mainstream media continues to act as if most people support the war” during a discussion with Bill Carter, a New York Times staff writer and author of Desperate Networks (Doubleday, May 2006).

From the May 10 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: And tonight, Washington wonders: With the president's second term now in deep water, how long can he go? How low can his polls go? A CBS/New York Times poll shows the president's approval rating now has hit a new low of 31 percent. Only 29 percent approve of the president's handling of the war in Iraq. And a solid majority think we never should have gone there.

[...]

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Senator Durbin: The American people, for the first time now, really have a majority view that we were wrong to go to Iraq. They don't believe in the president's decision, made sometime in 2001 or 2002, to invade in 2003. Are you -- you are now -- are you still where you were back then? You don't think the president should have gone to war in Iraq the way he did?

DURBIN: There were 23 of us who voted no, one Republican and 22 Democrats, and I was in their ranks. I still feel the same today.

From the May 12 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: The fact is, Cindy Sheehan is more representative of most people's thinking now, as far left as she seems, because most Americans for months now believe it was a mistake to go to war. Yet the mainstream media continues to act as if most people support the war, and it's the outside weirdoes that oppose it. That's not true. The average American opposes this war.

CARTER: That's what the polls are telling us.

MATTHEWS: But why the media -- but why does the media still act as if it's a gung-ho country on this?

CARTER: I don't know. I think the media has been very much currying favor with the administration for a long time.

MATTHEWS: Why?