Chris Matthews spends much of each Hardball broadcast spouting off about things he doesn't understand, and making pronouncements about The Way Things Are that just don't make sense. Here he is talking about federal funding for abortion, for example:

The Hyde Amendment, which we all know about, says no federal dollar can pay for anybody's abortion, for the obvious reason: people who are opposed to abortion don't want to have to pay for it, directly or indirectly, as taxpayers.

No. No, that is obviously not the reason.

Plenty of people are opposed to the death penalty and wars of choice, and the Department of Agriculture, and studies about the mating habits of fruit flies and incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders and membership in the UN -- and they don't want to have to pay for those things, directly or indirectly, as taxpayers.

And yet they do pay for them. There is no “Hyde Amendment” preventing the government from paying for any of those things.

The Hyde Amendment's ban on federal funding of abortion does not exist -- cannot logically exist -- simply because people who oppose abortion don't want to pay for it. If that were the way things worked, we literally would not have a government.

No, the Hyde Amendment exists because the political and media establishment privilege opposition to abortion over countless other things that millions of Americans oppose. Like Chris Matthews just did, and like he has done in the past.

And yet Matthews sits there and insists that federal funding of abortion is not allowed simply because “people who are opposed to abortion don't want to have to pay for it,” apparently not grasping the obvious implications of the silly notion that the government doesn't fund things some people don't want to pay for.

If you think this is all just semantics, take a look at the following two passages:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: The Hyde Amendment, which we all know about, says no federal dollar can pay for anybody's abortion, for the obvious reason: people who are opposed to abortion don't want to have to pay for it, directly or indirectly, as taxpayers.

BIZARRO CHRIS MATTHEWS: The Hyde Amendment, which we all know about, says no federal dollar can pay for anybody's abortion, even though it is a legal medical procedure, and even though collective funding for things individual taxpayers may oppose is inherent in the very concept of government.

Is there any doubt whatsoever that the second version would give people a clearer understanding of the situation? Is there any doubt at all that the first version is slanted in favor of the anti-abortion position?