Chris Matthews has come a long way since the infamous thrill up his leg.
The MSNBC anchor, once so enamored with Barack Obama that he admitted a campaign speech sent a thrill up his leg, has now told Jay Leno that Obama scares him.
"The President scares me," Matthews said of Obama's response to the Gulf oil spill disaster. "He's been acting a little like a Vatican Observer here. When is he actually going to do something? And I worry; I know he doesn't want to take ownership of it. I know politics. He said the minute he says, 'I'm in charge,' he takes the blame, but somebody has to. It's in our interest."
Matthews described the oil spill as "the scariest thing I've ever seen" and used the opportunity to make a dig at Dick Cheney.
"I don't know where to start," he said. "I mean, Halliburton, sound familiar? Cheney was the head of Halliburton. When he got to Vice President, the oil company gave him a $34 million signing bonus to become Vice President of the United States."
Responding to Rush Limbaugh's statement that environmentalists should clean up the oil spill, Matthews said that Limbaugh "would say that" and described him as "a joke."
"Rush Limbaugh is totally pro-industry, totally pro-business; he's never said a word against offshore drilling in his entire life," he said. "And for him to come out and blame the environmentalists, what a joke."