In case anyone missed Wednesday's tragic-comic debate and needs more proof that the fourth estate is third rate, Chris Matthews was more than happy to oblige on Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher. Not only did Matthews contradict reality, he contradicted himself.
As usual, Matthews spoke from a position of fabricated and self-appointed authority, this time as as the spokesman of all blue collar men in Pennsylvania. And, once again, Matthews projected his own emotional baggage as fact, explaining that men go to diners in the morning because "they don't want to hang out with their wives for an hour and they want that hour away..."
Being the great comic that he is, Bill Maher segued seamlessly from Matthews' "Take my wife" set up into the following question:
Speaking of which, you have been criticized as being a little sexist about Hillary.... Don't you think she has a point that gender has actually been a bigger factor in this campaign than race?
Without missing a beat, a cocksure and visibly self impressed Matthews replied:
No, actually there are more women democrats than there are male democrats. That should help her.
What does his answer have to do with the question? How does a higher percentage of female Democrats prove that gender is not an issue in this campaign? But Matthews really showed off his reason-free reasoning when, he responded to Maher's question about why Hillary was "doing better with Catholics" by saying:
Chris Matthews:
That's a great question, that is a great one... 65% in Pennsylvania right now against 26%. I bet she goes up to 70, 75. I think that's just another word for Catholics, small town, middle class, I don't know I can't quite explain it. I don't know the answer to that.
BM: "Wow, I stumped Chris Matthews! I should win something."
Not to be outdone or stumped, the critically thinking Matthews surmised:
Maybe... Lemme find an issue you agree with the Pope on here. You're both against the war in Iraq. Catholics are generally against the war in Iraq, Hillary voted for it. Maybe that would be a logical reason, I'm not sure it's the real reason. But that would make sense.
What? Anti-war Catholic resentment of a war-voting Hillary WOULD make sense... If Matthews were explaining why Hillary is UNPOPULAR among Catholics. But since Matthews himself offers statistics demonstrating Hillary's popularity among Catholics, he just presented an illogical, contradictory explanation.
So why this explanation? In the words of Matthews, that's a great question, that is a great one... don't know the answer to that... Maybe the answer is that Matthews has a blinding anti-Hillary bias which prevents his brain from registering any Hillary popularity. Or maybe the answer is that Matthews just isn't the brightest crayon in the box, in spite of his fluency in statistics and stereotyping.
Bill didn't catch Chris's illogical explanations on gender or Catholics. But in all fairness, it's hard to keep up with Matthews non-stop cerebral flatulence. And Maher did call out Chris's inanity earlier in the interview, when the pundit waxed nostalgic about the 2004 election:
CM: They asked the question which one of the candidates would help you, Bush or Kerry, if your car was broken down on the road... would stop and help you. Neither guy got 50% but Bush beat out Kerry. And that was a disaster. Because if you're a Democrat and people don't think you're gonna look out for the other guy, you're finished because you're not gonna win on law and order, or national security or all that stuff--
BM: But Chris the president is never on the highway. That would never come up. It has nothing to do with how a president affects people's live
CM: I know. it's about is this guy on our side or not.
Well, if we were to ask ourselves if Chris was on our side or not, I'm pretty sure the answer would be no. If our side wanted truth over truthiness.
The reality is, polling out of Super Tuesday showed a net gain of 5% for Clinton based solely on her gender and a net loss of 2% for Obama based solely on his race. He still won more states, more votes, and more delegates. Still, the exit polling said that being a black man was a disadvantage for Obama and being a white woman was an advantage for Clinton -- at least on that one day.
You're obscuring the facts behind the issue.
that will be scared to death if they see one walking down the street in thier rich neighbor hoods be on the phone calling the police and why do they thing that working people is so dumb that if you come to thier bar and have a shot or a beer with them they know you care about them so they will trust them with thier lives these people are out dated same old way of thinking and thank they know what the people want but have not walk in thier shoes do all of them the pundits have esp if we listen to this crap we will have another bush in the white house that had a beer with us and change
our tires so he get us drunk and drive us right into a war with iran this time. god help us
He's is a pestilence and a cancer in broadcast journalism.
Matthews, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Joe Scarborough, Lou Dobbs, and Glenn Back are knuckle dragging neanderthals who are hurting the country by dumbing it down to death.
Spending this much time on Matthews is absurd, but here I am. There's just something about this guy that is so phony & self-centered.
Im just as tired of these pundits as I am of Sen Clinton!
I've been very disappointed in Maher's show this year. He brings on people like Frank Lutz and fails to note that he's a right-wing operative.
Between Matthews and Lutz, it seems that Matthews has decided to help perpetuate the narratives that the media elite have constructed for themselves. There was a time when Maher helped tear them down and expose the media's hypocrisy.
Thank God we still have Jon Stewart to do that.
I am so infuriated that an idiot like him goes around all the time claiming that he is a "typical" Pennsylvanian. No, Mr. Matthews, you are not. I know Pennsylvania, I was born in Pennsylvania, and I've lived in Pennsylvania my whole life. If typical Pennsylvanians were as ignorant, sexist, bigoted, and completely in love with themselves as Chris Matthews, I'd have left the commonwealth a long time ago.
Given that Hilary is underperforming from where she was expected to be from the outset of the campaign, the fact that the electorate is predominantly female would seem to be a good reason to think that gender has not been the dominant issue. If it had, one would expect Hilary to have done better than she has.
And Maher's challenge to Matthews point about the highway was not that he was wrong, but rather that his being right reflects poorly on the American voter. It is not really a challenge to Matthews view that people vote on who they think would help them on the highway, that they shouldn't vote on that basis. People do things they shouldn't all the time.
And I am not sure why Matthews' mistake about catholics and the war shows an anti-Hillary bias. In that whole sequence of questions what Matthews is trying to do is to deny the idea that Catholics are voting for Hillary because they are racist. That is to say he is trying to reject the explanation that would be worst for Hillary. So how are his answers anti-Hillary.
Matthews twisted a question in order to berate Clinton. Maher ask why is there a large percentage of Catholic voters for Clinton. He refused to answer the question directly. Instead he said, ' I don't know", and made a statement that the Pope is against a war that Hillary supported;
Matthew's sexism was showing
Maher asked Cornell West ,"Can a Black be an Elitist?" West gave two ways a Black can be viewed as an Elitist. One by being too intelligent, The second being a snob, who is out of touch with people who the Elitist considers beneath him. Maher chosed to say that America dislikes Obama because he is too intelligent. Maher never wanted to say, what is actually felt by many Americans. Obama is a snobbish Elitist, that doesn't consider the lower classes. Look how the poor of Cabrini Greens in Illinois was pushed out of public housing in favor of the rich.
But even supposing that he supports Obama (reasonable enough) why would pointing out that Clinton supported the war be sexist? The fact that Clinton not only voted to support the war, but gave a speech that used her time in the whitehouse to give cover to the war is my reason to oppose Clinton. But that would be true if she was a man as well.
If he supported Clinton over Obama and cited some policy mistake of Obama would that make him racist?
Cabrini Green was where a boy was shot walking to school a while back because someone in one of the high rises decided to take target practice. The question of whether replacing Cabrini Green with alternate housing comes down to one of whether there was an equal amount of alternate housing. The manner of living in those high rises could hardly have been made worse.
It is true that the Taylor homes and Horner homes were bigger deals because they existed on such a larger scale. While Cabrini Green has more fame because it was walking distance from the wealthy parts of Chicago.
Matthews also made sure to, once again, push his notion that Obama's ordering orange juice in a diner is evidence of his elitism. It seems that Matthews, elitist extraordinaire, believes that the "regular folk" who eat in diners are too stupid to make a healthy beverage choice, and that they would therefore consider orange juice drinkers to be snobs.
I hope Matthews does decide to run for Senator. I live in Pennsylvania, so I would actually get the opportunity to vote against him. But most of all, I'd just adore watching him try to answer questions in a debate-- his inability to make sense would end his aspirations and get him off the airwaves forever.
The question posed in the exit polls is
“Was race of the candidate important to you?”
Here is the breakdown:
Yes – 20% with Clinton receiving 59% and Obama receiving 39% of those votes.
No – 79% with Clinton receiving 53% and Obama receiving 45% of those votes.
As much as I love George S, Charlie G, and Keith Olberman. I am so sick of ABC and MSNBC. Matthews is an idiot. Maybe PA was that kinda state when he lived here, but nothing he says, I find to be true. He makes it seem like all the blacks in Philly support Obama, and we don't. And he makes it seem like all the small time whites are stupid, gun toting, apathetic hicks. It's true that PA has an extremely high number of KKK, Skinhead type groups, but there are some gun toting Obama supporters in the Western part of PA. And as a Hillary supporter, I had to even admit it.
I still believe Dan Abrams is the most objective these days. Thank goodness he's still on the air. And of course, Bill Maher is a genius.