This election cycle, Donald Trump is a conservative, which means he’s against abortion. But Trump today took the conversation in a new direction: Punishing the women who have them.
During Hardball today, Chris Matthews was doing his "talk to the crowd" shtick outside the VP debate in Danville, Kentucky, when he was rudely interrupted by a Romney supporter shouting "communist" over a conversation Matthews was having with someone else about the state of health care in America.
Many in the left-leaning media were extremely unhappy with Obama's performance during last night's presidential debate, but none made it clearer than MSNBC's Chris Matthews, who wailed like a Truth Siren at the president's feckless, listless first round.
When Rep. John Boehner assumed the speakership, he said he didn't want to be an arm-twister for votes, and that he wanted the people's voice to be heard clearly. A nice sentiment! But now he that needs votes for his debt ceiling plan today, that's all over. How will he screw over dissidents? Let's look at the case of fellow Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan.
Here's a clip of Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) on MSNBC last night, explaining how Republicans will cut vague "discretionary spending" to achieve magical savings. Chris Matthews is like "What will you cut? WHAT WILL YOU CUT?" The poor man's apoplectic!
Chris Matthews had former Nixon henchman/radio talk show host/Birther G. Gordon Liddy on Hardball tonight to talk about the dumb Obama birth certificate controversy and Liddy looked as though he might die on the air while Matthews surgically debunked him.
Bad news for both of the "Chris Matthews For Senate" enthusiasts: the clear-haired shouting head "is expected to sign a long-term contract to remain as host of MSNBC's 'Hardball,'" Politico reports. After all his hollering about maybe leaving the show to run for the Senate —which was almost surely a negotiating tactic—"It's widely believed inside the network that Matthews will get a pay cut from his $5 million annual take." This man is an expert in the Machiavellian arts. [Politico]
"Chris, you can call me Joan, I've had dinner at your house." This is an amazing, squirmy exchange between drunk contrarian Christopher Hitchens and liberal Salon lady Joan Walsh. They are arguing about Hillary Clinton and Marc Rich and stuff, but they are actually arguing about what a prick Chris Hitchens is, especially to ladies. Joan calls Chris "ridiculous" a good half-dozen times. Please enjoy. And don't mention the child. [Vid credit: Intern Daniel Caron]
During Friday's taping of Hardball, some audience members felt that this election simply isn't as hysterical as it could be, so they decided to do something about it. Host Chris Matthews was blissfully ignorant that the real show was going on just behind his back, with people in the crowd holding up signs featuring such stirring political rhetoric as "Tire Swings Are Not Toys!" and "Shawshank Redemption Deserved an Award!" Hmm... Wonder why no one in Matthews' crew let him in on the fun? Click through to view the LOLZ.
The attempt by the McCain campaign to deflect criticism of their insane choice of running mate by assailing the media is already ridiculous. Steve Schmidt whined to Howard Kurtz about hypothetical questions asked by journalists that have not resulted in stories printed anywhere. They boycotted Larry King because Campbell Brown dared ask mean questions of Tucker Bounds. Now their surrogates are grasping at the most sublimely ridiculous straw of all: when asked by Chris Matthews to name the major media outlets engaged in character assassination of Sarah Palin, adorable Florida Congressman Adam Putnam named Us Weekly. Us Weekly! Yes we did just reveal their radical secret agenda today but still, this is the best you can do? Chris Matthews then calls it "the U. S. Weekly." Now the McCain campaign will boycott magazines, probably.
Chris Matthews is actually incapable of conceiving of "regular people" who aren't him. Which is to say, aging white men with blue-collar backgrounds, probably from the eastern seaboard. The stream-of-consciousness pundit just came out and explicitly said it on his show yesterday, asking, "can Obama now win over the regular folks, white folks, against John McCain?" White folks! They're so regular! Previously, Chris asserted that he knew for a fact that only "people with money play pool these days," in his insane campaign to convince everyone else of his dearly held belief that the only people in America who count are those who are exactly like his own cartoonish and inaccurate sense of himself, the millionaire television personality. Anyway. The clip is after the jump.
Michelle Obama went on The View yesterday to soften her Fox News-propagated image as a whitey-hating terrorist baby mama, but the appearance is only making the cable pundits talk about her image problems more. Exhibit A: Michelle Bernard said on MSNBC's Hardball that the makeover is needed "so people aren't terrified thinking this black woman is going to be doing God-knows-what in the White House." Bernard is the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, so it would be a stretch to lump this comment in with all the recent racial smears against the prospective first-lady, but it does beg the questions, some posed by an astute email tipster: Just what, exactly, could Michelle Obama do in the White House? Install a mosque? Fill it with purple leather couches and tiger-printed throw pillows? Change the tap water with malt liquor? Clip after the jump, plus a look at the cringey promo for this episode of Hardball.
Funny how the most obnoxious of critics often have the thinnest skins. Noah Oppenheim-the NBC producer in the news this week because he's leaving The Today Show for a production company cosy with the network-has an appetite for controversy. Unless it involves him: Oppenheim has had at least one critical article by Brian Stelter removed from Mediabistro's TV Newser website.
