UPDATE: Sorry guys, in semi-vacation mode here. Anyway, as you've surely already seen Chris Matthews says he's not in prep mode.
Uhhh...this strikes me as a bad idea. Just based on his show, if I were in Pennsy, I might vote for Arlen Specter. I'm not one for gotcha journalism, but this is an attack ad in waiting. I guess this sort of thing isn't policy, so it shouldn't matter, but still...
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» Tweety to Run Against Arlen Specter in 2010 from I Don't Like You Either Comments (41)
Tweety is a self-absorbed buffoon, as anyone who's seen him for more than five minutes would attest. The U.S. Senate doens't need another one of those. It's not a bad idea, it's a horrible idea. 
I think he's a little too old to start a political career. He'll be 64 in 2010, so if he wins, he'll be 70 at the end of his first term. Seriously, I think we have too many old people in the Senate already. Yes, yes, I know, I'm an ageist bigot. I just think it's ridiculous that many Senators stay until they are 90 plus. Don't these people want to retire and spend time with their family? Is it really healthy for our democracy to have a bunch of octogenarian running things?
Mathews blew it. He could have had a political career before he recorded hours of tape making a fool out of himself. It's too bad for him because he clearly genuinely loves politics. Probably just as well for us, because it's not clear what he loves "issues-wise" other than the politics itself - his "blue collar" shtick is as recycled and phony as Mike Barnicle's. There does seem to be some residual idealism from his days in the Peace Corps, but that's a pretty dim memory. The funny thing about Chris is his utter incoherence - sometimes he's actually rises to the occasion and asks the pertinent question, but mostly he's awful. He's ruled by his passions of the moment (see video), which occasionaly makes for interesting discussion but more often is a train wreck or a bore. I'm a dyed in the wool Obama-from-Day-One-of-his-campaign, no-more-Clintons-in-the-White-House-Please! guy, but I thought Mathews' treatment of Hillary was an embarrassment.
Googling chris matthews sexist pig gets over 20k hits. That's hardly the worst record in public life: Substitute "larry summers" and you get 90k. But it's not a great start. Granted, much of that has to do with his coverage of Clinton during the primary. But even if we read him as generously as possible, and it's just that Clinton gets under his skin, how will he possibly work with her as a colleague in the Democratic Senate caucus?
The guy has probably seen so many blowhards pass through his show, he figures why not me. Franken might even make it this year. He can be a good interviewer at times because he seems to ask a lot of questions and at times, doesn't let the guest get away with the fake out. But some of his stuff is based upon embarassing people. Like when Katrina Vanden Heuvel couldn't name her congressman, one Texas Rep couldn't think of one thing Obama did, and the talk show host who didn't know what Chamberlain did.
Have you all read that NY Times Magazine piece on Matthews? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/magazine/13matthews-t.html It details more than a few instances in the same vein as this clip with Erin Burnett. The funniest one is where he tries to sidways hit on Kerry Washington. He is fun to laugh at, no?
I think Chris Matthews running for Senate against Arlen Specter is a bad idea because its Arlen Specter but Chris Matthews does know a lot about the Senate having worked for Tip O'Neil. And when the subject is policy he is usually pretty good. But honestly while the guy has his share of gaffes and questionable quotes about Democrats, he is the undisputed champion of PWNAGE when it comes to conservative hacks. Seriously Coates you should go to youtube and put Chris Matthews and Kevin James in the search engine and post that video. The way he picked that guy apart was like a flawless victor on MK back in the day. He also called out Nancy Pfotenhauer for trying to de-Republicanize John McCain. That was an especially great clip for me because I personally couldn't stand Pfotenfluffer and the way she used to try to pull hit jobs on Obama. And who could forget the way he skillfully steered Michele Bachmann off a cliff a month before the election. I would try to post the vids myself but I keep getting sent to netherworld when I do that. So while I think maybe he is misguided about running for the Senate I do think he gets a bad rap about his show on the whole. Put it to you this way, you won't see Keith Olberman tearing conservatives apart like that nor Rachel Maddow or Campbell Brown. Maybe Rick Sanchez but not on a regular basis like Tweety.
Chris Matthews is a muppet.
There are many things that I dislike about Matthews but in the context of him being a news talk show host, the thing that bothers me the most is how lazy and ill-prepared he frequently is. He quite frequently has his facts wrong. More significantly, his guests often have their facts wrong and he does not know to correct them. When he challenges guests, it is usually on meta stuff like he did with Bachmann. There is certainly a value to that. But on that same interview, before she got into her McCarthyite schtick, she made several statements about Ayers, Saul Alinsky and Obama's relationship to those individuals which were flat out false and which Matthews never bothered to try to correct. The Kevin James bit was a bit better but again, James was spewing a series of essentially unchallenged lies and inaccuracies before we even got to the bit about Chamberlain. In a sane world, the Bachmanns and Jameses of the world would be laughed out of the room because of their incredible dishonesty or ignorance before we even got to the all of the meta questions about how thoughtful they are about democracy or governance. The Chris Matthews of the world are a big part of the reason why the world lacks sanity. He is not the sort of person who should be representing our interests in government.
What kind of bubble/echo chamber does this guy live in that would make this seem like a good use of time and money?
As I recall, the 'liberal' in Tweety surfaced only after Bush was a mortally wounded lame duck. And his creepy man-love for Giuliani, McCain, and Fred Thompson is beyond weird, it's politically frightening. But as horrible as he is, he’s got to be an improvement on Cheney-enabler Specter.
While I won't recommend Matthews for Senate, and I can't imagine he actually spends enough time in PA to qualify for running office, his book, "Hard Ball" is a must read for those who want to understand effective politicians and politics rather than idealist ones. I think Matthews would be an effective Senator and we could use more of them.
I don't want his carpetbagging ass in Philly playing the favorite son role. He left the 'ole hometown a long time ago and frankly if people around here knew of him as a Philly native I'd be surprised. The Dems have a few other players that could potentially take down 80 yr old cancer-striken snarlin' Arlen. Rep. Alyson Schwartz or Rep. Joe Sestak, perhaps. Schwartz got CHIP passed in the PA Senate and she represents a big district that overlaps with Spector's base in Montgomery Co. outside Philly. Sestak is retired Admiral and two term Rep from Delaware County - a big base county that could help stave off a Matthews' celebrity-driven vanity candidacy.
fivethirtyeight.com now has a statement from Matthews denying the story. So stop worrying.
I chatted this past week with some liberal, well-informed people. Consensus: Chris Matthews doesn't know when to shut up. He makes Joe Biden look like a tower of restraint. HA!
Jokes. Two words, mikr: Hillary Clinton. Celebrity goes a long way in our politics.
sgwhiteinfla:
Joe Klein's conscience You are right about Tip but Chris Matthews did used to work for him. My bad on calling Tip a Senator. from fivethirtyeight.com According to multiple sources, who confirmed the Tip O'Neill staffer-cum-MSNBC host has negotiated with veteran Obama staffers to enlist in his campaign, Chris Matthews will run for United States Senate in Pennsylvania in 2010.
The guy is a blowhard, and he wouldn't be around long anyway. Two terms maybe? Pennsylvania would do better to get a younger guy they could keep in there for five terms or so. Plus I don't want him to run just because I'd have to hear about how this is proof if the media's liberal bias. And I would like to second the "he never seems prepared or has his shit straight" sentiment.
Off topic, but TNC, what do you think about Charles Blow's op-ed in NYT today about gay marriage? (Sorry, no link. Apparently putting links causes the comment to go into moderation and not approved? I guess this is the way Atlantic Monthly has set it up?)
PeterG, I just came to ask the same question. I agreed with some of what Blow said, disagreed with others.. But, for the longest time I didn't quite 'get' why, when I heard gay marriage compared to interracial marriage, why it just didn't have the same punch as I thought it should. Blow explained it: First, comparing the struggles of legalizing interracial marriage with those to legalize gay marriage is a bad idea. Many black women do not seem to be big fans of interracial marriage either. They’re the least likely of all groups to intermarry, and many don’t look kindly on the black men who intermarry at nearly three times the rate that they do, according to a 2005 study of black intermarriage rates in the Wisconsin Law Review. Wrong reference. Don’t even go there. He NAILED it. If you're trying to get Black votes for gay marriage, don't compare it to the one thing that Black Women - the CLEAR MAJORITY OF BLACK VOTERS - dislike nearly as much as gay marriage - interracial marriage. I don't know why I didn't put together the dots like that, but Blow was on the money with that.
I disagree, Blow comes off like an idiot in that piece. First of all because many black women get their hair done by gay men and have plenty of them have gay men as friends they are much less likely to have been the ones who opposed prop 8. Second of all the Loving case about interacial marriage was all about a black WOMAN and a white MAN. They guy is trying to come off as some kind of psychologist but he is full of sh!t. He also tried to pull in some bullsh!t about "down low" black men being the reason black women voted against prop 8 but where is his proof? Ask a black woman if she agrees with the guy and you are likely to hear them call him a buffoon. There is no better analogy than the ban on interacial marriage and it will resonate the most with the constituency of black folks who are most opposed to gay marriage and thats black men. When they can see how it can be percieved as the same kind of discrimination they might have faced 40 years ago against marrying the woman of their choice they may very well "get it". And lest we forget the dubious exit poll numbers saying that 70% of black folks voted against prop 8 have already been debunked a gazillion times at this point. Black women are the least of the No on 8 people's worries trust me.
TNC, To piggyback onto what rikyrah and PeterG mentioned, I haven't seen a thread here on interracial marriage/dating. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the subject.
I probably would not vote for him, but it seems like you could find good candidates in the press. They are already known and are likely to have a solid grasp on what is going on around them.
"They are already known and are likely to have a solid grasp on what is going on around them." I agree with the "already known" part, but having a solid grasp of issues? Somehow I kinda doubt it in Matthews' case. What I can't stomach is the field day Republicans and Fox News will have with this if Matthews is really running (he denied staffing a campaign, I don't think he's ruled out running, has he?). Further proof of liberal media bias etc etc.
This is about the worst state for Mathews to pick. Dems here love Hillary, and she will completely sink him--she'll sppear with Sestak, or Schwartz, or a lump of coal, and that's who the nominee will be.
"I haven't seen a thread here on interracial marriage/dating. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the subject." Good Lord ! It's 2008 - not 1958 !
Peter, How is it proof of "liberal media bias" or as I think of it "hiring writers, who naturally tend to lean a little left"? He is not really there for straight news. I did not mean a solid grasp of issues. I meant a solid grasp on reality. The last few months have been a little odd.
"How is it proof of "liberal media bias" or as I think of it "hiring writers, who naturally tend to lean a little left"? He is not really there for straight news." Of course I agree that it's not liberal bias at all. Laughable, really. Personally, I always thought Matthews skews conservative, especially during the Clinton years. But I guess I don't really expect the folks at Fox to worry too much about the distinction between news journalism and opinion journalism. They'll just tar everybody with the same brush: journalist running for office as a Democrat = media is full of Democratic party hacks. The supreme irony of that coming from a channel that regularly employs former Republican staffers and office holders, not to mention uses Republican party talking points as their "news" would of course be lost to them. It's not Matthews' fault at all if they want to spun it this way, of course. I guess I need to stop doing this - worrying about how every actions by the left would be spun by Fox News and RNC. It's just hard habit to break after 8 years of being told daily that apparently I belong to a group of godless, America-hating, terrorist-loving people.
"Good Lord ! It's 2008 - not 1958 !" True. But in 2008 we're still talking about is so and so black enough, etc. It's silly to pretend that despite the progress we've made since the 50s that interracial relationships are so perfectly accepted as to not be a subject for discussion. Blow made a point that at least deserves to be examined about black women generally not being fans of interracial relationships. I don't know if his point was right and I don't know how I feel about the column yet, need to re-read it. But as TNC has confessed to being obsessed with race and this blog has touched on race in a bunch of other areas (including D&D) and I'd like to hear his thoughts. For the record, I have zero issue with interracial dating. In fact I do it fairly often.
brucds, I don't want to presume what AMT really means here, but maybe he/she is referring to gender discrepancy in interracial marriage, which is tangentially related to that Charles Blow's op-ed? My wife is Chinese-American, and when we were dating, I did get some good-natured ribbing from some of my Asian American friends about "making things harder for them." They were mostly joking, but I don't think it's inconceivable that there would be some real issues in various communities because of the gender discrepancy in interracial marriage. That said, I'm really glad my wife picked me, I think I'm the luckiest guy in the world :)
Oops, sorry AMT, you already responded. Didn't mean to be presumptuous.
No need to apologize PeterG. I'm a "he" for the record. I was referring first to the subject of interracial dating in general. It's a huge subject with lots to talk about. Second, I was talking about the gender discrepancy or at least the views of black women on IRD as opposed to black men. Re: the black women/asian men issues you mentioned, I've heard/read the same thing. Maybe we read the same CNN article.
Loving v. Virginia was more a defeat for institutionalized racism generally than a victory for black people in particular. Blacks were denied the right to vote, use public accommodations, etc. Blacks and whites were denied the right to intermarry.
The dude's a celebrity and that goes a long way in politics. He might have a future. People are touting Sarah Palin as still having a political future. Chris Matthews can be someone too in that landscape.
"It's just hard habit to break after 8 years of being told daily that apparently I belong to a group of godless, America-hating, terrorist-loving people." Ya, get over it. I laugh at this sort of bullshit also. Some person tells you what you are or will be and you can either laugh at them or ignore it. I say fuck 'em. Take the good, leave the bad and walk away happy. Fuck the world:)
I'm not sure if there are real studies to prove this, or it's just the conventional meme, or urban legend, but I've often read that the rate of interracial marriage is higher for African American men compared to African American women For every interracial marriage involving a Black woman, there are THREE for a Black man. Black women, of all ethnic groups, are the LEAST LIKELY TO MARRY OUTSIDE OF THEIR RACE. This isn't some urban legend, this is REALITY. I said myself that I agreed and disagreed with certain things in the Blow piece, but thought he had an ' a ha' moment. I knew intellectually, that the comparison of inter-racial marriage to gay marriage is 'technically correct', but there was an emotional disconnect, and I didn't understand why it wasn't the 'seller', the 'convincer' that, in theory, it should be for the Black community. Blow is right; comparing gay marriage to the one thing that would be disliked nearly as much - interracial marriage - is NOT a way to gather support from Black women. And, Black women are a majority of the voters in the Black community. And, it matters not that Loving v. Virginia is about a Black woman with White man, you say ' interracial dating' to most Black women, the image that automatically pops up in their minds is a Black man, usually one of the better ' prospects' of the community, with Snowflake on his arm. How can folks say that it doesn't matter? More than once on this blog, folks have asked the question outright: Where would Barack Obama be if he had married Snowflake. My blunt answer has been and will always be: Not in the U.S. Senate, let alone President of the United States. And, I stand by that answer.
Joe Klein's conscience, Are you the same "Joe Klein's conscience" from Time blog? Hilarious username, BTW. Although, I think Joe Klein has been on a pretty good roll lately. Maybe you can rename yourself "Michael Scherer's conscience". On second thought, never mind. Scherer is probably a lost cause anyway.
"True. But in 2008 we're still talking about is so and so black enough, etc." Pretty stupid people were talking about that "not black enough" thing - most opportunistically when it was trumpeted by the right wing to exploit what they saw as a possible way of seperating Obama from a part of his "base" (a come-lately "base" with all due respect.) I was an Obama precinct captain in a mostly black neighborhood and never heard that crap - he was embraced as "black" in my experience. One very nasty old black Hillary lady did tell me Obama "needed to go back to Africa" which was my Gignormous Irony Moment during this election. People need to screw their heads on. Maybe I'm jaded because I'm a white guy married to a black woman (extremely happily) and dated interracially as long as 45 years ago in the Midwest. But I just have a problem with these discussions - and where I live currently, in Oakland Ca, it's a non-issue among anyone one would want to associate with - why not have a discussion about being gay while we're at it. Of course there are discussions within these frames of reference, but they're usually about people who are having some problems with tolerance and keeping out of other people's business to varying degrees. That's a phenomenon I'm not particularly tolerant of...
I want to make one more point about the "not black enough" thing. I believe that was a journalist's meme dredged up by folks looking for some eyeballs on their not-particularly-must-read output. While I'm a white guy, my take on this is it was a pretty bullshit, minor chord in the black community. As I said, my sense workiing on the campaign is that he was embraced as "black" on the street. And in my more personal experience, my black family (wife and in-laws) thought this was absurd, as did friends including one who is an old SNCC vet who's about as close to black nationalist as one still finds outside of sects. The key to this might well be the intermarriage thing - i.e. the Obama family is defnitively "black." I also agree that had Obama married a white girl and, as importantly, not become a member of the Southside community, he might have still had a poltical career of sorts, but he wouldn't have made it to the Presidency. But the nuances of successfully making it to the Presidency are many and varied, and don't have a hell of a lot to do with how "normal people" choose to live their lives. There's lots of things one can do that would blow your perfect chances of getting elected President - how about being gay? - that don't merit debate, other than as a manifestation of the limits of tolerance.
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The thrill going up Chris Matthews' leg has now turned into political priapism. Don't call Obama's organizers, Chris, call a doctor.
Posted by Gramsci | November 28, 2008 11:25 AM