Chris Matthews worked himself into a frenzy on Monday night, ranting that the "so-called independent media" are just too soft on all the "racist" elements within the Republican Party. Talking to his fellow liberals David Corn and Ed Rendell, the Hardball host balked, "I look at the free ride the media has been giving the Republican Party." [MP3 audio here [1].]
According to Matthews, it's conservative media bias that causes most journalists to ignore the "40 million people [Republicans] want to commit to the emergency room!" Conservatives "don't want to lift a finger for them!" Yet, "the so-called independent media out there never brings it up!" If the problem is that reporters don't call Republicans racist enough, Matthews certainly does his part [2]– and continued his cries of bigotry on Monday night.
The cable anchor began by demanding, "...I think it's time for the President to stick it to his enemies." Matthews identified:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: No, his true enemies are the backers and kissing cousins of the birthers, the people like John Boehner, who refuse to stand up to them, who makes common cause with the haters even as he positions himself as not quite one of them, who keep their hands clean even as they benefit from the garbage their birther buddies are throwing out at the latest right-wing feeding time at the zoo.
Showing his colleagues in the media just how to smear, the host told viewers that modern Republicans are "this generation's equivalent of poll taxes and those discredited literacy tests, anything to keep minorities from their voting rights."
On the issue of ObamaCare, Matthews offered this non-sequitur: "There isn't any Republican website!"
How often does the Hardball host trash conservatives as hateful bigots? Click here to see the top 20 worst examples. [2]
On October 31, Matthews's colleague, Ed Schultz [3], slammed the media for being too negative on ObamaCare.
A partial transcript of the November 11 segment is below:
7:01pm ET
MATTHEWS: Time to attack.
...
MATTHEWS: "Let Me Start" tonight with this: I think it's time for the President to stick it to his enemies. Forget this losing inch by inch and playing defense and win this thing on offense.
Let me start by saying out loud who his enemies are. They're not those who push the racist argument that he's a Kenyan, an East African who conned his way into the American presidency, their argument that says Barack Obama should have been deported as a criminal, not elected and reelected president of the United States.
No, his true enemies are the backers and kissing cousins of the birthers, the people like John Boehner, who refuse to stand up to them, who makes common cause with the haters even as he positions himself as not quite one of them, who keep their hands clean even as they benefit from the garbage their birther buddies are throwing out at the latest right-wing feeding time at the zoo.
Obama's true enemies are those who back the three dozen states now pushing voter suppression laws to make damn sure the country doesn't go and elect another back president or a progressive white president -- you know, this generation's equivalent of poll taxes and those discredited literacy tests, anything to keep minorities from their voting rights.
And to this crowd, the Obama haters add to them those who gnaw on the President's health care bill with the hunger of starving rats but offer nothing in its place except their crazed notions about bringing down the government and destroying the country's economy stature even as they deny even a penny of credit to the president for the zooming American stock market right now.
These are the enemies, those who stand to benefit from all the anger, hatred and indecency of the nasty right while claiming to be above them when, in fact, they are below them for again and again humming along when the worst of them, the true haters of the right, sing their racist and un- American songs.
...
MATTHEWS: But I think what's going on here is the right-wing of this country has been a big part of the Republican coalition, and not once has Boehner or McConnell ever stood up and said, Those people are unacceptable, in the way that Bill Buckley in the 1950s said anti-Semitism is not allowed in the American conservative coalition. Nobody says it. Nobody stands up from the middle right and says, We ain't part of your crowd, you're not part of ours.
...
MATTHEWS: I think -- I think you -- I think -- let me just make my case. You guys don't have to agree with me. I look at the free ride the media has been giving the Republican Party. They get -- these birthers are treated as just Southern, usually out-of-it people, Gohmert -- he's just a joke. He doesn't matter. And yet the right-wing of the party, a quarter of them, a third of them -- haters of Obama because of his background, haters! They're eating it up and voting for it! It works for them. This decision to use three dozen states to go out there, including Pennsylvania, to make sure blacks can't vote and they have more whites voting and more conservative older white vote, that's systematic. On health care, instead of playing frickin' defense, how about you go after the Republicans, who have 40 million people they want to commit to the emergency room? They don't want to lift a finger for them!
CORN: Right.
MATTHEWS: And the so-called independent media out there never brings it up! They have discussion after discussion of "Obama care." They're scoring one half of the game. The other half of the game, when the Republicans come to bat, they don't even swing!The other half of the game, when the Republicans come to bat, they don't even swing!
MATTHEWS: No, they don't even have an at bat!
CORN: No, they are --
MATTHEWS: Isn't that worthy of a comment?
CORN: Yes. They are --
MATTHEWS: You never heard it on the news!
CORN: They're overly focused on the Web site and what's happening with the cancellations --
MATTHEWS: You're doing it again!
CORN: No, no, no!
MATTHEWS: There isn't any Republican Web site!
CORN: No, no, no! Listen --
MATTHEWS: There's nothing!
— Scott Whitlock is Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Scott Whitlock on Twitter. [4]