Updated: See Which Quotes Were Real and Which Were Fake
Gushing Over the "Perfect" Barack Obama
"I look at Obama as a perfect American....The guy went to school, he never broke a law. He did everything right. He raised a wonderful family. He's a good husband, a good father. My God, I don't think he's ever gotten a speeding ticket. The guy does everything right and these right-wingers....I don't know what they're so afraid of, except that he happens to be black."
— REAL! Matthews said this on MSNBC’s Hardball, March 6.
"Barack Obama continues to be a perfect hero for America's school children. Who can forget that cute picture of the President pretending to be caught in a little Spiderman's web? That seemed a little backward, since Obama often seems as slick and heroic as Spiderman, while his opponents like Rush Limbaugh resemble Kingpin, the fat supervillain with a walking stick and a cigar, who thinks he can win the day by manipulating the haters."
— FAKE! April Fools!
"The thing people don't understand about Barack Obama is that while he's a great speaker, his understanding of politics is just unprecedented in the whole history of this American experience. He's like Albert Einstein with a 500-watt smile that can melt the hardest heart."
— FAKE! April Fools!
From Sea to Shining Sea, America "Has a Crush on Obama"
"Listening to Obama speak is a spiritual experience. I know sometimes I go a little overboard in describing it, but there really is something magical and wonderful in this man. And I don't care if it makes me sound like I have a crush on him. America has a crush on Obama, as his landslide reelection proved."
— FAKE! April Fools!
Obama Gets Credit for Today's "Amazing Economy"
"Coming up, when is President Obama going to get some credit — and this is like Rodney Dangerfield — when's he going to get some credit for this amazing economy that's coming back?...It really is amazing. And the stock market for the rich is going through the roof. When's this guy going to get some respect?"
— REAL! Matthews said this on MSNBC’s Hardball, March 8.\
Yearning for a "Hope and Change" Pope
"Pope Francis — as appealing as he is, he really should rip a page out of the playbook of another world leader, President Obama. Our President evolved on gay marriage. Francis can be the ‘hope and change' pontiff if he throws his support behind contraception."
— FAKE! April Fools!
Opposing Gay Marriage Makes You a 21st Century Segregationist
"How can we give rights to one couple and not to another? Should we to go back to ‘Separate but Equal?' Is that it? How about the 14th Amendment, Equal Protection — do away with that? Slippery slope. Makes no sense, but the same folks, these same states, old Confederacy, that wanted segregation are back, want to take us back there, and it's scary."
— FAKE! April Fools!
Obama vs. The GOP's Racist Haters
"[Republicans] hate Obama. They want him out of the White House more than they want to destroy al Qaeda. Their number one enemy in the world right now, on the right, is their hatred — hatred for Obama."
— REAL! Matthews said this during post-debate coverage, October 22, 2012.
"What does your study tell you about the nature of the racial piece here of the Tea Party?...Is it sort of a resumption of the Old South, of the way things were before the Civil War for example. Is it like that old dreamy nostalgia you get in the old movies, Gone With the Wind? Is it that kind of America they want to bring back or what? When there were no gays, where blacks were slaves, Mexicans were in Mexico. I mean, is this what they want?"
— REAL! Matthews said this on MSNBC’s Hardball, March 20.
Preparing the Anti-GOP Smears in Case Hillary Runs
Host Chris Matthews: "We've seen Republicans — since this President was elected in 2008, we've seen Republicans come out, one after another, almost like robots, machine-like, coming out against health care, against the EPA, against clean air, against reasonable gun control, tax simplification — all based purely on ethnic prejudice — racism — against this President, this African American President. Are we going to see a similar pivot to gender prejudice — sexism — among Republicans if Hillary Clinton emerges as the Democratic nominee? Will they be just as opposed to anything sensible she proposes, just to prevent the image of a successful woman President?"
The Huffington Post's Howard Fineman: "I think there's no question, Chris...."
— FAKE! April Fools!
Crazy Republicans Acting Like Cambodian Butchers
"What's going on out there in the Republican Party is kind of a frightening, almost Cambodia re-education camp going on in that party, where they're going around to people, sort of switching their minds around saying, if you're not far right, you're not right enough."
— REAL! Matthews said this during an MSNBC primetime special about President Obama’s Q&A with House Republicans, January 29, 2010.
Matthews to Ryan: Don't Pull My Plug!
"These crazies on the right keep talking about defunding ObamaCare to balance the budget. Where is the compassion for the elderly? What is wrong with them Joan? I'm 67 years old! Am I going to have to hire extra security some day, maybe, to keep Paul Ryan from sneaking into my hospital room and pinching the air hose of my oxygen tank?!"
— FAKE! April Fools!
Enlightened Obama Could Have Given Us 200 Years of Gun Safety
"America really could have used a leader like Barack Obama when this country was founded. Maybe we wouldn't even have had a Second Amendment at all. Maybe they would have put trigger locks on those muskets into the Constitution, and there wouldn't have been all the problems we have now."
— FAKE! April Fools!
This Host "Leans Forward" with His Heart
"I've been accused of interrupting, of talking over my guests. I don't think that's true. Sure, I'm like the loud guy on the street corner with lots of opinions. But I listen to African Americans disenfranchised by voter intimidation. I hear members of the LBGT community who feel shut out of society. I feel the oppression of women whose access to birth control has been blocked by the fanatical Religious Right, our Taliban. You lean forward with your heart, not your ears."
— FAKE! April Fools!
Even the Tea Party's TV Habits Are Racist
"Professor Rob Thompson of Syracuse University has cataloged the TV habits of the extreme conservatives, the haters. He found that they don't like Modern Family. Too many gays and other examples of reality, I guess....What are they longing for? The return of Archie Bunker?...Get this: They love the AMC zombie show The Walking Dead. Ha! I'm telling you, this is a racial thing. They see the black vote and the rising influence of Hispanics as some sort of foreign, unnatural threat. Shooting zombies in the face, suppressing the black vote at the polls. It's all the same to these people."
— FAKE! April Fools!
Conservative Fanatics Prepared to Bring Down America
"The GOP has become the Wahhabis of American government, willing to risk bringing down the whole country in the service of their anti-tax ideology....The Party's being driven by fanatics."
— REAL! Matthews said this on MSNBC’s Hardball, July 5, 2011.
Sneering at Witchy Michele Bachmann
"With me now is Caroline Kennedy to discuss her new book of poems she loves. You know, Caroline, we all remember the poet Robert Frost reciting one of his best works at your father's inauguration of 1961. It was a signal to the country that we had arrived at a new frontier of intellect. Tell me, when you think of Frost's poem ‘The Witch of Coos,' do you often think of Michele Bachmann?"
— FAKE! April Fools!
Barack and Michelle: They're as "Cool" as Jack and Jackie Kennedy
"He comes from a white family and a black family, and he's married to a black woman, and they're cool people. They are really cool. They are Jack and Jackie Kennedy when you see them together. They are cool."
— REAL! Matthews said this on NBC’s Tonight Show, January 16, 2008.
Getting Thrills Over Prospect of Senator Judd
"Back to Hardball now, the Sideshow: Actress Ashley Judd has pulled herself out of that Kentucky Senate race. What a loss for the nation. She's every bit as qualified as Ronald Reagan ever was — an actor the far right still salivates over. I'll never get that idolization. Really. Anyway, if a glorified eyeglasses hawker like Rand Paul with hair as bad as Donald Trump's can win in Kentucky, why can't that state give us a Senator it would be nice to look at? She gives me more tingles than even Barack Obama, and that's saying something. Ha!"
— FAKE! April Fools!
Speaking of Thrills....
"Obama's not only the perfect American, he's the perfect man. I always imagine he and I as characters in Pretty Woman, where he's Richard Gere and I'm Julia Roberts..."
— FAKE! April Fools!
Perhaps the Craziest Thing He's Ever Said
"Hardball is absolutely non-partisan."
— REAL! Matthews said this in a December 2010 interview with local Washington, D.C. host Carol Joynt. (Details [1])
WEST COAST LOONY LEFT LIAISON: Joan Walsh
CHIEF RACE HUCKSTER CORRESPONDENT: Joy-Ann Reid
AGREEABLE YES MAN: Howard Fineman
SENIOR SHILLS for SOCIALISM: David Corn, Richard Wolffe
UNREAD WASHINGTON POST WRITERS: Eugene Robinson, Jonathan Capehart
MUSHY-MINDED SEAT WARMER: Michael Smerconish
APRIL FOOLS!
-- Thanks to MRC’s Brent Baker, Tim Graham, Rich Noyes, Geoffrey Dickens, Scott Whitlock, Brad Wilmouth, Kyle Drennen, Matthew Balan, Matt Hadro and NewsBusters’ Matthew Sheffield who wrote the imaginative fake quotes used in this issue.