Lawrence O'Donnell Needs His Own Show on MSNBC

Republican opposing "socialist" healthcare plan handed his hat by O'Donnell. Fun.

Obama Interviewed by Rachel Maddow

Interview in two parts:

Duh

Rob Bennett for The New York Times

Rachel Maddow on the set of her new program for MSNBC.

America is a liberal country (sorry Jon Meacham, you are eight ways of wrong). Put a wicked smart liberal on TV, people watch!

NYTimes: Fresh Face on Cable, Sharp Rise in Ratings

Zbiggy!

Zbigniew Brzezinski discusses the Colin Powell endorsement, Barack Obama's qualifications, and the terrible state of our nation, on "Morning Dead Intern" this morning. He leaves Joe Scar sputtering.

McCain Says "I'm Not a Rich Man"

Except, of course, that he is,as Sarah Palin would say, very, very rich (LIAR!) Jed Lewison reminds of how very rich John McCain is:

John McCain's Meltdown Week

Rachel Maddow reviews John McCain's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.

The 62-Second Sarah Palin Fox Noise Interview

Sarah Palin appeared on the Republican Party channel (Fox) this week for a few hours of down-the-middle softball questions. No one could have stood to watch the obsequiousness of Sean Hannity live, so Keith Olbermann helpfully boiled it down to its essence.

Peggy Noonan: "It's Over"

How unhappy are Republicans with the reckless pick of Sarah Palin? Caught on an open mike they didn't know about, they are miserable. Watch this video (or read the transcript, below) to see Peggy Noonan (former Reagan speechwriter) and Republican strategist Mike Murphy chat while Chuck Todd of MSNBC is on the air:

Noonan: [obscured by crosstalk]

Murphy: Um, you know, because, I come out of the blue swing state governor work. Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, I mean, and these guys, this is all how you win a Texas race, just run it up, and it's not gonna work.

Noonan: It's Over.

Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech and do himself some good.

Todd: Don't you think this Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson to...

Noonan: I saw Kay this morning...

Todd: She's never looked comfortable about..

Murphy: They're all bummed out.

Todd: I mean, is she really the most qualified woman they can turn to?

Noonan: The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives and youthfulness and the picture...

Todd: Yeah, but the narrative?

Murphy: I totally agree.

Noonan: Every time Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

Murphy: You know what's the worst thing about it, the greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and..

Murphy and Todd together: This is cynical.

Todd: And as you called it, gimmicky.

Rachel Maddow Making Her Presence Felt

Last night, discussing McCain's use of noun, verb, POW to deflect all criticism, Rachel makes the liberal case.

I can haz liberulz on TeeVEE?????????



No more posting today, traveling.

Get A Shovel

Joe Scarborough's shilling for McCain on MSNBC tonight is interrupted by Keith Olbermann: "Jesus, Joe. Why don't you get a shovel."



The media is working overtime for their man, Telecom John.

Nixonland

Nixonland by Rick Perlstein is the next political book I want to read.

Here's the Amazon.com review:

Amazon Best of the Month, May 2008: How did we go from Lyndon Johnson's landslide Democratic victory in 1964 to Richard Nixon's equally lopsided Republican reelection only eight years later? The years in between were among the most chaotic in American history, with an endless and unpopular war, riots, assassinations, social upheaval, Southern resistance, protests both peaceful and armed, and a "Silent Majority" that twice elected the central figure of the age, a brilliant politician who relished the battles of the day but ended them in disgrace. In Nixonland Rick Perlstein tells a more familiar story than the one he unearthed in his influential previous book, Before the Storm, which argued that the stunning success of modern conservatism was founded in Goldwater's massive 1964 defeat. But he makes it fresh and relentlessly compelling, with obsessive original research and a gleefully slashing style--equal parts Walter Winchell and Hunter S. Thompson--that's true to the times. Perlstein is well known as a writer on the left, but his historian's empathies are intense and unpredictable: he convincingly channels the resentment and rage on both sides of the battle lines and lets neither Nixon's cynicism nor the naivete of liberals like New York mayor John Lindsay off the hook. And while election-year readers will be reminded of how much tamer our times are, they'll also find that the echoes of the era, and its persistent national divisions, still ring loud and clear. --Tom Nissley

He was on Morning McCain on MSNBC and went toe to toe with Nixon henchman, racist Pat Buchanan. Watch the video here.

Digby loved the book.

The New York Times assigned George F. Will to review it. Guess what he thought? Read his scathing review here.

If George Will hates it, I need to read it.

Global Warming Ignored By Corporate Media

Cedar Rapids

Excellent post pointing out what the corporate media ignores: our "weird" weather is actually a direct consequence of climate change.

Kirk James Murphy, M.D., firedoglake: Another Gift From Global Climate Change: That Ugly Weather

Tonight Coach Mom called to tell me that a wind shear event this afternoon dropped a huge old pine tree on her neighbor's house; another neighbor can't get into their house because a piece of roof blocks the door; and half the town is without power. This is in the same tiny community that had a $30 million storm wash out several major roads June 19th of last year. That was their fourth major flood in two years.

MSNBC is in their second day of non-stop coverage of the untimely death of Tim Russert. It is sad that a man that young who was a great friend to all of them died, but it is not earth-shaking news. Tens of thousands are now dying every year in global-warming fueled natural disasters. Hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, floods, tornadoes, and heat waves are covered as though this was just the weather, but it is actually earth-shattering news of climate change. Maybe if Tim Russert had drowned in a 500-year-flood, the media would cover global warming.

Pat Buchanan, Equal Opportunity Hatemonger

FAIR Report: PATRICK BUCHANAN -- IN HIS OWN WORDS

February 26, 1996 Contact: Steven Rendall

In the flap over Larry Pratt and other unsavory characters associated with the Patrick Buchanan campaign, journalists typically framed the question: Is Buchanan linked to extremists and bigots? But there is a more basic question journalists should ask: Is Patrick Buchanan himself an extremist and bigot?

Here is a sampling of Buchanan's views.

I just chose one paragraph (of many) per hated group from the original, well-documented article.

ON AFRICAN-AMERICANS

On race relations in the late 1940s and early 1950s: "There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every slight. The 'negroes' of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours." (Right from the Beginning,
Buchanan's 1988 autobiography, p. 131)

ON IMMIGRANTS AND PEOPLE OF COLOR

"If we had to take a million immigrants in, say Zulus, next year, or Englishmen, and put them up in Virginia, what group would be easier to assimilate and would cause less problems for the people of Virginia?" ("This Week With David Brinkley," 1/8/91)

ON JEWS

Buchanan was vehement in pushing President Reagan -- despite protests -- to visit Germany's Bitburg cemetery, where Nazi SS troops were buried. At a White House meeting, Buchanan reportedly reminded Jewish leaders that they were "Americans first" -- and repeatedly scrawled the phrase "Succumbing to the pressure of the Jews" in his notebook. Buchanan was credited with crafting Ronald Reagan's line that the SS troops buried at Bitburg were "victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps." (New York Times, 5/16/85; New Republic, 1/22/96)

ON GAYS

On AIDS, Buchanan wrote in 1983: "The poor homosexuals -- they have declared war upon nature, and now nature is extracting an awful retribution (AIDS)." (Los Angeles Times, 11/28/86) Later that year, he demanded that New York City Ed Koch and New York Gov. Mario Cuomo cancel the Gay Pride Parade or else "be held personally responsible for the spread of the AIDS plague." "With 80,000 dead of AIDS, our promiscuous homosexuals appear literally hell-bent on Satanism and suicide," Buchanan wrote in 1990 (syndicated column, 10/17/90). In the 1992 campaign, he declared: AIDS is nature's retribution for violating the laws of nature." (Seattle Times, 7/31/93)

ON WOMEN

"The real liberators of American women were not the feminist noise-makers, they were the automobile, the supermarket, the shopping center, the dishwasher, the asher-dryer, the freezer." (Right from the Beginning, p. 149)

ON DEMOCRACY

In a January, 1991 column, Buchanan suggested that "quasi-dictatorial rule" might be the solution to the problems of big municipalities and the federal fiscal crisis: "If the people are corrupt, the more democracy, the worse the government." (Washington Times, 1/9/91) He has written disparagingly of the "one man, one vote Earl Warren system."

I just don't understand why such an evil, vituperative person has a prominent position on MSNBC. (MSNBC is owned by GE, my brain answers.)

Pat Buchanan: Stone Cold Racist

Patrick J. Buchanan: A Brief for Whitey

America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

And now for the rest of the story, you myopic moron. Black labor, produced by involuntary slaves, used and abused by white people since the first slaves were brought to this country, manufactured a lot of the wealth that white people continue to hold today. When slavery ended during the Civil War, most black slaves got nothing. 40 acres and a mule was a myth. And freedom for many blacks was a myth, as they were forced into a different form of indentured slavery as sharecroppers and second class workers who did the same jobs as whites while paid far less by the white owners.

Oh yeah, and the largest recipients of the benefits of the welfare state? Not white people. Not black people. Children. Children are the largest recipients of welfare benefits in our country. (I'm sure PatRacist would be quick to say they should get a job.) Because the criteria for receiving government benefits is need, not race. Additionally, since there are more whites than blacks, more government money goes to poor whites than to poor blacks. Those programs were not designed to bring blacks into the mainstream. They were designed to end poverty. That hasn't worked, but it's not a racial issue. Buchanan's argument is based on a big, fat lie. He just hates blacks because they are black.

How is it that this Neanderthal still has a prominent position in American political discourse? Give him a fire hose and have him say this stuff and he's Bull Connor. Give him a white hood and have him make these statements and he's a Grand Wizard of the KKK, David Duke. But he can make these statements on his website in 2008 and MSNBC invites him on as a guest of political programs several times a day as though his opinions are worth anything.

A pox be upon MSNBC for continuing to employ this unrepentant racist.

MSNBC Allowing Racist Hatemonger Pat Buchanan To Attack Obama

Why is the man who gave the most hateful and racist speech in modern political life on MSNBC telling me that Barack Obama went to a hateful church? How come not one purported journalist who appears with him on MSNBC appears to be aware of his well-earned reputation as a racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic anti-Semite? Why does the crawl under his name read "MSNBC Political Analyst" rather than "Conservative Republican standardholder, Nixon speechwriter, Reagan communications director, complete and utter partisan"? If he's an analyst I'm the fucking Pope.

Here's what Pat Buchanan has added to our national discourse (all are taken from this Jake Tapper profile of Buchanan in salon.com):

- once called Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko "the porch-nigger of the Politburo,"

- labeled the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa, in which 67 blacks were killed, "whites mistreating a couple of blacks"

- on the subject of immigration policy, proclaimed, "Jose, we ain't gonna let you in again!"

"Rail as they will against 'discrimination,' women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism ... The momma bird builds the nest. So it was, so it ever shall be. Ronald Reagan is not responsible for this; God is"

"the poor homosexuals -- they have declared war on nature and now nature is exacting its retribution"

once praised no less than Adolf Hitler, calling him "an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him"

- Buchanan insinuated that Jews were roping America into the Gulf War

- "David Duke is busy stealing from me," Buchanan said in 1991. "I have a mind to go down there and sue that dude for intellectual property theft."

- he blamed the farm crisis on "New York bankers" and "the money boys up in New York."

- in a radio interview, [] Buchanan justified his anti-immigration policies by insinuating that the character of Mexicans was generally criminal -- "60,000 of them are in our prisons." The "railroad killer" is the kind of person we're going to have more of unless we build up the border patrol, he said.

- he promised that, if he were elected, he'd open up China for U.S. trade -- or else China will have sold its "last pair of chopsticks in any mall in the United States of America."

- After Nixon was reelected, Buchanan warned his boss not to "fritter away his present high support in the nation for an ill-advised governmental effort to forcibly integrate races."

- In 1990, Buchanan spewed out another hate-filled sound bite: "With 80,000 dead of AIDS, 3,000 more buried each month, our promiscuous homosexuals appear literally hell-bent on Satanism and suicide."

- Even Richard Nixon found the views of his former speech writer, Buchanan, too extreme on the segregation issue. According to a John Ehrlichman memo referenced in Nicholas Lemann's "The Promised Land," Nixon characterized Buchanan's views as "segregation forever." After Nixon was reelected, Buchanan warned his boss not to "fritter away his present high support in the nation for an ill-advised governmental effort to forcibly integrate races."

And this man is lecturing the country about hate? He's the modern equivalent of George Wallace, Orval Faubus and Lester Maddox. That's why he's so offended by Jeremiah Wright's sermons. Because as the man who believes his white culture is under attack by almost anyone who's not a white male like him, he's personally offended by Wright's sermon. And he is making that the media narrative with the hours and hours of platform he gets to spew his views on MSNBC. When he screws up his face and says hateful, Afro-centric, etc., that's coming from deep down inside him. He feels attacked.

Of course, there are no actual journalists on MSNBC anymore. The closest we have is Keith Olbermann, a sportswriter who is the lonely outpost of semi-liberal news and views, but whose show is more infotainment than journalism. Don't expect Keith Olbermann to take on Pat Buchanan's insane rants against Obama. He's part of the MSNBC club and wants to stay there.

I hope that Obama survives this media attack, but it is clear that he is being Swiftboated; the conservative media are out in full force trying to take him down. And Pat Buchanan is gleefully leading the charge.

Here's what Pat Buchanan said during his 1992 convention speech, a dog whistle to racists about the blacks rioting in the streets of Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict. When he says take back our culture at the end of the speech, he's saying take back our white culture. And you know what? That ignores the history of America. We really are a melting pot. There is no white culture. Pat Buchanan really would like to go back to the days of segregation. He just can't say it outright anymore, so he says it in code, like this:

[]
And there were the brave people of Koreatown who took the worst of the LA riots, but still live the family values we treasure, and who still believe deeply in the American dream.

Friends, in those wonderful 25 weeks, the saddest days were the days of the bloody riot in LA, the worst in our history. But even out of that awful tragedy can come a message of hope.

Hours after the violence ended I visited the Army compound in south LA, where an officer of the 18th Cavalry, that had come to rescue the city, introduced me to two of his troopers. They could not have been 20 years old. He told them to recount their story.

They had come into LA late on the 2nd day, and they walked up a dark street, where the mob had looted and burned every building but one, a convalescent home for the aged. The mob was heading in, to ransack and loot the apartments of the terrified old men and women. When the troopers arrived, M-16s at the ready, the mob threatened and cursed, but the mob retreated. It had met the one thing that could stop it: force, rooted in justice, backed by courage.

Greater love than this hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friend. Here were 19-year-old boys ready to lay down their lives to stop a mob from molesting old people they did not even know. And as they took back the streets of LA, block by block, so we must take back our cities, and take back our culture, and take back our country.

The Media Attack on Obama Begins

flickr: SI Neg. 2004-41682. Date: na....Printed ribbon bearing the United States flag and printed beneath it the phrase "OUR UNION /NOW AND FOREVER.".In 1860, Abraham Lincoln pulled ahead of William Seward and won the Republican nomination on the third ballot. The Republican platform opposed slavery in the territories but upheld the right of slavery in the South. It also opposed the Dredd-Scott decision. The Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas and the Southern-Democrats who called themselves National Democrats nominated John Breckinridge. In addition, John Bell was nominated by the Constitutional Union party. The Republicans were united behind Lincoln, while the opposition was divided by regions. Most of the campaign was implemented by regional party organizations. The candidates took a small active part. Stephen Douglas was the only candidate to campaign actively throughout the country...Credit: Joe Goulait (Smithsonian Institution)


I turn on MSNBC this morning and Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough, the whiteboy rightwing mob (with their empty enabler Mika Brzezinski bleating helplessly in the background, saying nothing, nodding), are shouting that Barack Obama must denounce the pastor of his church for saying that 9/11 was the fault of the victims.

Here's what Richard Wright, the pastor of Obama's church, said in his first sermon after 9/11:

WRIGHT: We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas has now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.

He's not blaming the victims. He's saying America's foreign policy created some of our problems. For Christ's sake, we FUNDED Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1980s (slate: How Reagan turned Osama into a terrorist kingpin.)

In response, Matthews says, (paraphrasing) This is coming out now because the media is looking at Obama now because he's the frontrunner. Speaking truth to power, that's our job. I almost spit out my coffee. Chris Matthews, speaking truth to power? Please.

Chris Matthews is counting on you to forget that he gave George W. Bush a big wet kiss for seven years. But The Google is our friend, and we do not forget. We do not forget how Chris Matthews slobbered over George W. Bush after the whole "Mission Accomplished" speech in 2003. Here it is, Mr. "Truth to Power" Matthews, digging deeply into Karl Rove's photo op, courtesy of Media Matters:

On May 1, 2003, President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln aboard an S-3B Viking jet, emerged from the aircraft in full flight gear, and proceeded to "press[] flesh," as The Washington Post put it, as he shook hands and hugged crew members in front of the cameras. Later that day, Bush delivered a nationally televised speech from the deck of the Abraham Lincoln in which he declared that "[m]ajor combat operations in Iraq have ended," all the while standing under a banner reading: "Mission Accomplished." Despite lingering questions over the continued violence in Iraq, the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction, and the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein, as well as evidence that Bush may have shirked his responsibilities in the Texas Air National Guard (TANG) during the Vietnam War, the print and televised media fawned over Bush's "grand entrance" and the image of Bush as the "jet pilot" and the "Fighter Dog."

Chief among the cheerleaders was MSNBC's Chris Matthews. On the May 1, 2003, edition of Hardball, Matthews was joined in his effusive praise of Bush by right-wing pundit Ann Coulter and "Democrat" Pat Caddell. Former U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-CA) also appeared on the program.:

MATTHEWS: What's the importance of the president's amazing display of leadership tonight?

[...]

MATTHEWS: What do you make of the actual visual that people will see on TV and probably, as you know, as well as I, will remember a lot longer than words spoken tonight? And that's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when he was younger, obviously. What does that image mean to the American people, a guy who can actually get into a supersonic plane and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin like an actual jet pilot?

[...]

MATTHEWS: Do you think this role, and I want to talk politically [...], the president deserves everything he's doing tonight in terms of his leadership. He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics. Do you think he is defining the office of the presidency, at least for this time, as basically that of commander in chief? That [...] if you're going to run against him, you'd better be ready to take [that] away from him.

[...]

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Bob Dornan, you were a congressman all those years. Here's a president who's really nonverbal. He's like Eisenhower. He looks great in a military uniform. He looks great in that cowboy costume he wears when he goes West. I remember him standing at that fence with Colin Powell. Was [that] the best picture in the 2000 campaign?

[...]

MATTHEWS: Ann Coulter, you're the first to speak tonight on the buzz. The president's performance tonight, redolent of the best of Reagan -- what do you think?

COULTER: It's stunning. It's amazing. I think it's huge. I mean, he's landing on a boat at 150 miles per hour. It's tremendous. It's hard to imagine any Democrat being able to do that. And it doesn't matter if Democrats try to ridicule it. It's stunning, and it speaks for itself.

[Mr. Truth to Power lets Man Coulter's absurd statement go unchallenged.]

Oh, it gets better! Mika Brzezinski just asked Chris Matthews if this will help the Democrats implode in November. Chris Matthews tells her what an impressive candidate John McCain is and how well he will do in the Rust Belt states.

Will this all benefit McCain in the long run? she asks.

McCain's base will be working feverishly to get him elected in November.

Reject and Denounce

I watched the Democratic debate on MSNBC in fits and starts this week, but I missed the part where Tim Russert asked Obama to disavow Louis Farrakhan. (Russert and Williams are so shallow and empty, and there was women's basketball on. Does Williams think speaking ponderously makes him sound smart? I still know he listens to Rush Limbaugh and doesn't think Limbaugh gets the credit he deserves -- yes, he said this -- so I know he's a moron.) The video of the Farrakhan exchange, from TPM, is above.

Obama has no relationship with Farrakhan. It was a complete and total Pumpkinhead bullshit gotcha moment. But Russert apparently thinks this is a legitimate questioning device. So let the denouncing and rejecting begin! Let's start with Pumpkinhead. He never denounced and rejected his good pal Don Imus when he used hateful racist and sexist language about the Rutgers women's basketball team. Russert: When are you going to disavow the hateful statements of Don Imus?

Today John McCain was endorsed by a hate-spewing preacher, John Hagee. And McCain embraces this endorsement. Shouldn't he have to denounce and reject Hagee who hates Jews, Muslims, Catholics, gays, women, Hurricane Katrina victims, well, pretty much anyone who isn't in his church. John McCain: When are you going to disavow the hateful statements of John Hagee?

As others have said, it's foolish for our political press to be making mountains of such shit and ignoring the issues, but if that's what they're going to do, could they at least do it to both parties?

Attytood: Questions for Tim Russert: When will you denounce your supporter Don Imus?

Down With Tyranny: SO WHEN WILL TIM RUSSERT DEMAND THAT HIS OLD PAL McCAIN DISAVOW THE ENDORSEMENT HE GOT YESTERDAY FROM BIGOTED PSYCHOPATH JOHN HAGEE?

MediaMatters: Will MSNBC devote as much coverage to McCain's embrace of Hagee's support as it did to Obama's rejection of Farrakhan?

Glenn Greenwald: Some hateful, radical ministers -- white evangelicals -- are acceptable

Glenn Greenwald: Interview with Bill Donohue: Catholic League denounces McCain

'[W]hen you pick on Hillary, you pick on all women.'

Don't you just want to kiss this woman for going off on Tucker Carlson and giving MSNBC hell for their treatment of Hillary?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that MSNBC hosts are already feeling the fallout.

To wit: On Tuesday morning, Tucker Carlson, the host of MSNBC’s talk show Tucker, was standing in line at the Palisades Recreation Center in Washington, D.C., waiting to vote in D.C.’s presidential primary. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, a middle-aged woman, standing in line in front of Mr. Carlson, recognized the on-air anchor and began berating Mr. Carlson about MSNBC’s coverage of Hillary Clinton.

According to the source, the irate Washingtonian told Mr. Carlson something to the effect that “when you pick on Hillary, you pick on all women.”

Later the uncomfortable conversation continued outside the voting hub. When reached on Tuesday afternoon at his MSNBC offices in the District, Mr. Carlson declined to comment.

This would be the same Tucker Carlson who was never disciplined in any way by MSNBC after saying this about Hillary Clinton on air:

"I have often said, when she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs."

I hope MSNBC realizes that when Tucker Carlson comes on television, I and many other women (and men) voluntarily change the channel.

Christ Matthews: Sexist History

wikipedia
Another lengthy recounting of Chris Matthews' long, sad history of dissing Hillary Clinton, and by extension, all women:

Media Matters for America: MSNBC's Chris Matthews problem

An excerpt (go to original for links):

Matthews has referred to Clinton as "She devil." He has repeatedly likened Clinton to "Nurse Ratched," referring to the "scheming, manipulative" character in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest who "asserts arbitrary control simply because she can." He has called her "Madame Defarge." And he has described male politicians who have endorsed Clinton as "castratos in the eunuch chorus."

Matthews has compared Clinton to a "strip-teaser" and questioned whether she is "a convincing mom." He refers to Clinton's "cold eyes" and the "cold look" she supposedly gives people; he says she speaks in a "scolding manner" and is "going to tell us what to do."

Matthews frequently obsesses over Clinton's "clapping" -- which he describes as "Chinese." He describes Clinton's laugh as a "cackle" -- which led to the Politico's Mike Allen telling him, "Chris, first of all, 'cackle' is a very sexist term." (Worth remembering: When John McCain was asked by a GOP voter referring to Clinton, "How do we beat the bitch?" Allen reacted by wondering, "What voter in general hasn't thought that?" So Allen isn't exactly hypersensitive to people describing Clinton in sexist terms.)

Christ Matthews: Unrepentant Sexist Pig

Chris Matthews is a sexist pig. If you've watched his show on MSNBC for five minutes you are aware of this. He finally got a lot of attention when he ranted on and on and on about Hillary Clinton only being elected to the Senate because people felt sorry for her because Bill Clinton was unfaithful (link to the video of that disgraceful rant). But he's been treating women with complete sexist disdain for years, by talking over them, discussing their looks and their bodies, and discounting their actual accomplishments, as documented by Media Matters for America.

Yesterday a coalition of women's groups sent this letter to the President of NBC:

Dear Mr. Capus:

During the controversy surrounding Don Imus' racist and sexist remarks this past spring, you acknowledged that, with Imus, “there have been any number of other comments that have been enormously hurtful to far too many people. And my feeling is that ... there should not be a place for that on MSNBC. This is about trust. It's about reputation. It's about doing what's right.”

We commend your acknowlegement that NBC has a responsibility to demand appropriate conduct and dialogue in its programming. That is why we are writing to you concerning comments made by Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball, that demonstrate a larger pattern of overt sexism when discussing women.
During an appearance on the January 9 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Matthews said of Senator Hillary Clinton, “the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around” and that “[s]he didn't win there [New York] on her merits.” Matthews has referred to Clinton as a “she devil,” compared her to a “strip-teaser” and called her “witchy.” He has referred to men who support her as “castratos in the eunuch chorus.” He has suggested Clinton is not “a convincing mom” and said “modern women” like Clinton are unacceptable to “Midwest guys.”

Matthews’ sexism is hardly limited to his comments about Clinton; such rhetoric is just the latest in a string of sexist attacks he has made against prominent female political figures.

-- During coverage of the New Hampshire primary, he said that Clinton is the only viable woman presidential candidate “on the horizon.” He couldn't think of a single female governor eligible to run: “Where are the big-state women governors?” he asked. “Where are they? Name one.” In fact, several of the states that currently have women governors are comparable in population to the states in which the male presidential candidates serve or have served as governor.

-- In November 2006, shortly after the Democrats took the majority in Congress, Matthews asked a guest if then-presumptive Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was “going to castrate Steny Hoyer” if Hoyer (D-MD) were elected House Majority Leader.

-- During coverage of a presidential debate last spring, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell was compelled to remind Matthews that Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) wife, Michelle, is a Harvard-educated lawyer after he focused obsessively on her physical appearance.

During the Imus controversy you expressed a hope that “we don't squander this remarkable opportunity that we have to continue this dialogue that has taken place, to continue the dialogue about what is appropriate conduct and speech, to continue the dialogue about what is happening in America. I think we have, as broadcasters, a responsibility to address those matters.”

In the middle of a heated election season where, for the first time, we have both a female candidate and an African-American candidate vying for the Democratic nomination, “appropriate conduct and speech” is more important than ever. Matthews’ history proves that when discussing prominent female figures, he is prone to overt sexism rather than civil political discourse.

We appreciate your taking the time to address our concerns and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kim Gandy, National Organization of Women
Lulu Flores, National Women's Political Caucus
Carol Jenkins, Women's Media Center
Ellie Smeal, Feminist Majority"

So tonight on his MSNBC program Matthews "apologized". I put the word apologized in quotes advisedly, as he was clearly unrepentant for his abysmal treatment of women. He got woodshedded by someone at NBC, but he still thinks he's fine. Just watch this BS apology and see what you think:

"It's My Show and I'll Pretend to Cry If They Make Me"