How was GQ’s Tom Carson’s supposed to know Tim Russert was going to die this month? Perhaps if he had 20/20 foresight, he might not have taken down the late Meet The Press moderator while laying some smack on Chris Matthews. CONTINUED »
Yesterday morning, MSNBC was running a spot for last night’s Hardball, with background artwork showing female silhouetted dancers with the phrase “HER NEW OUTLOOK?” as the headline. It was a promo for Matthews’ talking point that evening, about Michelle Obama’s image makeover, which is taking place on the cover of Us Weekly and The View. It was also deemed, by eagle-eyed critics, as a sexist ad, what with those three silhouetted dancers. So MSNBC pulled the ad, after it ran “once or twice.” This is very bad for Mr. Matthews, who’s weathered through weeks of endless accusations of sexism, many of them well-founded. It’s unfortunate, then, to have this ad pop up now — when his punching bag Hillary Clinton is officially out of the race, and the most prominent lady right now among the Democrats, Ms. Obama, appearing to be his new target. It’s also unfortunate that he’ll take most of the blame for this, when it was probably the graphics department that’s entirely to blame. Watch the clip here.
Between rumors of Chris Matthews leaving MSNBC to run for the Senate (in Pennsylvania against Arlen Spector in 2010) and Lou Dobbs leaving CNN to run for governor of New Jersey (when Jon Corzine steps down), we need only one more professional talking head to throw into the mix to make this an official trend. Hey, Kiran Chetry, got four years to kill?
Now that Hillary Clinton has finally fulfilled Chris Matthews’ year-long dream of exiting the race, it’s time to make sense of all that was the 24-hour primary news cycle during the 16-month Barack v. Hillary battle. New York Knicks ticket policy violator and former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw has some thoughts: CONTINUED »
The “Students, Adjunct Faculty, [and] Policy Committee of the Women and Gender Studies Program” at Hunter College aren’t exactly thrilled with who their school picked for its commencement address, which took place Wednesday.
That would be a one Chris Matthews, noted cable news talking head and woman-hater.
In a public letter published Sunday, the aforementioned write, in grandiose terms, “It is, in our view, disgraceful for Hunter College, for all of us who love this institution and most of all for our present and future students who look to Hunter as a bastion of women’s empowerment, to confer this honor on someone whose words in public so contradict the most basic feminist and civic values. Inviting him to be our speaker is asking him to represent Hunter College on this important occasion, and this should never have happened. We are outraged.”
Worth noting: Hunter College originally invited Keith Olbermann, noted ratings machine and ire of his colleagues, to speak. But he backed out, and Matthews filled the spot.
Also worth noting: Hunter College junior Yin Chang was cast in Gossip Girl as the recurring character Nelly Yuki, which, we’re pretty sure, is written into the script as “one of the Asian girls.” And if that isn’t an achievement for all women to celebrate, what is?
The full letter, below. CONTINUED »
How to explain that gesture Barack Obama made with his wife Michelle last night, after clinching the Democratic nomination?
Irish Catholic Chris Matthews is here to explain what happened, for those of you trapped in I’m An Old White Man status.
Did you know it was also known as a “dap”?
Joe Scarborough, returning to his morning slot on MSNBC today after taking a leave to attend to his wife’s difficult pregnancy, reflecting on last night’s historic events: “A night that nobody believed—but perhaps Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, and Chris Matthews—this was a night that very few people believed would ever happen.” [Video here]
“The people I work with–all my bosses–seem to be for Hillary. I just sense it. They don’t actually say it, but there’s no sense from the top I can tell you that it’s pro-Obama.. by any means. That’s not what I get. And it was basically pro-war during the war.. the bosses were. And I was up against that.” [FBDC, earlier]
“But the other thing is, I mean, one of the things is Sean Hannity, terrific personality, and I think a valued part of Fox News, Bill O’Reilly. But, you know, Fox News doesn’t have them anchor our evening news coverage. I mean, they know that they are people with sharp political opinions, and so they have people like Brit Hume and, I’m proud to say myself, doing the straight news coverage and then we go for commentary from people like Hannity and O’Reilly. But, yet, there’s, there’s Keith Olbermann, you know, one minute delivering a rant about “Shut the hell up, President Bush,” and then the next minute he’s the anchor of their news coverage or their election coverage.” [Newsbusters]
Thanks to the lovely Google Cache, a blog’s since-pulled offline report about Chris Matthews’ revelation and Tucker Carlson’s confirmation, during a Portfolio photo shoot at MSNBC’s D.C. studio, that Arianna Huffington had hired a private investigator to tail a NBC colleague (since identified as Tim Russert) can still be read. [Google Cache]
As it the censored item now reads: “The original author of this post and the editor of this blog would like to sincerely apologize to Conde Nast, Portfolio, Chris Matthews, Tucker Carlson and the photographer on set for any problems or inconvenience we might have caused. We had no intention to bring harm to anybody involved.”
Except, well, too late? The blogger, Douglas Thompson, has officially screwed over his friend, the photographer, who he tagged along with. No more Conde Nast work for you, buddy.
Chris Matthews, who in the past 18 months has gone from MSNBC’s golden brand boy to its whipping post, has earned his latest reputation as a woman-hater by criticizing Hillary Clinton with every free programming minute.
But how did we get from a guy who was once a Swaziland Peace Corps. volunteer and D.C. policeman – yep – to an election talking point?
Let’s visit with Hendrik Hertzberg, who edited Matthews when he filed a few pieces for The New Republic: “In that perch, he was one of the half-dozen most important opposition voices during those years, translating ameliorative liberalism into the lunch-bucket political language he calls “American” (and introducing O’Neill to a new world in which television, not afternoon newspapers, ruled the hours after lunchtime). The next thing I knew, he was a TV star.” CONTINUED »
David Shuster will definitely continue manning MSNBC’s 4pm hour, a NBC source confirms to us, but that doesn’t mean he’ll quit what he’s good at: primetime reporting. He’ll continue filing reports for the NBC Nightly News and appearing on-air during MSNBC dayside, pulling double duty with the new role. But don’t expect Shuster’s hour block to be branded around him; we’re told it’ll remain the nondescript “MSNBC News Live,” a la Andrea Mitchell’s 1pm hour.
So why will Shuster be filling in at 4pm? For one, it’s likely to save cash. While Shuster may get a small bump in pay for hosting the hour, it also means MSNBC doesn’t have to shell out for another anchor’s entire salary. (Just another example of 30 Rock filling MSNBC jobs with NBC News talent.) And also: Chris Matthews has been complaining about the lead-in numbers for his 5pm Hardball. CONTINUED »
WIDSOM Chris Matthews advice on the workforce to Montgomery County Community College’s Class of 2008 gradutes: “There’s a false assumption that some people have that talent will be recognized. When a job opens up, whether it’s on the chorus line or the assembly line, they’ll go to the person who’s there.” [Philly Burbs]
Swing Vote, a film with a premise (one man will determine the presidential election’s outcome) so mathematically unlikely, it’s almost worth seeing, doesn’t just feature Kevin Costner as the fella that’s going to singlehandedly determine who controls the free world, or Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Hopper as dueling presidential candidates, or Nathan Lane and Stanley Tucci as political operatives.
It also features Chris Matthews, the Hardball host. [NYO] He’s reporting the news: “A single irregular ballot is holding up a final decision for the American presidency. One American citizen will effectively choose the next president of the United States.”
Luckily, that one American citizen is not a woman, or the coverage would be less kind.
Trailer below. CONTINUED »
With all our talk about Chris Matthews losing his job to David Gregory when the 5pm anchor’s $2m/year contract is up next year (if Phil Griffin has his way), one might think Matthews’ current band of merry crew members might be worried about losing their jobs.
Not the case, says one insider. CONTINUED »
Last night, Chris Matthews got about two and a half minutes into this interview with radio host Kevin James about President Bush attacking the Democrats before the conversation turned into a shouting match about Hitler sympathizer and cohort Neville Chamberlain. One might have expected exec producer John Reiss to pull the plug and have Matthews wrap it up, but the fella is smart: These segments are ratings and YouTube gold. (This clip is at 114,000 views and counting.)
So what’s so interesting about this video clip of Chris Matthews talking to Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair Terry McAuliffe during last night’s West Virgina primary coverage?
Not that Matthews exhibits confidence in his own opinion, but that his hair has suddenly returned to its blonde hue after spending a few days in the red zone.
STATING THE OBVIOUS On today’s Morning Joe, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe described Chris Matthews in this way: “Barack Obama’s campaign chairman.” [Halperin]
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again.
“Can I weigh in on this cause I’m the moderator? You get up in DC at 6 o’clock in the morning, you know who’s waiting to catch the bus to go to work? Black people! They’re up earlier than anyone else going to work for longer hours.” [Video @ HuffPo]
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