Chris Matthews Claims Cheney Pressured NBC to Silence Him

Chris Matthews was at a 10 year anniversary party for the cast of Hardball, his nightly television show, and when he made some remarks, he claimed that the difference between the Clinton and Bush Administrations was that the Clinton Administration never tired to silence him. This is a quote from an article about the event:

In front of an audience that included such notables as Alan Greenspan, Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy, Matthews began his remarks by declaring that he wanted to "make some news" and he certainly didn't disappoint. After praising the drafters of the First Amendment for allowing him to make a living, he outlined what he said was the fundamental difference between the Bush and Clinton administrations.

The Clinton camp, he said, never put pressure on his bosses to silence him.

“Not so this crowd,” he added, explaining that Bush White House officials -- especially those from Vice President Cheney's office -- called MSNBC brass to complain about the content of his show and attempted to influence its editorial content. "They will not silence me!" Matthews declared.

He also used the line that the Bush Administration has "finally been caught in their criminality." This is yet one more sign that Washington media types have turned on the Bushies. This is going to be one long year and approximately three months for them. Not as long as it will be for the rest of us, but long nevertheless.

How Right Wing Nut Jobs Use Alleged MSM Concern Over "Fairness"

If you click here you can see David Gregory of NBC News talking with Elizabeth Edwards about Ann Coulter. Note that he believes that if you just "strip-away her inflammatory" language, you can take her seriously. This is what members of the mainsream media do, they pretend that these right-wing nut jobs are actually serious observers making serious observations about society. They aren't and of course, the problem is that you can't overlook her language, because that is what Ann Coulter is all about. She just doesn't say this hateful things because they help her get attention and sell books, no, she says them because she believes them.

Gregory reminds me of the people in Germany who thought that Hitler didn't mean what he wrote in Mein Kampf. You know, the kind who thought, "Adolf's language is a little extreme, but underneath all his anti-semitic utterings, he is making a serious point about Germany and our future."

When Ann Coulter says things like, "The next time I will just call for Edwards to be assisanted", she really means it. She would have no problem with some nut job killing John Edwards. Unlike David Gregory we don't conscend to Ann Coulter, we take her at her word.

This is how the mainstream media gets sucked into taking hatemongers like Coulter seriously. They think that because they are on television and because a lot of other nutjobs purchase her books, she must have something serious to say. Well, the problem is, as John Edwards pointed out to Chris Matthews on Hardball, is that America has always had hatemongers and probably always will.

In this interview with Mathews, Edwards points out that when he was growing up in North Carolina during the civil rights revolution in the South, there were nutjobs all around making vile, personal attacks on people. In the 1950s and 1960s there used to be billboards with the message "Impeach Earl Warren" all across the South. Can you imagine any reporter from NBC taking the head of the John Birch seriously, or the head of the White Citizens Council seriously during the 1960s?

Yet, because Coulter sells books and appears on television David Gregory thinks that she is a serious thinker. Well, by that standard, the cartoon characters from South Park or the Simpsons should be considered serious thinkers as well, at least according to the David Gregory standard.

Are Irish-American Journalists Out for the Clintons?

Bob Somerby, a product of the Irish-American culture himself, had a posting on January 30, 2007 on his blog "The Daily Howler" on how Irish-American pundits, notably Chris Matthews and Maureen Dowd, have had it out for the Clintons since 1992. This is not an original thought with Somerby. Back during Bill Clinton's presidency a writer wrote an article for, we believe, the National Journal, about how Clinton had trouble with Irish American journalists. Besides Dowd and Matthews, that writer also mentioned the late Michael Kelley, who was editor of the Atlantic Monthly and died in Iraq. It is an interesting thesis and, given the role that Maureen Dowd recently had in causing the recent conflict between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, a timely one. (You can read Somerby's article by clicking on the link in this entry's title.)