I Tawt I Taw a Lousy Pundit

By Dan Hagen

“Does ‘Hardball with Chris Matthews’ seem better when there's no Chris Matthews, and instead, a guest host?” my friend Rich 'Aniwaya' Thompson wondered. “Or is that just me?”

It’s not just you.

I think Matthews is just a shallow, amoral, none-too-bright political operative who has no real philosophical views. Watch how he snorts when anyone hints that someone might be acting on principle, left or right. He makes it clear he doesn't think anyone acts on anything but cravenly selfish motives, and that “principle” is a pose.

In other words, Matthews thinks everybody in the world is Mitt Romney.

Let's recall the deep insights the “liberal” Chris Matthews offered us when George W. Bush dressed up in his little GI Joe flyboy playsuit and went prancing around on the deck of an aircraft carrier, shall we?

Matthews gushed, "He looks for real. What is it about the commander in chief role, the hat that he does wear, that makes him -- I mean, he seems like -- he didn't fight in a war, but he looks like he does."

And then Matthews fawned, “We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like [former President Bill] Clinton or even like [former Democratic presidential candidates Michael] Dukakis or [Walter] Mondale, all those guys, [George] McGovern. They want a guy who’s president. Women like a guy who’s president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president.”

My, my, my. I'm surprised Matthews didn’t swoon with admiration, all over one of the most manifestly fake, politically dishonest, transparently stupid stunts ever mounted.

Chris Matthews is called “Tweety” in part for being so cheerfully amoral. I think. He only cares about the horse race, not who gets crushed under the hooves.