Monday, 04.14.08
Bombast With a Purpose
Mark Mainz/Getty Images
The Fifty-First State
November 2002
On the eve of the Iraq War, James Fallows assesses the likely long-term consequences of invasion.
Broadcast News
September 2006
"The Aria of Chris Matthews," published in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, has earned considerable praise. And it's easy to see why -- the piece cuts with the grain of the received wisdom of our time, privileging the knowing comedy of Stewart and Colbert over Matthews's more confrontational approach. I should note that I worked for Matthews, and I'm keenly aware that he takes political argument very, very seriously. I also know that, as Mark Leibovich vividly illustrates in his profile, Matthews has a big, rambunctious personality. But what Leibovich fails to convey is that Matthews's supposed bombast is really a function of moral urgency.
To those steeped in elite print and online journalism, this might sound odd. After all, cable talking heads are supposed to be just that -- talking heads, who provoke and entertain the aged to no discernible purpose. But for Matthews, there's more to it. His on-air aggression is fueled by the belief that journalists -- and he sees himself first and foremost as a journalist -- failed this country during the run-up to the Iraq invasion by abandoning their role as outsider critics of an out-of-control, overmighty elite.
Remember those pre-Katrina days, back when public trust in government was high? We were in a new and more patriotic age. For whatever reason, this new patriotism seemed to entail a certain lack of skepticism, an abandonment of the hard, confrontational approach journalists had prided themselves on taking toward our leadership since Vietnam. Even war skeptics -- particularly those self-consciously responsible and respectable war skeptics -- feared pressing their criticism too strongly, given the public mood. There were, of course, exceptions to this self-censoring. The Knight Ridder chain was aggressive in questioning claims made by the Bush Administration. In The Atlantic in 2002, James Fallows published a blistering essay that anticipated the hellish strife that would accompany any lasting occupation of Iraq. And then, as Fox News surged in the ratings, its programs emblazoned with American flags, there was Chris Matthews, consistently warning that an American invasion of Iraq would set off a chain of events leading to a bloody civil war.
To be sure, Chris Matthews is loud. He enjoys telling a good yarn (he is, after all, a professional personality). Yes, he has the same sensitivity to slights real and imagined as anyone else.
But Matthews also cares deeply about the country’s fate. As much as I disagree with him about virtually everything, the Iraq War included, I recognize that the object of his discontent is a leadership class that has failed us. And if Matthews isn't consistently wry or delightful or ironic or mechanically Olbermannian on this sore point, I can't say I blame him.
News that's fit to blogChronicling the high drama of the alphabet soup of cable news networks, the blog insidecablenews delivers all one could hope to know about Megyn Kelly, Anderson Cooper, and their peers. |
Wasted wordsConor Friedersdorf finds that Leibovich's profile of Chris Matthews does nothing more than "embarrass and shame someone for the sake of revealing what's obvious to everyone already." |
Senator Matthews?According to Republican operative Roger Stone, Matthews is mulling a challenge to Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania's Republican Senator, in 2010. |
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I remember 2002 very well. Everyone I knew supported attacking Iraq. Most of the pundits and politicians were also on board, as was the MSM. Chris Matthews was not.
That's when I started watching his show. I still do. There are things about him I disagree with. Things I don't like. But he did speak truth to power when it counted and when just about everyone else did not. I will always respect him for that.
Chris Mathews Bully & Hypocrite � Ernie Nounou, Disgruntled GE Shareholder
�The Aria of Chris Mathews� (NYT Sunday Magazine 4-13-08) provided a contextual reminder why friends and I stopped watching Hardball. As long as GE provided steady double-digit earnings growth, I�ve held my peace. After GE�s dramatic earnings miss last Friday, I�m mad as hell and see no reason why the $5 million that is partially mine pays the salary of a narcissistic, boorish lout conducting an oral food fight.
Full disclosure: I�m a Hillary supporter, dismayed by her disastrous campaign missteps, the responsibility for which rests with her, and fully respect Barak Obama�s campaign triumphs from a standing start. The best analogy is Sir Francis Drake�s routing of the Spanish Armada. That said, I don�t accept the shamelessly biased behavior of MSNBC during this campaign, and Mathews in particular.
An enduring quality of the American character is our strong sense of fair play. While we forgive and abide liars and philanderers, we loathe bullies and hypocrites. Mathews is both, and based on all the blogging in response to the NYT article, opinion of him runs 15 � 20 to 1 against. (Chris, why not put it to a vote on your show, if you dare?) Very interestingly, I tuned Morning Joe to see their take on this article. Note they have a segment that checks out articles in various papers, and suck up any media pieces that aggrandize any MSNBC personality. They quoted Frank Rich�s NYT Op Ed, but had a loud silence, total avoidance of the Mathews article. MSNBC policy, future portent? Let�s hope so!
Bully - Chris Mathews makes a big deal about his tough and blunt holding guests� feet to the fire; but the truth is it�s very selective. Interrupting and talking over his guests, as the article contextualizes, is not about uncovering scabs and discovering truth, but rather feeding the insecurity of this self-absorbed egotist. Where does such a loudmouthed bully get the temerity to complain about the divisions and lack of civil discourse in our politics and society?
Note how he doesn�t dare talk over Russert, or Obama. Based on a clip on another show of his campus interview with Obama, it takes chutzpah to call that show Hardball with a straight face. Mathews has defended his tough critiquing of Hillary�s campaign based on her being the frontrunner. Now that Obama is the frontrunner, where�s the hardball?
Hypocrite � Mathews totes his book �Life is a Campaign� as a philosophy for the young to embrace. His enormous self-absorption blinds him to Hillary�s being the embodiment of that philosophy. His derision of her for following some of the precepts in his book reveals his own true heart. It is told that a Roman viceroy of Jerusalem, on seeing a Jew salute as his carriage passed by, ordered him executed for daring to salute a Roman viceroy. Later, a Jew having heard what happened, did not salute as the viceroy�s carriage passed. The viceroy ordered him executed for failing to salute. When questioned on this inconsistency, the viceroy admitted it didn�t matter; he simply hated Jews. So it is with Mathews, he simply hates Hillary no matter what she does. Her laughs are cackles. Her ads relating to 9-11, Mathews sees as 911 and subtly racist, when even African-American guests don�t.
Mathews ignores Hillary�s successful senate career and reaching across the aisle to work with former tormentors such as Trent Lott and Lindsay Graham. In true Roman viceroy form he calls her a divider, and decries her campaign as a soap opera that must end. In his January 17 apology to Hillary he praised her resolution as First Lady, senate campaign and accomplishments, and predicated his judgments as relying on his heart, ��a heart that bears only goodwill�� Goodwill, really? Jon Stewart had him pegged right that his views expressed in his book is a sad reflection on his philosophy (and by extension on his life).
Mathews is reported to have backed away from his apology, implying he was forced/induced to make it. Great testament for his integrity, and a ringing credential for his proclaimed senate candidacy. My �Big Number� is 90-10 Mathews won�t run, because bullies lack the courage or stomach for a fair fight, and to hear what people really think of them. And he has the audacity to question the veracity or integrity of any candidate? His own supposed candidacy is merely hype to revive a career in eclipse!
Notwithstanding MSNBC�s bump in viewership this past rating period; it is more a reflection of this historic campaign, the absolute crap that passes for television programming, and far less a testament to the quality of its programming. Once this race is over, so will go the ratings bump. A liberal leaning Lite version of Fox News is not an answer either. As a GE shareholder I object to this misuse and waste of corporate assets, and urge that Mathews contract not be renewed. In fact take him off the air now, and let him do cameos like that other clown, Tucker, who actually doesn�t sound so unreasonable in measured doses.
If GE and NBC management can�t do better job, then sell NBC Universal and invest the proceeds in faster growing businesses. Let someone else do the necessary housecleaning, starting with ending the psychodrama of Chris Mathews, the bully and hypocrite hosting the food fight that is Hardball. Any likeminded reader and/or GE shareholder please voice your opinions to GE, NBC, MSNBC, and the blogs, and feel free to copy any of the above if helpful.
Ernie Nounou ernie@thethinktank.biz
Ernie Nounou: Jon Stewart? He's a bad comedian, not a thinker worth of a single iota of respect. Chris Matthews relentlessly cuts through political hype and has correctly diagnosed Hillary's unfitness for high office, even back when she was our First Empress.
Matthews may have been right about the Iraq War (I would posit, whatever the polls said back then, whatever some allegedly smart people said in 2002-03, that we're setting the bar pretty low by making that a moral and political standard), but who could forget his juvenile, sneering attacks on Democrats, allowing his obsession with the Clenis to color his political POV. His mean-girl attacks on Al Gore set the standard for his industry of "professional personalities". The now roundly mocked (yet still too often believed) "Who would you rather have a beer with?" formula was, if I'm not mistaken, a coinage of that blithering nitwit. And long after the moral bankruptcy and national security that was Iraq was clear, he was still a whimpering, hyperventilating fanboy for George W. Bush: "We're all neocons now!" "Everybody likes the president, except the real whackjobs" (Bush's numbers were in the low forties, at that point, IIRC); "What are those Democrats carping about?" (Um... Tweety, the Constitution). On John Kerry: "He looks French! He looks French! Bwahahahah!". Once, I stumbled upon a thoughtful and thought-provoking discussion of the death penalty between Christopher Hitchen and Matthews. I thought I had fallen through the looking-glass. Hitchens ended his argument by quoting statistics that indicate a majority of Americans would oppose capital punishment if they thought it unjustly applied in terms of class and race. Matthews immediately reverted to form and said "Yeah, those are probably the people who thought Clinton shouldn't have been impeached." This is a longer rant than I intended, so I'll leave it to someone else to discuss his painfully obvious, public, and embarrassing issues with women.
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This is how I understand him simply from watching his show. Which is why I put up with some of his idiocies (I don't like it when he flirts with women, on the show, for one thing). It's impossible not to see how seriously he takes his role. I just wish he'd interrupt a little less, so people could actually finish a sentence once in awhile.
Posted by scire | April 14, 2008 4:58 PM