Matthews Meltdown Mirrors Mainstream Media Panic
Bias: Their ideological champion having been verbally undressed by a competent challenger, the tingles that used to run up the legs of the mainstream media have been replaced by the mother of all anxiety attacks.
Perhaps Clint Eastwood's chair would have given a better and less-wooden debate performance than President Obama did Wednesday in Denver, site of his coronation in 2008 amid faux Greek columns and with a full set of TelePrompters loaded with slogans on hope and change.
As GOP challenger Mitt Romney masterfully and relentlessly pummeled an emperor revealed to have no clothes with incontrovertible facts and figures on the most dismal four-year record in presidential history, no greater evidence of buyer's remorse was found than in the studios of MSNBC and in the person of Chris Matthews.
There were no tingles running up Matthews' leg as Romney pulled back the curtain to reveal Obama was no wizard, but a charlatan. His ballistic response to Romney's verbal waterboarding of the empty suit to his left confirmed the observation of ABC's Jake Tapper that the media were in the tank for Obama in 2008 and are again. The fourth estate has been Obama's fifth column.
"Where was Obama tonight?" Matthews shrieked at MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. "He should watch, well, not just 'Hardball.' Rachel, he should watch you, he should watch the Reverend Al (Sharpton), he should watch Lawrence (O'Donnell), he would learn something about this debate."
Maybe he has been, and maybe that's the problem. An endless supply of failed nostrums unsupported by facts or history is what the likes of MSNBC provides its limited viewership.
That is all the president could offer as he tried to play rope-a-dope for 90 minutes, repeatedly glancing at PBS host Jim Lehrer in hopes he would stop the bleeding.
"There's a hot debate going on in this country," Matthews continued. "Do you know where it's being held? Here on this network is where we're having the debate. We have our knives out. We go after the people and the facts. What was he doing tonight? He went in there disarmed."
Yes, there's a debate going on in this country, but it's not at MSNBC. It's held every night around millions of kitchen tables and it's about jobs, gasoline and food prices, and a president who worries about the distribution of the golden eggs rather than the economic health of the goose.
Also having his cutlery at the ready was a clearly upset David Gregory on NBC who was shocked that Barack Obama didn't hit Mitt Romney with the liberal media's favorite talking point, as he whined: "He didn't bring up the 47%!"
Also stunned was NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, who asked Savannah Guthrie: "Were you surprised we didn't hear the number 47?"
We're not, for it would only have allowed Romney to talk more about Obama growing the government instead of the economy and making people dependent while warring against the independent and successful, with just about half the people riding the wagon rather than pulling it.
"I have said before ... (that I) thought the media helped tip the scales," ABC's Tapper has said.
"I didn't think the coverage in 2008 was especially fair to either Hillary Clinton or John McCain. Led by Chris Matthews and his knife sharpener they have tried to tip the scales again. Wednesday night they could not save a president who came to a knife fight, not with a gun, but with a water balloon."
Look on the bright side, Chris. After Nov. 6, President Obama just might be available to do a show on MSNBC. |
