Chris Matthews Clip Berating Rep. Grayson is Given new Light

Daily Kos has dug into the January 2010 archives and pulled out this telling clip from Hardball with Chris Matthews:

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Rep. Grayson (D-FL) was trying to explain to Matthews how the Democrats no longer would need 60 votes to pass the health care legislation due to the process of reconciliation, but Matthews would have none of it.

He continually made fun of Grayson and dismissed his views as "outside" the traditional Washington way of thinking. This segment was quite telling about where Matthews is coming from:

MATTHEWS: In the Senate, you have to get 60 votes. Why do you think the Democrats fought like hell to get 60 votes? Why do you think the President and everybody else is dying over the fact that they lost Massachusetts? Because it didn't matter? You think they're all crazy over there, but you're smart?

GRAYSON: No, I didn't say that. What I'm saying is that everyone's been talking about reconciliation, and nobody has the guts to do it.

MATTHEWS: Name the United States Senator that's willing to do this. You keep talking about it...

GRAYSON: I think that's what you'll probably see at this point.

MATTHEWS: [Laughs.] Wanna bet? [Laughs.] Do you want to bet that they're gonna do this? In other words, they killed themselves to get 60 votes, but now they're gonna say all we need is 50, and Biden to break the tie.

GRAYSON: They shouldn't have killed themselves to get 60 votes. This is something they could've done six months ago.

MATTHEWS: This is netroots talk!

GRAYSON: No, look...

MATTHEWS: This is outsider talk, and you're an elected official...

GRAYSON: That's not true. That's not true.

MATTHEWS: ...and you know you can't do it. You're pandering to the netroots right now. I know what you're doing!

GRAYSON: You are wrong! This is something we talk about with the leadership in our caucus meetings every week!

Notice that Matthews was chiding Grayson for supposedly pandering to the "netroots" and while we now know that Grayson was simply telling Matthews exactly what was happening, it speaks to the value that Matthews puts on various opinions. He obviously respects the viewpoints that are inside the beltway and is very dismissive of "outside" views no matter the validity that they hold.

Matthews continued:

GRAYSON: When did you become the Senate parliamentarian? Did I miss that?

MATTHEWS: Well, I worked over there for many, many years, and I worked for the Speaker for six years, I worked 15 years up there...

GRAYSON: Well, I'm speaking to the Speaker and the leadership this year...

MATTHEWS: ...and I know what I'm talking about! You ask anybody... you ask anybody in the Senate right now... Go call the Senate legislative counsel's office and ask them if you can do this. Go ask the parliamentarians if you can do this. You haven't bothered to do that.

GRAYSON: No, the leadership...

MATTHEWS: [Laughs.]

GRAYSON: ...my leadership has done that. And my answer is yes.

See? Matthews is an "insider" so he is "in the know" on these issues and when Grayson dare stray from this mindset, Matthews is all over him. See how this works within the beltway and why this mindset doesn't yield the best results? At the end of this exchange Matthews bet Grayson that reconciliation wouldn't happen.

Seems like Matthews was wrong on reconciliation and if the reconciliation package passes the Senate, it will be interesting to see what Matthews will have to say.

Republican Strategist has a Problem Naming One Good Thing Republicans Have Accomplished in the Last Twenty Years

I am not a big fan of Chris Matthews, but this clip was interesting to watch. Republican strategist Todd Harris gets taken to task and the segment ends when Harris can't name one good thing that the Republicans have done over the last few decades:



We need more hosts who call strategists on their B.S. and try to cut through the pointless spin that they incessantly spew. Like I said, I don't hold Matthews up as a shining beacon of journalistic light, but every once in a while a ray of sunshine pokes through.


**On a side note, many of you who regularly visit this blog have noticed that it has received a new look. I think it is overall a good change, but if any of you have any feedback, just let me know.

Health Care Reform Protester Fails Miserably on "Hardball"

Katy Abram showed up to a town hall meeting that was held by Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) and passionately said that she doesn't want our country turning into Russia or other socialized countries and asked what he would do to support policies that would bring us back to what the founding fathers intended. It was a scene that we have seen played out over and over again at town hall meetings from across the country.

Lawrence O'Donnell was the fill-in host on Hardball yesterday and had Abram on as a guest to ask her about her opposition to health care reform. As Logan Murphy over at Crooks and Liars states, "This wasn't like shooting fish in a barrel, it was like shooting the broad side of a barn with a bazooka -- at point blank range". Watch this:

Putting Current Discussions of Race, Into Context

I came across this video that digby posted earlier today of Joan Walsh on Hardball with Chris Matthews. I agree that the point that Walsh makes is a very important insight into the whole issue of race in America and how it permeates into other issues that are discussed:

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and digby's usual quality insight:

Joan is right about this. I've written about it many times myself. There has to be a reason that the US, of all the industrialized nations, the richest country in the world, is so hostile to social welfare programs. There are a lot of contributing factors, not the least of which is our vaunted individualism. But one of the fundamental reasons America is so resistant to programs that provide for the common good is that there is a long tradition of rejecting any proposal that taxes white people to pay for programs that benefit non-whites.

Joan talked about all this in the context of a question Matthews asked about whether or not the GOP was using race to block Obama's agenda. As Joan, points out, that's fairly obvious. When you have the fatuous gasbag leadership all calling Obama a reverse racist (the new black in conservative circles) and even questioning his American identity, it's pretty clear that they are yanking the racist American id pretty hard.

But it really goes to their essential philosophy which says that the government is taking away "what's yours" and giving it to the undeserving (blacks and browns.) The fact that Obama himself is black only adds to the atmospherics, it doesn't create them. This tribalism is so deeply entrenched in American culture that its racial nature has long since been disguised in less obvious terms such as "liberalism." Obama's race simply makes it impossible for the hard core wingnuts to hide their real intent.

Also relevant is a post that digby wrote back in 2003, most notably the following:

Racism is the original sin of the American experiment and progress in expunging it is slow going, especially in its ground zero, the south. It may even be that some of our most cherished beliefs about ourselves --- individualism and self-sufficiency --- are partially grounded in an ugly reaction to slavery and the fallout from it. White Supremacists and neo-confederates are exactly what they appear to be and more subtle aspects of their philosophy play themselves out in the multitude of ways that people rationalize their beliefs about government social programs and many other things in American culture.

[...]

But if we think we can make any headway with working class whites (particularly in the south) who currently vote Republican by making an appeal to their class solidarity with blacks, we are going to be disappointed. Their resistance to that idea is one of the main reasons they reject government social programs in the first place. We don’t help blacks or whites by failing to understand that and we certainly won’t win any votes by ignoring it.

This cuts through the normal discussions that are typical of television debates about the issue of race and certainly cuts through all of the simplistic divisive nonsense that people like Glenn Beck continue to spew.