MSNBC's Chris Matthews problem

[Teri B.]

MSNBC's Chris Matthews problem

I do not care which person is your candidate. I don't care what you think of Hillary Clinton as a potential president. What is being done in the press is akin to a pack of rabid 7th graders trying to haze the nerdy girl in school simply because they can. It has nothing to do with her qualifications -- it has to do with gender, and these lemming pundits think that it's perfectly acceptable because everyone is doing it, including women like Andrea Mitchell and Anne Kornblut.-- Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake

"OK, let's put the gender thing in here. I love gender politics, guys."-- Chris Matthews

The behavior Christy Hardin Smith describes has its epicenter on MSNBC's Hardball, where rarely a day goes by without host Chris Matthews sputtering and shouting about Hillary Clinton, often in terms that would give Bobby Riggs pause.

Put simply, Matthews behaves as though he is obsessed with Hillary Clinton. And not "obsessed" in a charming, mostly harmless, Lloyd-Dobler-with-a-boom-box kind of way. "Obsessed" in a this-person-needs-help kind of way.

More than six years ago, long before Hillary Clinton began running for president, the Philadelphia Inquirer magazine reported that, according to an MSNBC colleague, Matthews had said of Clinton: "I hate her. I hate her. All that she stands for."

Even before that, Matthews told the January 20, 2000, Hardball audience, "Hillary Clinton bugs a lot of guys, I mean, really bugs people like maybe me on occasion. I'm not going to take a firm position here, because the election is not coming up yet. But let me just say this, she drives some of us absolutely nuts."

Not that there was much chance his feelings would go unnoticed by even the most casual Hardball viewer.

Matthews has referred to Clinton as "She devil." He has repeatedly likened Clinton to "Nurse Ratched," referring to the "scheming, manipulative" character in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest who "asserts arbitrary control simply because she can." He has called her "Madame Defarge." And he has described male politicians who have endorsed Clinton as "castratos in the eunuch chorus."

Matthews has compared Clinton to a "strip-teaser" and questioned whether she is "a convincing mom." He refers to Clinton's "cold eyes" and the "cold look" she supposedly gives people; he says she speaks in a "scolding manner" and is "going to tell us what to do."

Matthews frequently obsesses over Clinton's "clapping" -- which he describes as "Chinese." He describes Clinton's laugh as a "cackle" -- which led to the Politico's Mike Allen telling him, "Chris, first of all, 'cackle' is a very sexist term." (Worth remembering: When John McCain was asked by a GOP voter referring to Clinton, "How do we beat the bitch?" Allen reacted by wondering, "What voter in general hasn't thought that?" So Allen isn't exactly hypersensitive to people describing Clinton in sexist terms.)

Matthews repeatedly suggests Clinton is a "fraud" for claiming to be a Yankees fan, despite the fact that all available evidence indicates that Clinton has been a Yankees fan since childhood. In April of 2007, former Washington Post reporter John Harris, who has written a book about Bill Clinton, told Matthews to his face that the attacks on Clinton over her history of being a Yankees fan were false. Harris said: "Hillary Clinton got hazed over saying she was a New York Yankees fan. It turned out, actually, that was right. She had been a lifelong Yankees fan. But people were all over [her] for supposedly embroidering her past." But Matthews doesn't let a little thing like the truth get in the way of his efforts to take cheap shots at Clinton: At least twice since Harris set him straight, Matthews has attacked Clinton over the Yankees fan nonsense, once calling her a "fraud."

Matthews has described Clinton as "witchy" and -- in what appears to be a classic case of projection -- claimed that "some men" say Clinton's voice sounds like "fingernails on a blackboard." In what appears to be an even more classic case of projection, Matthews has speculated that there is "out there in the country ... some gigantic monster -- big, green, horny-headed, all kinds of horns coming out, big, aggressive monster of anti-Hillaryism that hasn't shown itself: it's based upon gender."

Matthews has suggested that Hillary Clinton "being surrounded by women" might "make a case against" her being "commander in chief." He once asked a guest if "the troops out there" would "take the orders" from "Hillary Clinton, commander in chief." When his guest responded, "Why wouldn't they listen to a [female] commander in chief? Sure," Matthews responded: "You're chuckling a little bit, aren't you?" When his guest responded "No," Matthews couldn't quite believe it, sputtering: "No problem? No problem? No problem?"

Matthews has wondered if she is unable "to admit a mistake" because doing so would lead people to call her a "fickle woman." He has said that Clinton is on a "short ... leash" as a presidential candidate, lacking "latitude in her husband's absence" to answer a question. He has, at least twice, called Hillary Clinton an "uppity" woman -- both times, pretending to attribute the phrase to Bill Clinton. But, as Bob Somerby has explained, there is no evidence Clinton has ever used the term.

One of Matthews' favorite topics is Clinton's marriage. After The New York Times ran an article purporting to count the number of nights the Clintons spend together, Matthews' imagination ran wild, and the MSNBC host couldn't get the Clintons' marital life out of his mind. At one point, Media Matters counted 90 separate questions Matthews asked guests about the topic during seven separate programs; the number undoubtedly grew after we stopped counting. In the middle of one of Matthews' bouts of obsessive speculation about how often the Clintons are "together in the same roof overnight, if you will," Washington Post reporter Lois Romano asked him, "[W]hat is your obsession with logistics here?" In response, Matthews snapped at her: "Because I'm talking to three reporters, and I'm trying to get three straight answers, so I don't want attitude about this. It's a point of view -- I want facts. Tell me what the facts are, Lois, if you know them. If you don't, I don't know what you're arguing about."

Matthews has claimed: "[T]he reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around." John McCain's political career got started after he left his first wife for a wealthy and politically connected heiress, married her, and ran for Congress. But Chris Matthews doesn't suggest that the reason McCain is a "U.S. senator ... a candidate for president ... a front-runner" is that he "messed around." Even Fox News' Bill O'Reilly said Matthews' comments about Clinton went too far: "I mean, it's rough business what these people over there [at MSNBC] are doing. We don't do that here. We would never say that Senator Clinton got her job because her husband messed around. I mean, that is -- that is a personal attack. And it is questionable whether a network should allow that or not."

Matthews periodically gets it into his head that the most important question in the world is whether Bill Clinton will be a "distraction" or whether he will "behave himself." He badgers Clinton aides about the question and warns that Bill Clinton "better watch it." He asks if Clinton will be a "good boy" or be guilty of "misbehavior." Matthews is not so subtly referring to Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. But curiously, he doesn't have the same concerns about McCain or about Rudy Giuliani, as I wrote nearly a year ago.

Think about this for a second: Chris Matthews is holding it against Hillary Clinton that her husband cheated on her. But he doesn't hold it against John McCain and Rudy Giuliani that they cheated on their spouses. Matthews seems to think women are to blame when their husbands have affairs -- and men who cheat on their spouses are blameless.

And then there's Matthews' fixation on Hillary Clinton's "ambition." In December 1999, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson appeared on Hardball to discuss Clinton's Senate campaign. Matthews asked Wolfson eight consecutive questions about whether Clinton was "ambitious." Finally, Matthews said, "People who seek political power are ambitious by definition," leading Wolfson to tell him: "if you say so. If it will make you happy, I'll agree." If Matthews has ever displayed as much interest in the "ambition" of male candidates like John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, or Mike Huckabee, he has done so in private.

And, in the midst of his years-long assault on Hillary Clinton, much of it either directly based on her gender or on a sexist double standard, Matthews has the audacity to accuse Clinton of being "anti-male" and to insist that "she should just lighten up on this gender -- 'the boys are coming to get me' routine."

None of this should surprise us. Chris Matthews acknowledged his feelings about Hillary Clinton long ago: "I hate her. I hate her. All that she stands for." And "she drives some of us [guys] absolutely nuts."

But Matthews' questionable treatment of women extends beyond Hillary Clinton.

Matthews has described House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as "scary" and suggested she would "castrate" House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. And he has wondered how she could disagree with President Bush "without screaming? How does she do it without becoming grating?"

Just this week, Matthews claimed there isn't a plausible female presidential candidate "on the horizon" because there aren't any "big-state women governors" -- but Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell, and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius all run states with populations comparable to male governors who have recently run for president, including Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Bill Richardson. How large a state does a woman have to run before she qualifies as a plausible presidential candidate to Chris Matthews? One that is twice as large as Mitt Romney's Massachusetts? Three times as large?

Last October, Matthews mused aloud about a hypothetical couple trying to decide who to support for president. In Matthews' mind, the wife just wants to see "the first woman president." According to Matthews, the husband has to explain the math to his wife: "[T]he husband says, 'You know, dear, you know, this is going to kill our tax bracket. You know that tuition thing we pay every couple of years for the kids, every year, we can't do that if we get a higher tax bracket. We have to pay more money.' "

After the Des Moines Register endorsed Hillary Clinton earlier this year, Matthews suggested that the paper's "female editors and publisher" succumbed to "lobbying" by Bill Clinton.

Matthews has repeatedly focused on the physical characteristics of his female guests. He recently began an interview with conservative radio host and author Laura Ingraham by telling her, "I'm not allowed to say this, but I'll say it -- you're beautiful and you're smart." He ended the interview by saying: "I get in trouble for this, but you're great looking, obviously. You're one of the gods' gifts to men in this country. But also, you are a hell of a writer." Note that Matthews said Ingraham is also a good writer -- apparently, to Chris Matthews, there is no reason for men to care about whether a woman can write, only about how she looks.

Matthews' comments about Ingraham came only a month after he told CNBC anchor Erin Burnett, "You're a knockout," adding: "It's all right getting bad news from you." Matthews also told Burnett: "Come on in closer. No, come in -- come in further -- come in closer. Really close." Matthews made such a spectacle of himself during the exchange that The New York Post said "it sure looked" like Matthews had been "perving on CNBC hottie Erin Burnett on live TV the other night." Matthews explained that he had merely been "kidding around."

During MSNBC's April 26, 2007, coverage of the first Democratic presidential debate, Matthews discussed the "cosmetics" of the evening. In doing so, he complimented Michelle Obama's pearl necklace and declared that she "looked perfect," "well-turned out ... attractive -- classy, as we used to say. Like Frank Sinatra, 'classy.' "

Matthews also appeared to argue that many viewers would be basing their decisions about the candidates on how, in Clinton's case, the candidate was dressed, or, in the case of the male candidates, how their spouses were dressed: "Some people are, by the way, just watching tonight. They stopped listening a half-hour in, and they noticed how pretty she is -- Michelle -- and they said, 'I like the fact he's [Barack Obama] got this pretty wife. He's happily married. I like that.' They like the fact that Hillary was demure, lady-like in her appearance." When NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell interjected, noting "You're talking about two ... lawyers," who went to "Harvard and Yale," Matthews defended himself, saying, "Cosmetics are a part of this game."

Nor is any of this new: In August 1999, Matthews hosted notorious liar Gennifer Flowers, during which he told her: "I gotta pay a little tribute here. You're a very beautiful woman, and I -- and I have to tell you, he knows that, you know that, and everybody watching knows that; Hillary Clinton knows that. How can a woman put up with a relationship between her husband and somebody, anybody, but especially somebody like you that's a knockout?" After Flowers told him "Gosh, you make me blush here," Matthews replied, "[I]t's an objective statement, Gennifer. I'm not flirting."

In 2000, Matthews responded to linguist Deborah Tannen's explanation of then-presidential candidate George W. Bush's efforts to appeal to women voters by saying, "So is this like the political equivalent of Spanish fly? That these seductive number of words you just drop out there and women just swoon." That led another Hardball guest, Lynn Martin -- a Republican -- to point out, "You wouldn't suggest he's seducing men."

Chris Matthews has been treating female guests as sexual objects for years. He has been judging women -- senators, presidential candidates, the speaker of the House -- on their clothes and their voices and their appearance for years. He has been referring to women as "castrating" for years. He has been applying double standards to male and female candidates for years.

This is who Chris Matthews is. He is a man who thinks that men who support women politicians are "eunuchs."

He isn't going to stop unless you make him stop. Chris Matthews uses his voice to marginalize women. Use yours to tell MSNBC you've had enough.

It's time to play a little "hardball." Please contact MSNBC and Chris Matthews today and let them know what you think.

Now there was a time when equal time was the law and "journalists" had integrity. I know it's not popular around here to have anything but love for Obama and hate for Clinton, but the fact is, around half of Democrats are voting for her, none of this bitterness bodes well for anyone, except Nader. Media coverage is a HUGE factor in elections, and I'm deeply disturbed by what I'm seeing, partcularly on MSNBC.

The Clintons have notoriously had a very bad relationship with the media, for obvious reasons. But the way the media is influencing this election is very disturbing, and it's not just SNL saying so. I've taken to watching Jim Leherer's News Hour and a few other select programs on CNN. MSNBC, when all the dust settles, will have to answer to the 40 to 50% of Clinton and Edwards supporters.

[Teri B.]

It's All Uphill From Here
Coverage Adds to Clinton's Steep Climb

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 18, 2008; C01

It was 15 degrees outside on a wind-whipped Pennsylvania Avenue as Hillary Clinton, smile firmly fixed in place, made an early-morning stop for a primary she didn't have a prayer of winning.

Inside the high-ceilinged office of the National Council of Negro Women, as 20 journalists looked on, Sen. Clinton sounded almost wistful last Monday as she noted the racial and gender aspect of her contest against Barack Obama. "One of us will go on to make history," she said, before adding that she believed she would be the one to make it.

Left unspoken -- but very much on the minds of the modest press contingent -- was that she had just lost four states to Obama, had been forced to lend her operation $5 million and had dumped her campaign manager. And no upbeat talk by the candidate was going to change that story line.

The media floodgates opened after Obama swept last week's primaries in the District, Maryland and Virginia. Never mind that the two Democratic candidates remain close in the delegate count, or that Clinton has been described as doomed once before, in New Hampshire. She is drowning in a sea of negative coverage.

The New York Daily News said "the once-mighty Clinton campaign is beginning to feel like the last days of Pompeii." The New York Times quoted an unnamed superdelegate backing Clinton as saying that if she doesn't win Ohio and Texas next month, "she's out." The Washington Post said "even many of her supporters worry" that the nomination "could soon begin slipping out of her reach." Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Dick Polman likened her campaign to the Titanic. A Slate headline put it starkly: "So, Is She Doomed?"

Clinton spokesman Doug Hattaway, citing the back-and-forth nature of the contest, says the campaign isn't worried about the spate of Hillary-in-trouble pieces. "That may emerge as a national story line, but we don't think it influences voters on the ground," he says. "The 'momentum' story is just not all that real. People aren't led around by the nose by the national media narrative." Of course, voters in primary states also watch the networks and read national news online.

Fueling the sense that the former first lady is sinking is increasingly sharp criticism from liberal columnists who are embracing Obama, while few pundits are firmly in Clinton's corner. The Nation, the country's largest liberal magazine, has endorsed Obama. Markos "Kos" Moulitsas, the most prominent liberal blogger, voted for Obama in the California primary and has been ridiculing Clinton's campaign.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote that the Clinton machine is "ruthless" and the candidate "crippled by poll-tested corporate packaging that markets her as a synthetic product leeched of most human qualities."

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen said Clinton has "an inability to admit fault or lousy judgment" and made an "ugly lurch to the political right" in backing a 2005 bill that would have made flag burning illegal (which, as he later noted, Obama also endorsed).

Arianna Huffington, one of the Net's leading Clinton-bashers, has written of "Hillary's hypocrisy running neck and neck with her cynicism." New Republic Editor-in-Chief Marty Peretz posted an essay last week titled "The End of BillaryLand Is on Its Way. Rejoice!"

For much of the campaign, Clinton, who seemed wary of the press during her eight years in the White House, limited her contact with reporters. She would go days without taking media questions. But since losing Iowa she has become far more accessible, in the tradition of trailing candidates who suddenly realize they need the exposure.

Her campaign can still be inconsiderate toward reporters, sometimes not sending out the next day's schedule until 2 a.m., making it impossible even to plan what time to get up. But tensions have eased as Clinton has held more frequent news conferences.

"She's very comfortable dealing with the media and is perfectly willing to take questions," Hattaway says. "It's got its pluses and minuses. There are those who say it's pushing you off your message of the day. But, by and large, it's good to be accessible, and she's good at it."

On her campaign plane, Clinton started coming back to the press section for off-the-record chats, usually harmless but sometimes including comments that contradicted what she was saying publicly, according to participants. Two weeks ago part of the media contingent revolted, saying the conversations did them no good if they couldn't use the information. Since then, although she walked the aisle with a tray of chocolates to hand out on Valentine's Day, the airborne sessions have dwindled.

When the campaign offered to send Chelsea Clinton -- who never grants interviews -- to the back of the plane, some journalists objected to the off-the-record restriction, and the candidate's daughter bagged the idea.

Accessibility, though, doesn't necessarily translate into candor. And examining the way Clinton answers media questions helps explain why she is portrayed as a conventional politician pitted against a cultural phenomenon.

Last Monday, when ABC's Jake Tapper asked about the obvious problems in her campaign, Clinton said she'd had a "great night" on Feb. 5, Super Tuesday, an "enormous response" from donors after lending her campaign money, and that the replacement of campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle was "Patti's decision" -- granting not a glimmer of recognition that anything was less than perfect.

On Tuesday night, when she was swamped in the Potomac primaries, Clinton gave a speech in Texas that made no mention of the results. Reporters were incredulous the next day when she stuck to her everything's-fine stance at a media availability: "Some weeks one of us is up, and the other's down, and then we reverse it." What about Obama pulling ahead in delegates? "That's what I always thought would happen."

A similar dynamic was on display in a "60 Minutes" interview, when Katie Couric couldn't get her to acknowledge that she ever contemplates losing the nomination. "You have to believe you're going to win," Clinton insisted.

At an MSNBC debate last month, when Tim Russert asked the candidates to name their greatest weakness, Obama made the minor admission that he has trouble keeping track of paperwork. And Clinton's confession? She gets "impatient" and "really frustrated when people don't seem to understand that we can do so much more to help each other."

By late last week, some pundits were conjuring up scenarios for a Clinton comeback, if only to find something new to say. But she was still depicted as a mathematical long shot.

A national figure since 1992, Clinton is a disciplined and detail-oriented candidate, with a style that produces few sparks, while Obama is filling basketball arenas with thunderous oratory. That is why her choking up in a New Hampshire coffee shop became such a huge story -- because we rarely get a peek behind the steely exterior.

By contrast, there is little question that some journalists have gotten swept up in the Obama excitement. After Obama's victory speech Tuesday, MSNBC's Chris Matthews said he "felt this thrill going up my leg." Some reporters have brought their kids to Obama events, while others have danced to the music played at the rallies.

Obama has defied the laws of journalistic gravity, somehow avoiding the usual scrutiny applied to front-runners. A few attempts to examine his life and record -- such as a Times piece on Obama's pattern of voting "present" in the Illinois legislature, and another on Obama watering down a bill affecting a nuclear power company that contributed to his campaign -- barely caused a ripple. Now Obama's wife, Michelle, who did interviews with Larry King and Couric last week, is getting the treatment, drawing mostly soft-focus questions. A Newsweek cover story out today calls her "direct and plain-spoken, with an edgy sense of humor . . . she can be tough, and even a little steely." She is "outspoken, strong-willed, funny, gutsy, and sometimes sarcastic," cutting "an athletic and authoritative figure," a front-page Times profile declared.

A handful of columnists, such as Time's Joe Klein, have questioned whether the Obama campaign has cultish qualities, but they are in the minority. It took a British magazine, the Economist, to carry the cover headline last week: "But could he deliver?"

While few in the media world will say so out loud, a Hillary collapse ("The Fall of the House of Clinton," as a Weekly Standard cover put it last month) is a more dramatic outcome than a win by the woman originally depicted as inevitable. But there is considerable danger in writing that story prematurely.

Howzat?

[Teri B.]

MSNBC serves political news with a side of opinion

By Matea Gold, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 26, 2008

NEW YORK -- For MSNBC, long the laggard of the cable news world, the early start to the 2008 presidential race meant the chance for another reinvention: fashioning itself as "the place for politics."

Intense campaign coverage in the last year expanded the audience of the third-place cable news network, which has struggled for much of its 11 years to find a cohesive programming strategy. So far this year, 830,000 viewers on average have tuned in during weekday prime time -- 46% more than last year.

But the bigger spotlight on the network has also put a renewed focus on the outspoken nature of MSNBC's hosts, who regularly slide between the roles of straight newscaster and voluble commentator.

Some of their remarks have drawn complaints from the presidential campaign of Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, which claims MSNBC has a pattern of hostile coverage toward her. After correspondent David Shuster said this month that Chelsea Clinton was being "pimped out" to lobby superdelegates, the campaign threatened to pull out of MSNBC's debate tonight in Cleveland. Clinton agreed to participate after the network temporarily suspended Shuster for using "irresponsible" language.

As the 2008 race hurtles toward the general election, MSNBC's role as a political lightning rod appears likely to persist. Even as they acknowledge the risks of a format that mixes news and opinion, network executives said they have no plans to rein in their hosts.

"Our people are not in straitjackets," said Phil Griffin, NBC News' senior vice president in charge of MSNBC. "They speak openly; they're passionate. There's a liveliness and richness to the conversation that you don't see on CNN or Fox. Do we leave ourselves open a little more? Yeah. But I think it's part of our success."

Point of view is nothing new in cable news. But even in a landscape crowded with commentators, the MSNBC hosts stand out: Keith Olbermann excoriates the Bush administration during his show's "Special Comment" segment and occasionally blogs on Daily Kos, a favorite website of the left. At an event celebrating his program's 10th anniversary last fall, Chris Matthews declared that the current administration had "been caught in their criminality."

The latter comment drew winces internally. But for the most part, MSNBC executives are at ease with the dual roles played by the network's personalities. Both Olbermann and Matthews moderated campaign forums last year and anchor major news events.

"I do think that viewers accept that there are points of view out there, and sometimes that seeps out," Griffin said. "As long as you're up front and straight about what you're doing, I'm OK."

Still, he admits the dynamic is "a high-wire act," underscored when Shuster, guest hosting on "Tucker," made the "pimped out" remark. NBC News President Steve Capus personally called Hillary Clinton to apologize.

That followed an incident in January when Matthews said that the New York senator's political success stemmed solely from public sympathy that "her husband messed around," sparking protests by women's groups.

Matthews later clarified his remarks, saying he did not mean that was the basis of her whole career. In an interview, he said he wanted to refine his comment but added that the Clinton campaign used the incident to score political points.

"They created the storm; I had to deal with it," he said. "I think any observant person would say what I said was true. It might have been said better, more felicitously."

Some media experts said MSNBC's brew of news and opinion gives partisans fodder to argue bias.

"In an environment where opinions are flying, words escape easily," said Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a nonpartisan research group. "It gets harder and harder to define the line of what's acceptable."

Tom Fiedler, the visiting Murrow lecturer at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, rejected the idea "that you can move from one side to the other and not confuse most viewers. I don't think even Fox would attempt to take Bill O'Reilly and put him in a position of being seen as a news anchor."

Griffin acknowledged that MSNBC's unrestrained culture concerns some NBC reporters who appear on the cable channel, but he said "people feel more comfortable with the crossover" than ever before.

The two networks now share space in Rockefeller Center, where MSNBC relocated last fall after closing its Secaucus, N.J., offices. NBC talent, including anchor Brian Williams, now appear on the cable channel even more frequently.

Williams, who is moderating tonight's MSNBC debate, said he does not have qualms about giving reports on the opinion-saturated network.

"They know my limits; I don't do opinions," said the anchor. "But that doesn't mean that a skilled broadcaster or journalist can't inhabit both worlds at the same time."

Still, some viewers have complained about the interplay in e-mails to Williams on his blog, the Daily Nightly.

"The cross-pollination of the NBC nightly news with MSNBC pundits like Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann has made your election coverage far less palatable for me," wrote a Virginia viewer.

Olbermann, a former ESPN sportscaster, said it is "nonsensical" that "either you are a color guy or a play-by-play guy." But he admitted that the format presents some "real head-scratchers. . . . Some of it is subtle, like can I do a special comment on Monday and anchor primary coverage on Tuesday?"

Griffin tries to navigate those issues daily, reminding the staff: "I want analysis; I don't want feelings.

"We can't drop off. We're creating an identity here, and it's important we stay true to it."

[Environment Man]

Does anybody but liberals watch NBC anyway? And few of them because the liberal media mecca is CNN and neutral Anderson Cooper. If you want fair and balanced coverage just watch FOX, particularly Bill O'Reilly. Hillary and Barack wont even go on his show and this is a big mistake. She could fire back at Chris Mathews, who is homo for Obama anyway, from the O'Reilly chair and make O'Reilly an ally against the sort of sexism you have illustrated.

[RK77]

Does anybody but liberals watch NBC anyway? And few of them because the liberal media mecca is CNN and neutral Anderson Cooper. If you want fair and balanced coverage just watch FOX, particularly Bill O'Reilly. Hillary and Barack wont even go on his show and this is a big mistake. She could fire back at Chris Mathews, who is homo for Obama anyway, from the O'Reilly chair and make O'Reilly an ally against the sort of sexism you have illustrated.

O'Reilly? Who sexually harassed a woman who worked with him in a vile way and got sued? Yeah---he's not sexist!

Matthews likes Obama? Could have fooled me given his subtle comments bordering on bigotry!

The bottom line is that likely no pundit pleases everyone all the time.

Hillary should have known this with 35 years of interaction with the press. She should have had a comprehesive plan for dealing with the media. It is not like she went into this campaign with some stellar reputation among the press or the voters--her negatives were already high. Was a persistent whiner response the best plan she could come up with?

To me, the Hillary campaign is just using the republican play of trying to discredit the media so that people don't listen. That is dangerous to the survival of the nation---the press is the only way at present that the people raise questions and that the information dribbles out about what the government is doing.

Bush has tried to block flow of information to the people and it does not bode well that Hillary is willing to add to the disenfranchisement of the public to serve her own needs.


The entire Hillary and the press debacle is merely another example of lack of foresight and terrible judgment on the part of Hillary. Who's fault is that?

Hillary! "There's no crying in baseball!!"

[jdanton]

If our media is unable to report FACTS in an unbiased manner, unable to present the positions of various candidates as accurately as possible, how are the viewers to be WELL informed, rather than MISinformed?

What is more important to our democracy than a well informed voter?

It is apparent to me that Obama's "free ride" in the press has ended. Question is whether it continued too long.

We'll know Tuesday night.

This may or may not result in Hillary doing better Tuesday than predicted/expected. We'll see.

How will people here feel is she does a lot better than has been expected?


Let me add: if she does not do better than expected, then she will be faced with how/when to drop out. I will gladly fall in line behind him.

If she does do better than expected, and SHE picks up some delegates and momentum and somehow comes back and wins in PA, and he has to pull out, will his supporters do the same? Or will those who support the great "uniter" not unite behind her?

[lucytalk]

Matthews likes Obama? Could have fooled me given his subtle comments bordering on bigotry!

The bottom line is that likely no pundit pleases everyone all the time.


The entire Hillary and the press debacle is merely another example of lack of foresight and terrible judgment on the part of Hillary. Who's fault is that?

no the bottom line is matthews is a male chauvinist pig who would refuse to take orders from a woman commander in chief and would be for any man instead.

a nbc reporter admitted ~ "Its Hard to Stay Objective Covering Obama" goggle it if you don't believe me. not even hillary could have the foresight that the media would be openly biased.

see they are not supposed to be biased when they are reporters ~ they're supposed to report the news.

[Veronica]

I agree that Chris Matthews is over the top. I have thought so for a while. I even think Keith Olberman dislikes him after his crazy press coverage. I do believe, however, that outside of Chris the Clinton campaign has made it easy for the press to attack. This a badly run media campaign on their part. Chris Matthews is ridiculous and I don't think people put a lot of stock in his comments.

[jdanton]

I agree that Chris Matthews is over the top. I have thought so for a while. I even think Keith Olberman dislikes him after his crazy press coverage. I do believe, however, that outside of Chris the Clinton campaign has made it easy for the press to attack. This a badly run media campaign on their part. Chris Matthews is ridiculous and I don't think people put a lot of stock in his comments.

I don't know who made this comment this AM, as I was listening from the other room, but he said the press reports in wolfpack fashion.

I liked that expression. One someone picks up on something, and it is the subject of all of the shows.

[Veronica]

I don't know who made this comment this AM, as I was listening from the other room, but he said the press reports in wolfpack fashion.

I liked that expression. One someone picks up on something, and it is the subject of all of the shows.

Yes, but you have to give them something to pick up on, unfortunately Clinton has given them a myriad of personalities to choose from as well as her campaign surrogates.