Is Chris Mathews the Worst Moderator Ever?

Sister Toldjah ^ | May 3, 2007 | Sister Toldjah

[MRiley]

Sheesh. It’s bad enough that Chris Matthews will be moderating the debate, but Keith “I’m not trying to cater to the Nutroots even though I sure as hell act like it” Olbermann will be hosting pre and post debate coverage on MSNBC, too. Ick.

[MRiley]

A thorough and balanced report on the debate blow-by-blow.

[Obadiah]

Time!

[Tim Long]

Tell me about it. Did anyone watch the post-debate coverage. It seems that he just invents statistics. He thinks that most Americans are pro-abortion, which would be hard to be believe considering all the voting blocks that are not. He also stated most Americans are Darwinists, which polls contradict.

I also hated that snide joke about whether Tom Tancredo knew that SAM 27000 wasn't the current Air Force One. What a blatant leftist.

[oldbill]

No, the Republicans are the dumbest candidates anywhere for putting up with Matthews and Politico and the left wing MSM and treating them as serious journalism.

Give credit to the Democrats - they made sure that only favorable media get to run their debates - and they paid no price for quitting the Fox News debates.

What is sad is that none of the 10 Republicans stood up to Matthews and his nonsense. They meekly accepted his “still beat your wife questions” and interruptions. It would have been nice if just one of them spoke up and said “that is a stupid, moronic question Mr. Matthews, and it’s time you grew up and got a brain” No, they just took it, and even worse, gave credibility to the questions by answering them.

Matthews must be gloating over how he got the entire active Republcan presidential field eating out of his hand. If Fred Thompson would enter the fray and do one of his “This is getting out of control” lectures (Hunt for Red October) he’d get my vote.

I remember a Massachusetts press conference when then Governor Romney told a snotty reporter who said he (the reporter) represented the people “No, I represent the people - you represent the press”.

Where was that Romney last night?

[Paperdoll]

Well, I don’t think there was anything meek about Duncan Hunter. In fact, I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d popped Cistern Matthews in the nose for ignoring and skipping over him. But, of course, Rep. Hunter has too much class to lower himself to Cistern’s level.
I hope the Republicans have learned their lesson in whom to have “moderate” the next debate, and collect the questions. There were some very good questions submitted to Politico, very few of which were selected. I thought most of the candidates handled themselves very well in view of who they had to put up with. Matthews broke all the rules.

[Bigg Red]

Excellent analysis of the sham that was billed a debate. I could not get past more than half of it.

[Spiff]

Abso-freakin-lutely!! And the questions last night were hostile. They seemed to have been written by Democrats and not Republicans. This IS a Republican Primary - save the Democrat questions for the General Election.

[cripplecreek]

Could have been moderated by Bill Press.

[cripplecreek]

Could have been moderated by Bill Press.

[johnny7]

LMAO!

Culture of corruption, Scooter Libby... Terri Schivo, Karl Rove...

[DLfromthedesert]

Why not Joe Scarborough? At least he used to be a Republican.

[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

The coverage of the debate is much more important than the debate itself as far as the electorate goes. Until they winnow the field down to the top two or three, its sound bite central, not anything even approaching a debate. We could learn at least one thing from the French, they know what real debate is.

[CIDKauf]

yes

[omnivore]

Either worst moderator ever or best-behaved demon ever.

[river rat]

Prissy Chrissy is what he has always been — a self important and self indulgent leftist elitist a$$hole.

The stupid party earned their nickname by agreeing to “debate” on a leftist network with Prissy Chrissy as “tormentor”

[BillyBoy]

>> What is sad is that none of the 10 Republicans stood up to Matthews and his nonsense. They meekly accepted his “still beat your wife questions” and interruptions. It would have been nice if just one of them spoke up and said “that is a stupid, moronic question Mr. Matthews, and it’s time you grew up and got a brain” <<

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MATTHEWS: Seriously, would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House? (Laughter.)

ROMNEY: You have got to be kidding me.

---

MATTHEWS: Okay. Let me go to a question that’s more ephemeral and it is passing, and it will be decided in the next several months. We’ll go down the line again. This isn’t as much fun as cutting taxes. Do you think Scooter Libby should be pardoned?

GILMORE: First, Chris, I think that like —

MATTHEWS: Not yet.

GILMORE: — like others I think that we have to deal with these papers with respect to illegal immigrants, not with respect to all Americans. We should not have a national ID card. We should have that more diffused across the states.

With respect to Scooter Libby, I actually was an elected prosecutor. I handled many cases myself, and I also managed many other cases. The law has to apply within the in discretion of the prosecutor. Now if a president is going to exercise, which I have, by the way, done myself as a chief executive, pardons or clemency, in this particular case, as high profile as it is, you have to go to the American people and make your case as to why that kind of discretion ought to be applied. And if you can’t make that case, then you shouldn’t do it.

MATTHEWS: So we don’t want another Marc Rich.

GILMORE: Pardon me?

MATTHEWS: Nevermind.

---

MATTHEWS: Would you, as commander in chief and chief executive, would you employ Karl Rove?

MR. GILMORE: This isn’t a matter of Karl Rove. What’s important to this nation is not Karl Rove. What’s important to this nation and to this party is the acquisition of a philosophy and values that we are as Republicans.

There is a time now for us to reach out and to say that we’re spending too much money in government, that it’s taking too much of the resources of this nation, that we have got to do something about government spending, create more jobs and higher revenue and a better opportunity, and thereby to cut taxes for regular people. I did that as governor. I’m a consistent conservative that keeps his word and does what he says that he’s going to do.

---

MATTHEWS: Okay. Governor Thompson, same question...

THOMPSON: No, I—

MATTHEWS: Actually you could respond to just about anything at this point. (Laughter.)

THOMPSON: Well, Chris, then I will. I’m the reliable conservative. I vetoed 1,900 things; I reduced taxes by 16-and-a-half billion dollars. I’m from Wisconsin, a blue state, and I won four consecutive times.

I still have a very high popularity appeal, and I’m the one that started welfare reform, reduced welfare caseload in the United States, in the state of Wisconsin, by 93 percent. And I believe that kind of a record will attract Democrats and independents if you stand up and start talking on principles and ideas. Where I think the Republican party lost its way is, we went to Washington to change Washington. Washington changed us.

We forgot to be coming up with new ideas, big ideas like Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan had an optimism and a belief that America could be stronger and better tomorrow than it is today, and he instilled that and inculcated that in every American. That’s what we have to do as a party again.

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MATTHEWS: Senator Brownback, Jack Abramoff, Mark Foley, Duke Cunningham in prison for bribes. Just last month, FBI raids of two Republican members of Congress. What’s with your party and all this corruption?

SEN. BROWNBACK: And there are also Democrat members that there was cash found in refrigerators or deep-freezes.

---

MATTHEWS: The same question. Embryonic stem cell research with federal funds, sir. Okay. I’m going to have to go yes or no answers.

THOMPSON: There’s so much research going on, Chris, you cannot answer that question yes or no. There’s research currently going on right now at the Waisman Center in Madison, Wisconsin, that’s going to allow for adult stem cells —

MATTHEWS: Right.

THOMPSON: — to become pluripotent, which will have the same characteristics of embryonic stem cells. So you do not have to kill an embryo.

MATTHEWS: Okay. That’s a no.

---

[TADSLOS]

This is an SNL skit waiting to happen tonight.

[Libloather]

From another website -

Erin Burnett just finished her report, and Chris says, "Erin, lean in toward the camera." She says, "Whaaa..? He repeats it and she starts to lean in and then asks, "What's this about?" He says, "You look GREAT" and then mumbles something else...

She did not look all that amused at the on-air embarrassment for his benefit...

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