I couldn't quite believe I heard what I heard. Chris Mathews inate racism was exposed, and he knew it immediately. It was the ultimate insult he could heap on Condi Rice, and that was his intent. He and Fineman were on a "get Condi" roll, each attempting to blame her for all the mistakes they wanted Bush to admit to last night.
Why would they do this? Not because they are racists, even though Fineman felt the need to condescendingly comment on how intelligent she is. (Like Kerrey did at the hearings, and Condi Rice has always found it insulting for white people to vocalize surprise that she's so articulate. She knows it really means. "articulate for a black person")
I think Mathews, Fineman, all democrats fear that a black republican woman has the ability to supplant the false claim that Hillary is the smartest woman on the planet
I tuned in to see if it would be another Matthews Fineman love fest and heard his comment. It gave me pause but when one considers that Matthew's rhetoric is filled with analogies and that butlers are usually white men, I thought it was a poor choice of words. On reflection the fact that it gave me pause was a red flag.