Who else did he work for besides Tip O’Neil. I seem remember by the late 80’s early 90’s, he was the Washington correspondent for the San Francisco Newspaper and regularly appeared on the McLaughlin Group as the Liberal resort to Pat Buchanan. Fred Barnes of the Weekly standard was the other Republican journalist there and you would have Jack Germond (who thought it got to sensationalist and left, not sure he is still around) from the Baltimore paper and Eleanor Clift as regulars as well from the left.
In the Clinton years, Chris Matthews earned a lot of respect on our side of the aisle (even being asked to host the Rush Limbaugh show) for his intelligent reporting of the Clinton impeachment proceedings and his whole-hearted condemnation of Clinton, unequivocally stating that Clinton needed to be impeached and convicted. Somewhere deep in Matthew’s soul is a modicum of honesty and integrity that occasionally surfaces.