Free Republic

Every once in a while when Chris Matthews isn't idiotically railing on Michele Bachmann, and Sarah Palin, and lately Glenn Beck, says something interesting, or at least out of character. Case in point: This morning he popped up on Morning Joe for a Lent segment during which he strongly criticized America's reaction to the Egyptian uprising and Obama's treatment of Mubarak.

Chris Matthews would eliminate much needless confusion if he changed the name of his television program to The Michele Bachmann Report. Such diversions as a State of the Union address, the teetering Egyptian government, and Rahm Emanuel’s Second City soap opera didn’t prevent the Hardball host from fixating last week upon an obscure speech by a not-so obscure Congresswoman on three of his five broadcasts. “We know there was slavery that was still tolerated when the nation began,” Michele Bachmann declared in a speech oft-quoted on MSNBC. “We know that was an evil, and it was a scourge, and a...

In the world of cable news opinion media, its a rather well accepted axiom that Fox News primetime line up advances opinion that are from the right of center, and that MSNBC’s line up presents news and analysis from a left of center point of view. But according to a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter about the media’s ostensible obsession with Sarah Palin, not everyone seems to see the “opiniotainment” landscape in such binary terms. Bill Wolff, for example, claims that MSNBC is not “driven by politics.” Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Paul Bond reports: MSNBC vp primetime programming...