On Wednesday, Inside Cable News released an in-depth, multi-part report on MSNBC’s failed rebranding effort to a news and information destination in the dayside and the cable network’s subsequent rebirth into one dominated by progressive opinion and analysis.

It was a big weekend for HBO fans the past few days. Game of Thrones made its triumphant return (Peter Dinklage for the win!), we got a longer view of the The Thick of It crew’s hopefully triumphant take on American politics, and we got our first glimpse at The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin’s new series about the behind the scenes struggles of a cable news show.

On his show today, Chris Matthews continued the national media discussion on the death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. He noted that in stark contrast to the unity and hopefulness surrounding President Obama‘s inauguration, the protests over Martin’s death illustrate that people “still react with the full force of our shared history” in such times of tragedy. Matthews brought up the president’s own experiences and public thoughts on what it means to be a black man in modern America.

On Wednesday, Hardball host Chris Matthews and Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein discussed the potential for all or part of President Obama’s health care reform law to be ruled unconstitutional in the Supreme Court and the ways in which progressives could move forward with health care reform in a post-Affordable Care Act world.

Former reporter and news anchor Joe Oliver continued his media tour on behalf of his friend George Zimmerman, who claims he killed 17 year-old Trayvon Martin in self defense, with an appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball. Among several inaccurate or contradictory claims, Oliver offered a bizarre explanation of the 911 tape in which Zimmerman appears to grumble “f**kin’ coons” moments before shooting Trayvon to death.

On his MSNBC show last Friday, Chris Matthews made a rather surprising admission on-air: politically speaking, he’s a big centrist. When talking about the Keystone XL pipeline, Matthews said that when someone like President Obama tries to take the middle ground on an issue, they tend to get hits from both sides. Joan Walsh nodded in agreement with the sentiment, and then Matthews said, “Take it from a centrist, I know what it’s like.”

For those of you who are getting sick and tired of this long, protracted Republican fight over who gets to be the nominee, console yourselves with the fact that it will all be over soon. Maybe. Chris Matthews talked about what lies ahead for Mitt Romney in the race to face President Obama on his show today, and his main contention was that despite Newt Gingrich continuing his campaign, it’s basically now a two-man race between Romney and Rick Santorum.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews wrapped up his show Thursday night by responding to Glenn Beck‘s assertion that Matthews is a “total and complete bigot” over comments he had made about both Mormonism and Matthews’ own religion, Catholicism. Beck had taken issue with, among other things, Matthews referring to two Catholics and a Mormon as “cultists.”

During last night’s primary results, Chris Matthews explained why Mitt Romney is doing as well as he is among conservatives despite being a Mormon, by comparing him to a computer technician in India, because “you don’t care who’s fixing it, just fix the damn computer.” On his show today, Glenn Beck (who is also a Mormon, mind you) responded to Matthews’ remarks, calling the MSNBC host a “total and complete bigot,” suggesting it’s part of a larger pattern of anti-Mormon bigotry on the part of not just Matthews but the media in general.

On the heels of Mitt Romney‘s 3rd place finishes in both Alabama and Mississippi, Chris Matthews compared the Republican hopeful’s pandering to the South to African colonialists. “It sounds colonial!” Matthews exclaimed. “Like I’m not one of you people, but I can come in and run your country better than you can!”

A poll conducted this week in anticipation of today’s Alabama and Mississippi primaries found some data show that a shocking number of people in both states believed President Obama was a Muslim. This poll concerned Chris Matthews tonight significantly, since it seemed to him to feed Republican support for Mitt Romney despite him being Mormon. To Matthews, Romney was like an Indian (“or somewhere in the Third World”) computer scientist fixing your computer: “you don’t care who is fixing it, just fix the damn computer!”

Given all the controversies surrounding women’s health care in the past month or so, Chris Matthews said on his show today that Republicans are “ignor[ing] the simple fact that women vote, and are the majority voters.” Matthews dragged viewers down into a time warp of sorts, playing footage of speeches from Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin four years ago, and then marveling at how contraception became such a big issue in this election cycle.

Ohio’s attorney general Mike DeWine made an appearance on MSNBC tonight to weigh in on issues important to his home state and discuss why he believes Rick Santorum will fare well. This prompted Chris Matthews, one of several hosts, covering the primaries tonight, to pose a rather interesting question for their guest.

This thing isn’t quite like that thing. During MSNBC’s Super Tuesday coverage this evening, host Chris Matthews, noting that gender is playing a huge part in this current political news arc, compared President Barack Obama‘s phone call to Georgetown student and activist Sandra Fluke to JFK’s call to Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King, Jr..

Appearing on Hardball, former RNC chief Michael Steele and Salon editor Joan Walsh argued over President Obama’s contraception mandate. Steele thought President Obama’s contraception policy could be summed up as “I got your back, here, have a pill.”

With all the focus on the Republican presidential candidates these days, it’s easy to forget there’s another side to this too. And on his show today, Chris Matthews looked at President Obama‘s slowly-but-steadily increasing poll numbers, and compared them to the upward trends felt by both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton before they went on to win re-election. But it’s not all smiles for the Obama team, they still have issues like job recovery and rising gas prices to deal with.

During Tuesday’s election night coverage on MSNBC, Chris Matthews again discussed the thrill-causing tendencies of President Obama. Shortly after Rick Santorum‘s speech, where he pulled a piece of shale out of his pocket, Matthews lauded the Republican hopeful’s ability to go off teleprompter, but thought President Obama still did it better, noting he had both a brain and a heart to charm the American public — and an ability to thrill.

Chris Matthews had a unique take on Mitt Romney‘s various wealth-related gaffes: The man is, simply, a boss. (Not, like, in the Kelis sense. In the “I have the authority to hire or fire you” sense.)

If anyone didn’t get enough back-patting from the Oscars last night, there was plenty for them to catch when Bill Maher appeared on Hardball just now. Chris Matthews enthused that Maher was the “funniest, smartest guy in the room” and Maher talked about how all smart people watch Hardball every day. Yay for friends! Anyway, amidst the meeting of the mutual admiration society, there was also talk of Maher’s million dollar donation to President Obama’s Super PAC and why he thinks it’s necessary.

On his show today, Chris Matthews looked at the strong rhetoric being used by the Republican presidential candidates against President Obama and asked if their strong hatred of the incumbent would have any effect on their party’s chances in the fall. Dan Rather predicted that the trend wouldn’t last long, and in order to have a good chance of winning the general election, the Republicans are going to have to tone down the rhetoric and move to the center in the general election.

and Mother Jones’s David Corn got into a heated “donnybrook” — in Chris Matthew’s words– over Republican hopeful Rick Santorum‘s remarks that “Satan has his sights on the United States of America.”

Wednesday morning, the crew at Fox & Friends presented the latest clip of President Obama crooning, this time singing “Sweet Home Chicago” at a White House blues concert featuring B.B. King and Mick Jagger, among others. They then showed a clip from later in the concert, of King singing “The Thrill Is Gone.”

“It’s panic time among Republican leaders.” That’s how Chris Matthews opened a segment of his show today, looking at the topsy-turvy Alice-in-Wonderland world that has arisen from the Republican party’s contest to choose a presidential nominee. Whether it’s Mitt Romney‘s staggering inability to connect with voters or Rick Santorum‘s staggering ability to make the establishment uncomfortable, there’s pretty much no rhyme or reason to this thing anymore.

On MSNBC Friday, Chris Matthews responded to the news that Pat Buchanan was leaving MSNBC by giving the conservative icon a warm sendoff. “He’s leaving the network and won’t be working with us from now on,” Matthews wistfully lamented. “I miss him already. We’ve had dragdown fights right here on this set and I’ve said things that drive him up a wall and he’s said things that have driven me up a wall. We’ve done it here in a pretty good spirit most of the time and have managed to be friendly and friends throughout it all. And, obviously, I’m going to miss his cheerful fun-loving irascible presence around here.”

Hardball‘s Chris Matthews took Rick Santorum to task for supporter Foster Freiss‘ controversial comments on Thursday that “They used Bayer aspirin for contraceptions. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.” “If any woman votes for Rick Santorum after that comment today by his number one spokesman, I will be surprised,” Matthews if he doesn’t fix this within a few hours, you can kiss off all the women voters in this country, and a lot of men.”