video Yesterday saw the unveiling of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hinting at a new strategy to get the health care reform bill railroaded in Congress: A "Deem and Pass" rule that would allow lawmakers to vote on a more popular package of the Senate bill, and if that's approved in the House, it signifies that the health care bill to be passed. But MSNBC's Chris Matthews takes issue with this plan: If the Democrats avoid a direct up or down vote on the bill, they would expose themselves to criticism of "pulling a fast one," by allowing members of Congress to claim they didn't support the reform bill in its entirety, and thereby avoid having to answer for their votes. (more...)

video As the heath care debate begins to wrap up, its not just the politician's rhetoric that has reached a fever pitch; the cable news channels are starting to throw barbs at one another. Last night MSNBC host Chris Matthews was discussing health care reform with NBC political analyst Chuck Todd and took a broad swipe at the health care coverage by Fox News, asking "has there ever been a bill before in congress where an entire network on television has blasted it every day for more than a year?" (more...)

Dan Rather is responding today to the questionably-worded anecdote ("he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic") - and he's doing so in a decidedly un-140-character way. In a lengthy blog post on The Huffington Post, Rather explains why it's, at least in part, our collective fault. (more...)

MSNBC host Chris Matthews is going on the road - traveling to Jerusalem to interview Vice President Joe Biden during his trip to the region. It's an interesting decision for the Hardball host, moving away from the Washington D.C. confines and getting a chance to conduct a truly news-making, exclusive interview. (more...)

video After the confusion last night about whether or not Congressman Charlie Rangel - head of the House Ways and Means Committee - was stepping down over several charges of unethical money routing and accepting comped corporate trips, the NY Democrat announced this morning that he would be taking a temporary leave of absence. MSNBC's Chris Matthews can't believe it. (more...)

video While Michael Steele is busy comparing the recent health care summit to a "death panel" for Obamacare due to too much in-fighting, over on the left we have Chris Matthews calling out Republicans for...all being on the same page about killing the health care bill? Apparently that makes them "the closest thing to Pyongyang democracy" that Chris has ever seen. (more...)

Last week Rachel Maddow visited the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and came away with a rather shocking revelation: conservatives hold Maddow in the highest esteem. In today's age of bitter partisan media, it's a pretty stunning development that a liberal icon such as Maddow, can be so well received "behind enemy lines." To be fully appreciated, one need only imagine the reception that fellow MSNBC cohort Keith Olbermann would have received in the same venue. Perhaps its time to officially recognize the fact that Rachel Maddow is now officially more respected and influential than Olbermann. And she's just getting started. (more...)

MSNBC host Chris Matthews appeared on last night's episode of Jeopardy, and despite a valiant comeback, he fell short, losing to Charles Shaughnessy of Mad Men. Add Matthews to the list of cable news anchors who can't pull out a victory on the long-running quiz show. (more...)

After releasing a pretty inclusive list of the Top 25 Right-Wing Journalists in America, Daily Beast columnist Tunku Varadarajan took on the other half of the aisle, putting together a list of the most powerful and influential American liberals. In many ways, The Top 25 Left-Wing Journalists list is much more eclectic than it's conservative counterpart, and includes a much larger number of personalities that toe the line between entertainers/commentators and journalists-- many, in fact, that are solidly in the entertainment or commentary camp. (more...)

video Earlier this week, RNC chairman Michael Steele met with various leaders of the Tea Party movement. Last night, Hardball host Chris Matthews had on one such leader, former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack, for a spirited/heated discussion on corruption, congress and adhering to the constitution. The highlight of the back and forth, however, may have been when Matthews asked Mack to comment on Sarah Palin's mention of Texas secession from the United States. Perhaps not surprisingly, Sheriff Mack defended a state's right to secede. (more...)

video Lately Congress has started to feel a bit like a game of Ten Little Indians: who's next. Yesterday's announcement from Indiana senator Evan Bayh (D) that he would be retiring, amazingly caught just about everyone off guard (and we mean everyone). Bayh, who at 54 is relatively young, is widely considered the only Democrat able to win Indiana (though this time around was expected to be tougher than in years past) and despite not quite making the VP cut in either 2004 or 2008 had a fairly rosy political future by any measure. So what gives? (more...)

video It seems as though cable news producers have a laminated rundown of topics to discuss on each night's show: Sarah Palin? Check! Tea Party? Check! Texas Secession? Whaaa? Kudos to the brains behind Hardball , for coming up with relatively new and unique take on the Tea Party movement. Host Chris Matthews -- and his Texas-residing guests -- discussed how Texas Governor Rick Perry (and Tea Partiers ) have been casually throwing around ideas of secession. A dangerous game, or delightful fodder for cable news? Why not both!? (more...)

video Andrew Young is on a full media push to promote his new John Edwards tell-all book, The Politician. Depending on where he ended up on the dial, he got to reveal some reveal some salacious and unique details of his relationship with the one-time Presidential candidate. Here's a look at three Young cable news interviews yesterday. (more...)

video The echoes of President Obama's State of the Union speech had barely receded when MSNBC's Chris Matthews blurted out what will probably be the quote of the night. "I forgot he was black tonight for an hour...I said wait a minute, he's an African American guy in front of a bunch of other white people..." (more...)

video Everyone ready for the State of the Union? Chris Matthews is. Today on Hardball, when discussing bipartisanship and health care, he used some curious language about what Republicans want. Please watch - "horny" is involved." (more...)

video Shepard Smith was one of the lucky media members to attend the annual off-the-record lunch with Pres. Barack Obama today ahead of his State of the Union tonight. He reported on the tone of the meeting, the menu and the guy sitting next to him (MSNBC's Chris Matthews) during The Live Desk today. (more...)

video Everything old is new again! Last night certainly felt like a blast from 2008 as all the cablers went wall to wall with coverage of Massachusetts special election. And really it would be hard to argue that there is anyone who enjoys the election circus more than Chris Matthews who had a hard time concealing his glee a the excitement last night's results generated. Matthews' sort of freefrom analysis often times feels like its own sort of political art form. Last night he was in top form (video below). Whilst waiting for Martha Coakley's concession speech last night Matthews, reached farther back than 2008 and summed up the election results thusly (hint: it's the economy stupid...but his version is far more entertaining): (more...)

video A big story for the coming year is not just the mid-term election, but how the growing Tea Party movement will affect the elections. MSNBC host Chris Matthews did his best to explore this issue, but revealed more about both his ignorance on the matter and his bias towards the group (derisively referring to them as "teabaggers.") Of course, he was likely speaking in hyperbole - but that doesn't make it less insensitive to those who are a part of the Tea Party movement. (more...)

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On Hardball this evening, Chris Matthews had a good old time with RNC Chairman Michael Steele, asking Steele why his book, "Right Now," contains mentions of Pacino and Prejean, but not "the big P from Alaska." He goes on to accuse Steele of having a Voldemort complex, saying he's afraid to speak Sarah Palin's name. Did Steele overcome his fear of she-who-must-not-be-named?

Almost as entertaining as Matthews' schoolyard challenge was Steele's willingness to prove that he could physically form the word "Palin." As you'll see, though, he never comes close to explaining how he wrote a game plan for the Republican Party that didn't contain a single mention of its most famous, arguably most powerful, leader.

What really takes this clip to 11, though, is Matthews' gloating about having "nailed" Steele by getting him to agree to an inconsistent position on the trials of terrorism suspects. Granted, he starts his endzone dance before giving Steele a chance to actually answer the question, but it's fun to watch anyway.

video Politico, which believe it or not has only been in existence for three years now, has made its fair share of critics in D.C. many of whom feel the site is the progenitor of the type of journalism now plaguing the administration, which tends to take the minutae and blow it up into a trend piece. What Politico hasn't been accused of thus far is being a mouthpiece for the angry, retributive, gun-slinging former Vice Presidents. Until last night, that is. (more...)

video So! 2009 is almost over. The health care bill has passed. President Obama has announced his plan for Afghanistan. The midterms are still eleven months away. What will we talk about? If some of the coverage these last few days (from normally stalwart Obama supporters) is any hint, it's likely the focus between now and the president's State of the Union address is going to on Obama's sinking popularity and everything he has done wrong in the last...eleven months. (more...)

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On last night's Hardball, Chris Matthews wanted to know: why did Parker Griffith switch from the Democratic to the Republican Party? "Are there rats leaving the ship? Is the ship sinking?" he asked. Matthews dropped the hint that he had heard that more Democrats would be switching parties soon. Then, as if to make sense of both of his statements, he supplied an answer: the GOP was becoming the "party of the Confederacy." (more...)

MSNBC's Hardball is slowing down - as 2009 is coming to a close, the program is seeing some of its worst ratings of the year. Chris Matthews has been a mainstay of the MSNBC line-up for years, but December is shaping up to be one his worst months compared to the rest of the cable news landscape. (more...)

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Well, this is a surprise! In the yearend rush of 2009-themed lists, Media Matters has given Glenn Beck the dubious distinction of "Misinformer of the Year."

In a 4000+ word post (!), the liberal media watchdog group criticized Beck for, among other things, "embrac violent, anti-government rhetoric," comparing President Barack Obama to a communist, and "rejoic after America loses bid to host 2016 Olympics."

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video The MSNBC crossfire continues. On Thursday night, Chris Matthews dismissed the Democratic netroots as "troublemakers who love to sit in the back seat and complain:" you may recall that his colleague Keith Olbermann sometimes blogs at Daily Kos and recently used the platform to dismiss the health care bill currently under consideration. Yesterday, MSNBC's Ed Schultz rolled a clip of Matthews' remarks for Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, who promptly fired back. (more...)

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On yesterday's Hardball, Chris Matthews got testy over the suggestion that President Barack Obama is having trouble with the left. When New York Magazine political correspondent John Heilemann suggested that the Democratic base was wavering about Obama over concerns that he had "sold out to conservatives" and was "too mushy and too centrist," Matthews swatted back, saying that the netroots "get their giggles out of sitting in the back seat and bitching:" (more...)

video Last night Chris Matthews apologized for saying that President Barack Obama had traveled to an "enemy camp" at West Point to address the nation on the war in Afghanistan, a remark he made after Obama's speech about US Military plans in the war-torn country. He also noted that he "skepticism, if not resentment" in the faces of those attending the speech. Video and text of his apology after the jump. (more...)

video During last night's analysis of President Obama's speech at West Point, MSNBC host Chris Matthews made a stunning analogy that set the conservative blogosphere atwitter. Matthews claimed that the Commander-in-Chief of the US Military "went to maybe the enemy camp tonight to make his case." Perhaps in response to the immediate reaction online (and an uncharacteristic calling out by Greta Van Susteren), Matthews later clarified his statement. (more...)

video Family Guy took on Chris Matthews last night, in cartoon form. The voice acting for Chris Matthews was provided by ... Chris Matthews. Watch as he has a big forehead, talks over Harry Reid, is opinionated, and, uh, has a big forehead. (more...)

It's no secret that grown-ups love the Harry Potter series almost as much as kids - maybe even more, based on certain grown-up references that the average 12-year-old can't quite yet appreciate. More to the point, by this time a whole bunch of Harry Potter fans who were once kids, back when the book came out, are now all grown up. Either way, that means a whole lot of us at Mediaite are unashamed, unabashed Harry Potter fans. After its worldwide record-breaking weekend (which a few of us contributed to), we got to talking about certain parallels between the magical land of Hogwarts and the equally magical land of headlines, bylines, cutlines, chyrons, blog pickup and declining ad pages. Turns out, the two have a lot in common! Before we knew it, we were shouting out names of media muggles like Hermione answering a pop quiz. After careful (and nerdily meticulous) consideration, we've come up with a few examples for you. (We like to think of the Power Grid as our own little version of the Marauder's Map.) Here below, for your edification and enjoyment, is our own version - let's call it "Harry Potter and the Media Muggles." Mischief managed!

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video MSNBC's Chris Matthews had a pair of guests on last night, one from the right and one from the left, to rate Pres. Obama's first 10 months in office. The discussion was predictable, but Matthews' ad-lib close, when he compared Hardball and "some of the other shows on this network" was not. (more...)

video Last night, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow all took to the airwaves to criticize Republican lawmakers for their reluctance to see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tried before a civilian court in New York. The trial seems poised to become the media spectacle we predicted it would this past weekend -- but why? Do the left-right battle lines along which this seems to be falling even make sense? (more...)

video Back in the spring of 2007, long before the world learned about Rielle Hunter, the candidacy defining revelation regarding Democratic presidential contender John Edwards was that he spent $400 on a haircut. Once revealed this little tidbit of information was quickly picked up in the media, and then blown up, so that in the months going forward Edwards had to battle his dogged pretty-boy image as much, or more. as he was explaining past controversial decisions made in the Senate. The haircut story was first broken by Ben Smith at the then only three-month-old blog Politico (perhaps an small early warning sign of scooping power they would develop down the line). Yesterday Smith revealed the source of haircut tip: wonder-boy Obama campaign adviser David Plouffe. Says Smith: (more...)

video Someone at 30 Rock needs to approach Glenn Beck and ask him to host SNL, pronto. They could use Beck's opener today in lieu of an audition tape. The White House's decision to treat Fox News as an opponent might just be the best gift Beck has ever received; between the red phone on set, the grip whose job it is to sit beside it in case the White House calls, the chalkboard, and Beck's impressions, his opener this evening may have been the best 20 minutes of television you'll see all day. In the 45 second clip below, Beck channels Shakespeare, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and Fred Armisen as President Obama. Oh yes, and Liberals (also, Cat Stevens). If that's not a repertoire worthy of SNL I'm not sure what is. How long before the White House regrets calling out Fox is another matter, in the meantime we're probably in for some good television. (more...)

video "I think we have a problem," said Frank Rich to Rachel Maddow on her show Wednesday night. He was talking about people bringing guns to health care rallies. Yesterday's distraction about whether or not MSNBC deliberately edited footage of a black man with a gun so they could then talk all about dangerous white anger was just that: a distraction. A red herring, stirring up outrage over a questionable side issue when the main point is:  people are bringing guns to events where President Barack Obama is speaking. And man, is that scary. (more...)

video Dancing With the Stars contestant Tom DeLay used his newfound reality show relevance to sidle his way onto Hardball this evening to weigh in on the crazy town halls sweeping the nation. "I think you missed the boat, congressman, the country is turning in your direction," says Chris Matthews. Chuckle, chuckle. Unfortunate how indictments get in the way of a good political career. (more...)

I can't say I started crying during the opening credits of the upcoming HBO documentary By The People: The Election of Barack Obama, because I got to the theater five minutes late. But as I slid into my seat and arranged my concessions — at the Landmark Sunshine theater, where the movie just finished screening for a week, they have 12 kinds of flavored powder you can sprinkle on your popcorn, and it's magical — the smiling faces of Sasha and Malia popped up on the screen and I lost all hope of keeping my composure. (more...)

VIDEO MSNBC, 5:05pmET: This wasn't so much a chyron as a 14-minute long opening segment lower third. Chris Matthews wants to know: is former President Bill Clinton "Master of the Universe?" I mean, he's not saying he is...just throwing it out there. (more...)

VIDEO Health Care reform, which is seemingly the only story coming out of Washington at the moment, just doesn't inspire the sort of controversy that makes up cable's bread and butter. What's an anchor to do? Fortunately one doesn't have to look too far to find the kind of nutjob story that drives ratings. Enter the Birthers. (more...)

Why was there so much comprehensive Cronkite coverage just after his reported death? Because everyone in MSM had their obits in the can. But one outlet outdid everyone else. Here's a screenshot of Hardball with Chris Matthews from the first minute of the 5pmET MSNBC show today: (more...)