What is it with,Hardball &Tweety and DU?

[undergroundpanther]

Every so often I see a post on DU blasting Tweety.
Usually it is an expression of frustration from the "fundamentalist" side of the liberal party yelling how Matthews failed a "liberal litmus test" of some sort on Hardball.

I want to know what the beef with him really is all about on DU because I have friends who think he's not on the right and believe he is an independent.
I myself don't know what I think about him yet.He did stand against the Iraq war from the beginning when no other pundit dared to.That's pretty damn independent.

So I myself need to know exactly what he is saying or doing that is so right. I want to know why DU thinkers think why some people do not think Tweety is on the right.I myself don't care for him, he is an abrasive personality so I don't him watch alot. I am ignorant. I think Matthews does not ask deep enough questions and he does not go in depth with people he interviews because his show format is of the quippy sound byte shit that is basically making TV news suck.

But also I don't have the venom some people have twords him here.Give me a reason to be venomous ,wary of him and prove to me he is indeed a right wing shill so I can tell these people I know he is on the right armed with real knowledge about him,instead of frustrated rants that he is indeed working for the right..
Convince me so I can convince others.
Thanks.

[flamin lib]

1. I used to think he was pretty middle of the road, but

lately I've picked up on subtle jabs at all things Democrat. I don't know if it't easy to just play off other MSM comments or if there's more to it than that.

[MisterP]

2. fundamentalist? litmus test?

[thebigidea]

3. because he bends with the wind, has weird mood swings, and

in general, can't be trusted to have the same opinion two days running. He worships power in the most pathetic way.

If you want to know WHY DUers mock Tweety, just watch him for a week straight and I bet you'll get it by the end of the week. You'll get a headache too, but there we are.

and who cares about convincing others? Hardly anybody watches his show - nobody really cares about Chris Matthews but Chris Matthews.

[Eric J in MN]

18. Have you considered making a video for "Current TV?"

They want stuff which is 1-5 minutes.

There is a submission guide here:
http://www.current.tv/studio/create

Examples of what they're playing on TV is here:
http://www.current.tv/video/

[LaurenG]

4. He voted for Gore in 2000 but then in 04 went for Bush

His family is republican. He jumps from side to side.

[Jane Austin]

5. I thought it was the other way around.

That he voted for Bush in 2000 and isn't saying about 2004.

[LaurenG]

11. He said he voted for Bush once

It was 2000. I saw that too.

[Eric J in MN]

6. He voted for Bush in 2000. He said so on his show. I was watching. (nt)

nt

[LaurenG]

9. My error, Bush in 2000 Kerry in 04 nt

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

7. Every so often? Try DAILY...

Read the following, courtesy of Media Matters and the transcript from Hardball's October 24th show.

It's the source of my venom. I have no intention of justifying it or explaining my attitude toward Matthews...take it at face value, and accept it for exactly what it is...my reaction to Matthews' opinion of Bush. I'm not looking for agreement or opposition, I'm just honestly answering your question. The man is a fool.

:patriot:

Matthews: Bush sometimes "glimmers" with "sunny nobility"

MSNBC host Chris Matthews stated that President Bush sometimes "glimmers" with a "kind of sunny nobility." Matthews, frequently characterized by conservatives as a "liberal," made the comment during a discussion with Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley of the effects on the Bush administration of the investigation into the leak of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

From the October 24 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

BLANKLEY: Well, there are bad and there are worse. First of all, I think that perjury proven beyond a reasonable doubt is a serious felony. I thought that seven years ago about Clinton. And I will think it this week, if that charge comes down and if the evidence supports it against Republican officials. But I think that the real question the White House and the president, personally, has to decide, presumably in the next several days, is how they're going to respond to whatever does come out, presuming it's not going to be a total clearance. And in that regard, I think the president would be ill-advised to try to minimize anything. I think he needs to make a clean break and set his administration looking forward and not get defensive. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. The evidence is either going to be there or not. And if he continues to try to defend what is something which will be, you know, indefensible, if in fact there are indictments -- is going to be a mistake, and it will drag him down. What he needs to do is put together some new staff, admit whatever mistakes have to be admitted, and start moving forward. He's got three years left in his administration, and it's important for him and for the country that he be functional.

MATTHEWS: You know, Tony, there is in the past, it's not always there, but sometimes it glimmers with this man, our president, that kind of sunny nobility. How does he bring it back, because it hasn't been apparent for a while now?

BLANKLEY: Well, he's had a very, very hard last three months, and he's had a pretty difficult administration because of all the -- well, the way it is. But I think that if he is straightforward with himself first, and then with the public, he can get back to an agenda and start moving forward. But if he gets locked in to defending the indefensible, then it's just going to get -- go from bad to very worse.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200510250003

[Eric J in MN]

8. After the "Mission Accomplished" stunt, Matthews kept

talking about how great Bush looked in a flight suit, and suggested the Democrats not criticize the stunt on those grounds.

More recently, Matthews said that Bush sometimes "glimmers" with a "kind of sunny nobility."

Details on the latter comment at:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200510250003

[JohnnyRingo]

10. I like Matthews' show most of the time, but I believe he lacks consistancy

He plays hardball alright when there's a weak hitter at the plate, but I've seen him intentionally walk more than a couple players from the red team.

I have some respect for his service in the Peace Corps too, he has seen the woes of the world firsthand.

[KG]

12. he's a spineless, sniveling repub party boot-licker.

[Doctor_J]

29. Thsi pretty much sums it up

and his man-crush on Smirk.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

34. Those flight suit photos CHANGED HIS LIFE. He fell HOPELESSLY in love.

http://www.msnbc.com/modules/chrismatthews/050303.asp?0cb=-s1W109515



MATTHEWS: Let's go to this sub--what happened to this week, which was to me was astounding as a student of politics, like all of us. Lights, camera, action. This week the president landed the best photo op in a very long time. Other great visuals: Ronald Reagan at the D-Day cemetery in Normandy, Bill Clinton on horseback in Wyoming. Nothing compared to this, I've got to say.

Katty, for visual, the president of the United States arriving in an F-18, looking like he flew it in himself. The GIs, the women on--onboard that ship loved this guy.

Ms. KAY: He looked great. Look, I'm not a Bush man. I mean, he doesn't do it for me personally, especially not when he's in a suit, but he arrived there...

MATTHEWS: No one would call you a Bush man, by the way.

Ms. KAY: ...he arrived there in his flight suit, in a jumpsuit. He should wear that all the time. Why doesn't he do all his campaign speeches in that jumpsuit? He just looks so great.

MATTHEWS: I want him to wa--I want to see him debate somebody like John Kerry or Lieberman or somebody wearing that jumpsuit.

Mr. DOBBS: Well, it was just--I can't think of any, any stunt by the White House--and I'll call it a stunt--that has come close. I mean, this is not only a home run; the ball is still flying out beyond the park.

MATTHEWS: Well, you know what, it was like throwing that strike in Yankee Stadium a while back after 9/11. It's not a stunt if it works and it's real. And I felt the faces of those guys--I thought most of our guys were looking up like they were looking at Bob Hope and John Wayne combined on that ship.

Mr. GIGOT: The reason it works is because of--the reason it works is because Bush looks authentic and he felt that he--you could feel the connection with the troops. He looked like he was sincere. People trust him. That's what he has going for him.

MATTHEWS: Fareed, you're watching that from--say you were over in the Middle East watching the president of the United States on this humongous aircraft carrier. It looks like it could take down Syria just one boat, right, and the president of the United States is pointing a finger and saying, `You people with the weapons of mass destruction, you people backing terrorism, look out. We're coming.' Do you think that picture mattered over there?

Mr. ZAKARIA: Oh yeah. Look, this is a part of the war where we have not--we've allowed a lot of states to do some very nasty stuff, traffic with nasty people and nasty material, and I think it's time to tell them, you know what, `You're going to be help accountable for this.'

MATTHEWS: Well, it was a powerful statement and picture as well.

Thank you very much. Terrific round table. Lou Dobbs, thanks for coming; Katty Kay, again. Fareed Zakaria, good luck with your book. Paul Gigot, editorial page editor for the Wall Street Journal.

I'll be right back to ask the big question: What should the Democrats do to have a chance against this very popular president? Be right back.

MATTHEWS: It's great getting your e-mails; keep them coming.

[Eric J in MN]

13. Matthews was also sympathetic to the Bush plan for cutting Social Security

Matthews also sided with the notion that every judicial nominee should get an up-or-down vote.


http://www.speakspeak.org/speak-blog/2005/06/01/chris-matthews-rorschach-test/

[Time for change]

14. I think he's just a media whore

As far as I can tell he doesn't have any opinions -- he just loves to hear himself talk.

Ok, why do I think that:
I used to watch Hardball quite a lot in the months leading up to the 2000 election. It eventually dawned on me that if someone had wanted Gore to lose the election they couldn't have picked a better person to make it happen than Chriss Matthews. If there was someone like Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilley on Hardball, then maybe they wouldn't have been taken seriously. Matthews (like Tim Russert) cultivates the impression of neutrality, while all the while sticking the knife in Gore's back every chance he got. I don't doubt that he actually originated several myths about Gore -- if not, he certainly magnified them every chance he got. How many times did he say that Gore would do anything to be President, or note that most people would much rather have a beer with Bush than Gore, or how boring it would be to have Gore in our living rooms for the next 4 years if he was elected. He even tried to sell the line that Bush won the debates because Gore sighed too much or was too animated, or whatever he would think of that he might be able to get people to believe.

[proud patriot]

15. Tweety is a "fair weather" friend

;-)

[AtomicKitten]

16. He has expressed disgust for Democrats.

I read at some event he said there were no Dems of substance worthy of note. He is wicked hard on Dems, especially on Bill Clinton who he despises. At the time time, he fawns over Bush, talking about how presidential he looks. He totally gives Bush slack and will entertain no whistle-blowers. Someone mentioned Powell's aid that recent came out and talked about the White House cabal, and he got visibly po'd and said, "I don't want to hear that. He should have said something when it mattered." Well, yes, I agree, but that doesn't mean the information should be dismissed.

He's a Republican butt-kisser, treats their corruption flippantly instead of seriously which it should be.

[Eric J in MN]

19. I agree wth Matthews that Colin Powell and his aides had a chance

to speak out against the bogus intelligence before the war, and chose not to.

[AtomicKitten]

21. Yes, but it doesn't mean that info is moot now.

It must be used as part of a case for impeachment. BushCo is so deserving to go down on so many issues. Yes, it pisses me off that people in the know remained silent, but that speaks to the efficacy of the Bush Wrecking Machine and their brilliant move to put the Iraq Resolution vote right before an election.

Still, I suspect Tweety simply doesn't not want to entertain the notion that this war was a felonious endeavor. His prejudice for Dubya is palpable. He is really tough on critics of his regime.

[Skarbrowe]

If someone ever kept a video tally of how he treats Democrats/Republicans.

it would become obvious that he leans much more to the people who are right of center. I don't think anyone would want to waste their time doing that, but at one time, I was tempted.

I had a love/hate relationship with Tweety because I like fast talking shows and I happen to simply like something about Chris himself. Maybe it was his laugh..HA!, or his smile. It had nothing to do with his politics.

The other night I was soaking in the tub so I put the TV on Hardball. From the other room, just listening, it was so obvious he was cutting off Amy Goodman (maybe he doesn't like her as a person) and being very rude to her. And she was making so much sense and not just rattling on. Then he let the Republican counter-part, sorry, I don't remember who it was, talk on and on, with very little interruption and then later in the show he heeped praise upon praise on Lindsey Graham, a Republican Senator, just because the guy rattled off a bunch of right wing talking points. He thinks the right wing talking points are a PLAN, but if the Democrats sit there and try and tell him what THEY want to do, he cuts them off and then says the Democrats don't have a plan.

Yeah, Tweety has finally lost me. He will go after the big story even if it's against Republicans, simply because just like every other reporter, TV journalist, whatever he is, he loves some juicy news. But, he will then slip in the NO PLAN Democrats and all hail Republican brilliance whenever he can. Maybe he thinks that's being balanced. I don't know. I can take a bit of pandering to both sides if he needs to keep sources, but, to me, there is something not quite fair and balanced on the Tweety show.

EDITED to say..WOW! Fifteen people posted while I was writing this.

[Eric J in MN]

20. Frank Gaffney was on with Amy Goodman recently (nt)

nt

[JohnnyCougar]

17. I don't mind Matthews

In a choice between him, Fox News and Blitzer on CNN, I would definitely choose Matthews. No one has been giving better coverage to the CIA leak scandal. I think that overall, Matthews is reasonable.

[papau]

22. Shown that a GOP lie is a lie, Tweety pushes GOP lie until after election

at which point Tweety seems to forget prior Tweety comments and starts to note that whatever GOP talking point was a lie, may not be totally true - he is a true teller when it does not hurt the GOP in an election.

The two years of Wilson - calling him a liar as per the GOP script - was followed by post election nightly comments that perhaps both Wilson and the "VP 's Office" were telling the truth and it was in the phrasing (Cheney never personally requested Wilson go to Niger, but the CIA in sending Wilson was responding to a request from the "VP's Office" - but for two years after person upon person told Tweety of the truth and pointed out the slick wording used by Cheney, as Tweety continued to blasted Wilson - and Dems - as liars for contradicting Cheney - and as he praised Bush/Cheney as truth tellers - that is of course until after the election).

He is a very pleasant fellow to be with, and was given his first breaks by Dems (Tip and Carter), but ended up as pond scum as to truth or fairness - and will now always bias his airtime toward whatever the GOP needs for the next election.

[peacetalksforall]

23. You must test this for yourself. Take a clipboard and watch him for

several weeks.

He is past his prime of pimping for the right wing, because the PNAC WORLD is going over a cliff right now and may not find a ledge to land on. So you won't understand what many DUers have experienced for way over 12 years. He was anti-Clinton and willingly participated in the character assassinaton night after night and in his columns. He pimped overtly for George and Dick in the 90's. He gloried in the PNAC WORLD until recently when he found some conscience from his Catholic upbringing or from somewhere - when little tidbits of old fashioned Americanism come out, then some DUers exclaim about it and hopes that he is changing for good, but he never does. (He can't, because of GE.)

Watch how he pounds away at Dems with few exceptions. He may not be letting the right get away with as much as he did, but they blatantly book propagandists and he lets them propagandize (by design of bosses like the former Jack Welch boss and the GE corporate policy about pimping for the WH and PNAC and of course, by the investment of GE stockholders who keep the new NBCs going. The old NBC died a long time ago. Now, there is little real news and a lot of phoniness and vile which is un-American because it is not a free press. Additionally, the networks have contributed greatly to stolen elections - paying for, thus owning the exit polling data and being able to call it anyway which way they want and excluding nearly everyone who is an Independent, Nader excepted, from interviews pre-elections.)

[peacetalksforall]

24. P.S. We delightedly joined all the othes of his profession in ridiculing

Gore for everything that was on their hit list to deman Gore from brown shirts to stiffness to the lies about lying. He was a right wing trouper against Gore. Tipper, also.

[peacetalksforall]

33. Edited to say HE (Matthews) delightedly joined... (not We).

[0007]

25. MSNBC gets rid of Phil Donahue that had large audiences and

keep Chris Matthews that can't draw but sick flies. Go figure. Keith Olbermann is the only one worth watching.

[Catherine Vincent]

26. I don't like the ass because he bad mouth President Clinton all the time.

I don't care if he claims to be a liberal.

[Cocoa]

27. there are too many reasons to list to be venomous about

MediaMatters.org has a pretty comprehensive collection of his whoring.

http://mediamatters.org/archives/search.html?string=hardball

[Doctor_J]

30. Wow, he's pretty populr there

I don't watch any Cabal "News", for the reasons cited at mm.

[UTUSN]

28. Where to Start

It's not a matter of a "liberal litmus test" and my detestation of him does not derive from a " 'fundamentalist' side of the liberal party". But that last phrase reminds me of one of the few true things Tweety has said, that "There are ayatollahs on both ends of the spectrum."

I don't know what label to put on myself. Many here would spit at me with the "M" word (moderate). My wingnut sparring partners consider me what O'LOOFAH calls "Far Left". I'm a plain old Dem, willing to accept the different sub-groups, each with its own #1 agenda item. This digression is to convey why I despise Tweety.

As others have mentioned, he voted for Shrub in 2000 and he stuck it to GORE every SINGLE DAY throughout Campaign 2000. Then he had the gall to cry at GORE's concession speech, calling it the noblest thing he had ever heard.

He is basically a small time flunky who has entered the lower regions of the Big Time, making millions he never dreamed he would. As for his service in the Peace Corps and his being against the Iraq Attack: I don't doubt that he hero-worshipped JFK because of the Irish-Catholic background and that there was a kernel of idealism that led him to do that. But he himself has also said that he joined the Peace Corps to get out of going to Vietnam. That is not in itself a bad motivation. Others went to Canada or jail or the National Guard. As for his being against the Iraq Attack, he skewed more to the "Liberal" side in his columns while skewing wingnut on cable--because Libs READ and wingnuts can afford and give cable ratings? Thank Zeus that nobody in this thread came up with the canard that he was against it because he has draft age sons. I still challenge anybody who says that to produce a link to where that came from.

His transformation to the wingnut side was really a return to his Repuke family roots. He's a shameless glory hound, claiming he "walked the same ground" as CHURCHILL in Africa in the Peace Corps, and declaring himself an "icon" for being caricatured on SNL. And when the Capitol policemen were shot and afterwards eulogized as "heroes," he suddenly remembered he had once worked as a Capitol policeman---------basically a 3 months' rent-a-cop job.

He worships success like a flunky. RAYGUN kicked Tweety's bosses' rears (CARTER and O'NEILL) and therefore Tweety worships RAYGUN.

[grasswire]

31. He said it himself, to Darrel Hannah

It was at the WH correspondents dinner a few years ago, on C-Span. The camera zoomed in on Tweety having a conversation with Hannah. Tweety laughingly told him that he deliberately plays both sides of the street to his viewers. He'll pander to one side and then pander to the other. He thinks it holds viewership.

[undergroundpanther]

32. Litmus tests

I said

"Every so often I see a post on DU blasting Tweety.
Usually it is an expression of frustration from the "fundamentalist" side of the liberal party yelling how Matthews failed a "liberal litmus test" of some sort on Hardball."

Because that is what my more moderate friends accuse,when I reflect the opinion that I think Matthews is rightward skewed . They just do NOT want to think he is a shill on the right.And maybe the reason Matthews can project that "independent" stance so convincingly is he really thinks he is being independant..when he does a few things contrary to right wing talking points but still worships Reagan and follows their party power?

How to I counter the opinion of moderates that people who have a problem with an "independent thinker"Matthews are just a bunch of liberal ayatollahs?

Any thoughts?

[papau]

35. Point out the Wilson and Tweety time line - Tweety calling Wilson a liar

for two years until after the election, despite being told on air that it was just Cheney wording and that he should listen to the words used by the VP.

[KoKo]

36. LOL's....Because he's a Media Whore, and "Twists in the Wind" according

to which way he "reports" (:rofl:) on his show about how Bushie "Crime Family" is doing.

In other words: Tweety puts his finger in the wind to see which way the Political Flag "blows in the wind" and rakes in the $$$$$$$$'s accordingly. :-( To be "blunt" about it...since you asked.