Chris Matthews and women

In the aftermath of Chris Matthews’s absurd interview of Elizabeth Warren, Laura Bassett, journalist, writes about her encounter with Matthews: “Like Warren, I Had My Own Sexist Run-In with Chris Matthews” (GQ ).

What I didn’t know: Matthews has a well-documented history of speaking to and about women in demeaning, sexist ways. Says Bassett, “The number of on-air incidents is long, exhausting, and creepy.” The link in that quotation is Bassett’s, and it goes to a 2018 Twitter thread with many examples. There’s also an off-the-air remark caught on tape: “Where’s that Bill Cosby pill I brought with me?”

Why is this guy still working at MSNBC?

Says Elaine, “We need Murphy Brown to whip the shit out of these people.”

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2:16 p.m.: Matthews was missing from yesterday’s MSNBC coverage of the South Carolina primary. Hmm.

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March 2: As readers just let me know in the comments, tonight was Chris Matthews’s last appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball. His farewell makes clear that his remarks to and about women play a role (the leading role, no doubt) in his departure.

Matthews and Warren

Chris Matthews asks Elizabeth Warren why she believes a female employee who sued Mike Bloomberg for telling her "kill it" when she was pregnant over Bloomberg.

"You believe he's lying? ...Why would he lie? Just to protect himself? ...You’re confident of your accusation?" pic.twitter.com/hVkkQhhXtz

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) February 26, 2020

Elaine and I watched this exchange last night in disbelief, as Elizabeth Warren explained the ridiculously obvious to the dullest knife in the MSNBC drawer. Chris Matthews needs to take his eructations, figurative and literal, into a comfortable retirement.

I have never been a Matthews fan. And I still recall with pleasure this interview with Jon Stewart.

Scabs and banjos

Chris Matthews, speaking of Donald Trump on Meet the Press today: “He knows he can find the issues that rip the scab off this cultural divide, and he plays it like a banjo.”

Matthews has turned to rip the scab off before. He’s invoked the banjo before as well. But to compare scab-ripping facility to banjo chops — four-string? five-string? clawhammer? Scruggs-style? — that’s something new. I’d liken that move to straining after rhetorical greatness and pulling a groin muscle. Or something.

As you may have guessed, I’m not a Chris Matthews fan. I still recall with pleasure his 2007 appearance on The Daily Show: “This is a book interview from hell!”

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[I’ve added a comma to the Meet the Press transcript. Why not?]

Chris Matthews on sex

Chris Matthews, in an MSNBC Hardball discussion of the Anthony Weiner scandal, June 17, 2011:

“Sex is generally between two people in private, you know, in some room somewhere.”

Chris Matthews, in an MSNBC Hardball discussion of the Anthony Weiner scandal, July 25, 2013:

“This isn’t meeting in some hotel somewhere with somebody you’ve known a while or anything like that.”

The first rule of sex: Get a room!

You can watch yesterday’s discussion here, or somewhere.

[It’s fun watching Chris Matthews attempt to talk about sex, and there should be more opportunities in the days ahead.]

Chris Matthews disappoints

Every time I think I should be more generous toward Chris Matthews, he disappoints me anew. The other day, after showing a clip of Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo in The Artist (2011, dir. Michel Hazanavicius), Matthews remarked, “I don’t know where they found those guys.” Interviewee James Cromwell, who appears in the film, was too tactful to respond. But it couldn’t have been too difficult for Hazanavicius to find those guys. Dujardin and Bejo both have long careers in film. Both have worked with Hazanavicius before. And Bejo and Hazanavicius are married.

Is it all right not to know these things? Sure. But when you’re on television, you should try to know what you’re talking about, or at least know what not to talk about.

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Chris Matthews explains it all for you

During an MSNBC Hardball discussion of the Anthony Weiner scandal:

“Sex is generally between two people in private, you know, in some room somewhere.”