Chris Matthews is a Nitwit

My wife came home from work yesterday, took one look at me and said, “Omigod, you’ve been watching Chris Matthews again.” She promptly went in the kitchen, got a bucket of water, came back and threw it on me. The cat was already hiding in the closet; had been there since about five minutes after Hardball began. Yeah, I know, but if I didn’t watch him you might have to.

Sarah Palin has given her endorsement to some fourteen candidates prior to last Tuesday’s primaries, and ten of them lost, which is a less than stellar performance. Then she advocates for one guy in Alaska and he wins, and Matthews goes completely ballistic about how she has the most stunning star power in the Republican party and how “her path to the presidential nomination is now completely clear.” Other guests try repeatedly to tone him down, one of them even saying that she sees Palin’s “primary function as updating her Facebook page,” and Matthews is having none of it.

He and Pat Buchanan have Palin winning the Republican nomination three two years from now in a cakewalk and, adding insult to injury, he does not even contest Buchanan’s claim that she will win the nomination because “she is running as a Christian woman.”

Unlike Obama, who will apparently be running as a Muslim.

Throughout the show Matthews is angrily arguing against those who claim that President Obama is or might be a Muslim, insisting the Obama certainly is a Christian and that it is ridiculous the think that he might not be a Christian, that he has demonstrated his Christianity, and that he himself does not doubt that Obama is a Christian.

Not once does it ever cross his mind that there is nothing in this nation’s supposed nature that requires that Obama be a Christian. The proper answer to whether or not I believe Obama is a Christian is not, “yes,” “no” or “I don’t know.” The only answer that the constitution permits is “It’s wrong for you to ask the question.”

That never occurs to Chris Matthews. He staunchly defends Obama as being a Christian instead of pointing out that the question should not be asked and, if it is asked, the answer should not matter.

Olbermann, on the other hand can occasionally come up with a real treasure of cogent liberal argument. His piece last night regarding Alan Simpson focuses a little too much on the schoolboy fascination of one word in Simpson’s diatribe, but the argument regarding the Social Security program is accurate and powerful. He repeatedly makes the point that Social Security is “on track to remain solvent for decades,” that the cash flow for it is not in the federal budget, does not add to the deficit and does not increase the national debt.

He even points out that the subject of Social Security should be removed entirely from the discussion of reducing the federal deficit.

This is the first time I have seen these points made in any major media and I simply cannot applaud loud enough for him making them at all, let alone for him making them as clearly and specifically as he did. This is an excellent piece, with quite a lot to say, and is well worth watching.