MSNBC has been leaning forward head over heels to apologize to Mitt Romney over this Thomas Roberts item:

What was that all about? Roberts was quoting a blog that took a phrase Romney has used and found out that the KKK used something similar in the 1920′s. There hasn’t been a more incriminating link established since somebody noticed that Sarah Palin and Nathan Bedford Forrest are both right handed.

Anyway, today, Roberts apologized:

The Roberts apology was preceded yesterday by Chris Matthews:

Matthews yesterday: “It was irresponsible and incendiary of us to do this, and it showed an appalling lack of judgment. We apologize, we really do, to the Romney campaign.”

Roberts today: “It was irresponsible and incendiary of us to do this and showed an appalling lack of judgment. We apologize to the Romney campaign.”

The latter is dangerously close to adding apology copycatting to the list of things for which he needs to ask forgiveness.

And even Al Sharpton even got in on the apology (“you know it’s bad when…”):

Sharpton also later apologized for accusing Romney of eating all the blueberry pie.

Maybe MSNBC has changed how they operate, because “irresponsible, incendiary and an apalling lack of judgment” didn’t used to be things some of their hosts apologized for — they were job requirements. What gives?
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Update: A reader emails to say that Nathan Bedford Forrest was actually left-handed. That’s based on a book about him. I assumed he was right-handed because of a painting and a photo that showed him carrying a firearm on his right hip. Now that I think about it though, if Forrest was actually left-handed, the slight inaccuracy makes the analogy even more appropriate so I’ll leave well-enough alone.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

On Hardball, Chris Matthews was speaking with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, so you just know something ridiculous was said.

Transcript from Story Balloon:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: How come in the `30s, when we suffered a far worse economic decline, the rich were embarrassed? They were embarrassed by what they had done. People were jumping out of buildings. People were — it was horrendous. There was a real sense of shame, shame by the very rich.

This time around, the response by the really better-off people is, give us more. We blew it, we screwed it up, we destroyed our markets, we killed Wall Street, we have said we`re too big to fail, now give us more.

We’ve gone from “yes we can” to “jump” in just two and a half years. Come on, Chris — if all these rich Wall Streeters jump, there won’t be anybody left who can afford to go to the birthday party of the president who puts a charge in your slacks (by the way, Obama’s birthday party/fundraiser — not necessarily in that order — is scheduled for August 3rd, the day after the world is supposed to end if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, so Team Obama remains optimistic).

Video here.

Also, here’s some patented Matthews brilliance on raising the debt ceiling:

No matter what the protesters say, by the way, this is the right truth and it is the truth: failure to act on the debt ceiling will create a horror for our country, a horror we’ve never seen before.

Suddenly one day we’ll find ourselves like Greece or Ireland or Portugal, one of those countries at the periphery of the strong economies — Germany, China, India. Suddenly we’ll be one of those countries that the strong world looks at with disdain, looks down on really. We’ll become objects of pity, pity not for what was done to us like on 9/11, but for the pathetic sight of what we’ve done to ourselves.

If the US doesn’t go into deeper debt, it will become one of those countries that have turned into economic catastrophes because of their out-of-control debts? That sounds about right.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Bill Clinton’s former Labor Secretary was on Hardball railing against GOP attempts to rein in runwaway government spending. His thinking is that if you’re in a boat that springs a leak, the last thing you should do is plug the hole because you’re going to be hungry soon and it’ll get you closer to the fish faster.

Transcript from RCP:

“You don’t want government to hold back, you want government right now, yes, the deficit’s a long-term problem, but right now you don’t want to cut government spending, yet Eric Cantor and the Republicans are indulging, you hear it over and over and over,” Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich said.

Click the pic below to watch:

The video mercifully ended just before the stack of phone books on which Reich was sitting shifted and he went tumbling down.

With Robert Reich and most other left-wing economic theoreticians, there’s never a good time to cut government spending, and, as usual, this is one of them.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

As you’ll see below in a Hardball interview back when the famous leg thrill was just a glimmer in the inseam of Chris Matthews’ slacks, in 2007, Joe Biden argued that the president had no constitutional authority to launch an attack without congressional approval against a nation that hadn’t attacked or threatened imminent attack on the United States. Biden also insisted that doing so is an impeachable offense.

Sheriff Joe agreed with Dennis Kucinich in those days, but ever since then Biden’s legal opinion has evolved with stickleback-like speed:

(h/t HAP)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

What in the world has been going on that would make Chris Matthews get Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter mixed up?

Last summer Matthews called Obama “President O’Carter.” That would have been more fitting now, so close to St. Patrick’s Day and all.

Update: Maybe Tingles read this just before making his slip.

(h/t Instapundit)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

“Was this sort of a good opportunity for the president to remind everybody that he grew up in the United States and Hawaii?”

Did I really hear that? Sadly, yes. Was it surprising? Not at all.

Matthews’ concern for the political well-being of Obama is made a little more uncomfortably surreal when accompanied by video of the devastation that killed as yet untold numbers of people:

Sources tell me that Matthews, who is on record as wanting President Obama to release a copy of his birth certificate just to put the conspiracy to rest, offered to personally travel to Hawaii and place the document in a watertight Baggie stuffed deep down the front of his trousers for safe keeping until the Hawaiian tsunami warning expired.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

And no, it’s not the one that probably popped into your head first. The thrill up Chris Matthews’ leg has developed a wandering eye:

With a script and a dramatic voice over befitting a trailer for the latest superhero movie out of Hollywood, one of the first promos for Chris Matthews’ documentary on Bill Clinton has begun airing on MSNBC. The ad begins with an announcer teasing viewers, “His presidency was over, his mission just beginning” and then goes on to tell the story of a post-presidential Clinton achieving universal adulation complete with shots of adoring crowds and accolades from the likes of Tony Blair and of course Matthews, who shrieks like a fan boy: “You’re like a one man Peace Corps!”

Even the Academy Award winning actor Kevin Spacey shows up, narrating a scene he was once witness to: “And they were yelling ‘Peacemaker! Peacemaker!’”

Wasn’t President Obama supposed to be “all of the above”? How quickly they lose faith.

MSNBC’s going for the world record for fawning currently co-held by the producers of Bambi and Diane Sawyer’s coverage of Obama’s inauguration.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Now that we’ve settled down and gotten away from any images and metaphorical rhetoric that may or may not shove lunatics over the edge, somebody might want to tip off one of the main authors of that memo that the “new civility” is now underway.

HAP has a screen grab from the opening segment of last night’s Chris Matthews show:

And what exactly is “fire on the right” supposed to imply?

Will MSNBC issue an apology for this viciously unnecessary call to violence? Nah, but CNN just might on their behalf.

Matthews, true to the demand for a new political tone to cool off the “climate of hate,” also referred to Michele Bachmann as a nut case.

Update: According to Michael Hirsh, Matthews might as well have used a racial slur.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Chris Matthews had lost the thrill for a while, but who knew that all it would take for him to haul his Obamagasm Splat-Mat™ out of mothballs would be for the president to compromise with Republicans?

Obama’s regained that “cute, wonderful little boy smile we all love.” There’s nothing like heading into a weekend feeling free to believe in the concept of soul mates again:

**********
To top off the exciting week, Joe Biden surprised Chris with a cake for his 65th birthday. The cake read “Get Well Soon King Abdullah” because Joe forgot to drop it off when he was at New York Presbyterian on a Saudi royalty appeasement mission, but it’s the thought that counts.

(h/t HAP)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

As the great news of the last of the trapped miners in Chile being lifted to the surface spread around the world, Chris Matthews had as a guest the president of the AFL/CIO Richard Trumka. Naturally, the pair had to use the occasion of the year’s greatest tribute to ingenuity, endurance and teamwork to… slam the Tea Party.

Transcript via Newsbusters:

After Trumka initially recounted his joy at watching the miners being rescued, he quickly veered into his standard rhetoric of the need for more regulation. Matthews then picked up on Trumka’s cue to launch into an attack on the Tea Party, as he distorted their limited government view as one of total anarchy that would mean “no more government, no more everything,” as seen in the following exchange:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Okay let’s talk about what the…message to a lot of the people was. The message coming out of the Tea Party people, and lot of them are good people, is every man for himself, basically. “No more taxes, no more government, no more everything. No more safety net. No more health care for everybody. Everybody just get out there, make your buck, save it, screw the government, move on.” Right?

The rest of the transcript (and video) is here if you can stand it.

It’s worth noting that the president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, who aggressively pursued a rescue of the trapped men, put his reputation and even presidency on the line, and refused to give up hope, is not a politican who would give Chris Matthews a thrill up his leg:

The win for Piñera ended the 20-year hold on the presidency exercised by the center-left Concertación coalition and made Piñera Chile’s first elected conservative president in 52 years.
[...]
The new Chilean president vows to become an “entrepreneurial” leader and has already set his sights on restoring a healthy six per cent growth rate, lowering taxes, and improving government efficiency while pursuing programs to reduce poverty and inequality. Unlike countries under populist’s presidents offering promises rather than performance, Chile has significantly reduced poverty, lowering it in the last two decades from 40 percent to 13.7 percent.

The election of Piñera was in fact a sort of Chilean Tea Party.

One action taken by Piñera that is being credited with helping getting these miners out alive is the fact that he did not wait to ask for and accept help from other nations with expertise in the disciplines required for this complex rescue.

I won’t mention the name of another nation’s president who was slow to accept outside assistance during a disaster, and who didn’t act to waive insane bureaucratic regulations, except to offer this clue: He’s not a Tea Partier, and his mere aura used to turn Chris Matthews’ trousers into a pup tent.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Dude, look in the mirror:

On MLK Day last month, the Denver Public Schools served Southern-style fried chicken, biscuits, and collard greens for lunch.

Despite the fact that MLK was actually from the South and actually liked those foods, the racial grievance crowd raised hell and complained that the menu was RAAAAACIST — prompting an apology from the school system.

Now, we have another p.c. food brouhaha — from the cafeteria halls of NBC News in New York City.

Mediaite has a photo of the network’s Black History Month menu, which includes fried chicken, collard greens, black-eyed peas, and biscuits.

JWF is certainly right to call out the Left for its double standards:

“Could you imagine the media meltdown if Fox” did this?

True enough. And the demogogue race-baiters at MSNBC certainly don’t help.

But the annoying double standard doesn’t justify joining the cuisine correctness crowd and extracting apologies for serving up soul food.

My prescription: Everybody, chillax.

‘Fess up, my liberal friends and readers. Are you not now completely mortified by the continued Archie Bunker ruminations on race by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews? Still stuck in the ’60s babbling about the Kennedy administration, his patronizing attitude toward President Obama makes Harry “Negro dialect” Reid and Robert “Kleagle” Byrd look like hip, young 21st century progressives.

Video: “I forgot he was black.”

And here’s his even clumsier “explanation.”

Who says such a thing? And they call Tea Party folks RAAAAAACISTS? Is there a more race-obsessed motor-mouth on TV than Chris Matthews?

I haven’t forgotten:

White anchor at indelibly white network decries “white tribalism”

The indelible whiteness of MSNBC

There he goes again. Racial bean-counter Chris Matthews, of the indelibly white MSNBC, is attacking conservatives for stoking “white tribalism:”

On the Sunday, December 13, syndicated Chris Matthews Show, as he ended the show with words of praise for Morgan Freeman’s latest film, Invictus, and its depiction of Nelson Mandela uniting blacks and whites in South Africa in the 1990s, host Matthews referred to “white tribalism” having been stirred up in America, and showed clips of anti-Obama protesters.

Matthews: “In this world of ours today, it seems that any idiot – almost any idiot can rally the forces of tribalism, including white tribalism in this country. You can do it with a frown or a smile – easiest thing in the world to rile people back to their roots, get them thinking with all the rage of their grandparents.”

Meanwhile…

Demonstrating its continuing commitment to “Do As We Say” diversity, Matthews’ network has announced a new addition to its own glaringly pallid line-up, via TVNewser:

NBC News White House correspondents Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie will be anchoring a new program for MSNBC, reports WaPo’s Howie Kurtz.

The program, titled “Daily Rundown,” will air at 9amET in 2010, filling the slot formerly occupied by Dylan Ratigan’s “Morning Meeting,” who, we heard, will be on in the afternoon.

Todd says the program “has the feel of a signature Washington show for us.”

The sanctimony of liberal white tribes never ceases to amuse.

Plus: If Chris Matthews were a James Bond villain, what James Bond villain would he be?