Leading off his "Political Sideshow" segment halfway through the March 10 "Hardball," MSNBC's Chris Matthews mocked freshman Sen. Scott Brown (D-Mass.) for his reported book deal [audio available here]:
We learned today that Massachusetts senator Scott Brown, who's been a senator for just 35 days, has a book deal! According to the Wall Street Journal, Brown's expected to write about his upbringing, his early career, and how he beat Martha Coakley to win his Senate seat.
Maybe he could call it, "It's Not About the Truck." Just a thought, but, didn't people used to write their memoirs after their careers? This guy's been in office, what, a month?
Of course, this comes almost two years to the day after Matthews effusively praised Barack Obama's memoir, "Dreams From My Father" -- originally published in 1995 when Obama was gearing up to run for the Illinois State Senate -- on the March 13, 2008 "Hardball":
CHRIS MATTHEWS: It's unique because he's a politician and not since U.S. Grant has a politician written his own book.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, radio talk show host: Exactly.
MATTHEWS: And that is refreshing.
SMERCONISH: Yes.
MATTHEWS: And you're thoughts here? Did you read the book? Once you read it you have a different take. It's almost like Mark Twain. It's so American, it's so textured. It's so, almost sounding like great fiction because it reads like us. It's picturesque. Is that the right word? Picturesque? I think it's got that quality.
Matthews's hypocrisy continued in a subtler form with his comments in the next item in the "Sideshow." The MSNBC host blasted Sen. John McCain's Republican Senate primary challenger J.D. Hayworth for a radio ad touting Hayworth's Christian faith and how it has informed his socially conservative stances on abortion and same-sex marriage.
"Don't we have a constitutional ban against setting religious tests for public office? I've never heard somebody scoff [sic] up votes by saying he's better at his religion than the other guy," Matthews huffed.
But in 1980, when Chris Matthews was working for then-President Jimmy Carter, the Democratic incumbent ran a TV ad in which he touted his religious faith:
