Wow. This is quite telling. On his Hardball program tonight, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, a native of the City of Brotherly Love, compared Hillary Clinton's campaign to the "uneven" NL East cellar-dwelling Philadelphia Phillies -- 50-77 record, 20.5 games behind division-leading New York Mets, lamenting "this is driving me crazy."
The remark came in the midst of a segment with Clinton campaign surrogate Jennifer Granholm and Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus wherein Matthews groused that, in his estimation, Hillary was pitch perfect "presidential" on the fatal shooting of two local journalists in Roanoke, Virginia, yesterday, only to come out today and foul up by comparing Republican opponents of hers who want to end federal taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood to Islamist terrorists.
Also of note is that moments earlier in the same segment, Matthews defended Clinton from the popular perception in a new Quinnipiac University poll that Clinton is a "liar," offering that Clinton was rightfully "secretive" because she didn't want "political" e-mail correspondence coming to light. Indeed, it seems that Matthews endorsed Granholm's defense that it would have been "political malpractice" for Clinton to not correspond with supporters and favor-seekers while she was secretary of state.
Here's the relevant transcript (emphasis mine):
MSNBC
Hardball
August 27, 2015; 7:22 p.m. EasternCHRIS MATTHEWS: I think liar is a terrible word. Excuse me, Governor [Granholm], I think liar is a terrible word. I hate anybody using on it this show. It ends the conversation. I think a softer word may be, too secretive, too afraid of exposure, maybe because of her years of dealing with us. Definitely what she did wrong, if she did anything wrong, was, she didn't trust her e-mail to get into public circulation. For whatever reason. I think it was just political mail was all it was. Of course she should keep to it herself. My view. It was political mail!
Former Gov. JENNIFER GRANHOLM (D-Mich.): Yeah, it would be political malpractice for her to not have some private e-mails.
MATTHEWS: That's what I think. I don't think it's about funerals and weddings. I think it was about some supporter of hers in California she was doing favors for or checking in with and or saying, how's the family. This is wonderfully political and positive. Your thoughts?
RUTH MARCUS, Washington Post: Whatever the motivation is, the fact of the matter is that Gov. Granholm talked about yesterday as a pivot point. The really relevant question is, why did it take so long to get to this pivot point? Why isn't the campaign a little bit more, and the candidate, a little bit more adept at being able to respond before you have all these people saying [in a recent poll that she's a] liar?
MATTHEWS: You know what I've noticed, Governor? And you're a surrogate so, I don't give advice but I'm giving some now, I guess.
The campaign is, what looked wonderful yesterday. The way she came out, presented herself, you know, I'm not getting into clothes and everything and hair and all that gets you into trouble. But her presentation yesterday about the horror that happened down in Virginia was so presidential, so perfectly tuned. So with it. And then this kind of stuff happens. You know, and I go, how come, this is like following the Phillies. They win one, they lose two. You know, or they win one, or two, then they lose three. And I go, this is driving me crazy. But there isn't--
GRANHOLM: We don't agree on this.
MATTHEWS: -- no, there's an unevenness. No, you think it's been an evenly run campaign?
