Chris Matthews played his favorite type of game on Thursday, using the comments of one Republican to generalize the entire conservative movement. This time, the Hardball host pounced on remarks by Mike Huckabee regarding the so-called "war on women." The former Republican presidential candidate said that Democrats "insult" women by suggesting that they are "helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in" to provide " prescription each month for birth control."
From this, Matthews sneered, "And given that, what is it in the Republican DNA that makes them talk as if they've never talked with women?" He added, "Why do they speak as if they are the party of cave dwellers who come out of their habitats every four years, say, or so, to grunt something so retro, so awkward, so Cro-Magnon as this?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
Matthews paraphrased:
MATTHEWS: Well, let's translate that for the modern millennium. Female humans shouldn't want reproductive planning help with their health insurance. To want such a benefit is to admit you are, A, sexually unstoppable and, B, you need government, some Uncle Sugar, to keep you stocked with birth control pills. Didn't Mike get the memo?
In January of 2008, the liberal cable anchor had his own awkward moment when it came to discussing women. Matthews said of Hillary Clinton, "The reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around."
But protests against those and other remarks by Matthews reached a peak yesterday when the presidents of such groups as the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority and National Women's Political Caucus sent a joint letter of complaint to NBC News President Steve Capus.
Matthews apologized, admitting, "Saying Senator Clinton got where she's got simply because her husband did what he did to her is just as callous, and I can see now, came across just as nasty -- worse yet, just as dismissive."
Nasty? Callous? One might call his remarks "Cro-Magnon"-like.
On Wednesday, an excited Matthews insisted that Mrs. Clinton might win a "sweeping," 60 percent landslide in 2016.
A transcript of the January 23 segment, which aired at 7:58pm ET, follows:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me finish tonight with this. History in the current tenor of politics tells me this November could see a Republican sweep. Taking a wide view, I could see the right wing in candidates sweep the victory in many Republican primaries. Then, the Republicans manage even a double digit pick-up of seats in the U.S. Senate. And then I hear what Mike Huckabee had to say today and I recall a basic, too often ignore fact of American politics, there are more women voters than there are male voters. And given that, what is it in the Republican DNA that makes them talk as if they've never talked with women? Why do they speak as if they are the party of cave dwellers who come out of their habitats every four years, say, or so, to grunt something so retro, so awkward, so Cro-Magnon as this?
MIKE HUCKABEE: If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it. Let us take that discussion all across America, because women are far more than the Democrats have played them to be, and women across American need to stand up and say, enough of that nonsense.
MATTHEWS: Well, let's translate that for the modern millennium: Female humans shouldn't want reproductive planning help with their health insurance. To want such a benefit is to admit you are, A, sexually unstoppable and, B, you need government, some Uncle Sugar, to keep you stocked with birth control pills. Didn't Mike get the memo? Didn't he learn from Akin and Mourdock, the rape rappers, to avoid getting too up close and personal on the boy-girl front, that when some out of it Republican starts talking about the birds and the bees, they risk sounding like what John McCain was kind of christened, "wacko birds." So, before we make any historic judgments about this November, and how things will turn out for the Republicans, it might be good to assume that when the party of Huckabee speaks, women are the ones listening.
