Hardball

Irish voters' approval of same-sex marriage via ballot referendum on Friday proved the perfect excuse for Hardball host Chris Matthews to bash Republican presidential contenders for their steadfast support for traditional marriage and criticism of judicial activism in redefining the institution. For what it's worth, Matthews and his panelists all but smeared Ireland as, well, backwards for…

Wrapping up a segment dealing with fresh revelations from newly-released Hillary Clinton emails, MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews on Thursday night dutifully spun that Hillary's "secretive" nature was not a drawback but may in fact be a net positive: "Franklin Roosevelt, probably the best president we ever had, certainly in the 20th century, was very secretive and manipulative."

U.S. News & World Report's Susan Milligan wildly spun for Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton on the May 20 edition of Hardball when she insisted that the fact that her supporters cannot name a single accomplishment of hers as Secretary of State is, well, "unfair."

It's easy for people--with the possible exception of Jeb Bush--to say that they would not have supported the invasion of Iraq knowing what we know now about WMD there. But Chris Matthews took things a foolish step further on this evening's Hardball, actually claiming that "there was no intelligence they had a weapon. Never was."  Really?  So Hillary, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, Ted…

An angry Chris Matthews on Monday flipped on Jeb Bush, abandoning the man he'd previously cheered for having the "guts" to stand up to conservatives. Matthews raged against the potential Republican candidate for insisting he would make the same decision on Iraq as his brother, George W. Bush. The cable anchor fumed over "this strange, weird, desperate behavior of Jeb Bush." 

MSNBC terrorism expert Evan Kohlmann insisted on tonight's Hardball program that Pam Geller was dangerously close to committing "hate crimes" with her "draw Muhammad" events. Kohlmann also compared the Jewish co-founder of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) to the Nazis by way of invoking the Reichstag fire that the Nazis set as in February 1933 as a pretext to seizing power. For his…

In an interview this evening with former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-Maine), Hardball host Chris Matthews offered his conspiracy theory regarding Republican opposition to the nuclear deal President Obama is brokering with Iran. For his part, Mitchell gently demurred and brushed off Matthews's allegation, as well as his query as to whether his voicing it made him an "extremist."

In a shockingly candid moment betraying his sexist view of Republican female politicians, Hardball host Chris Matthews mused Tuesday night that Carly Fiorina may lob "scurrilous" attacks at Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton while banking on her gender to shield her from scrutiny. He also envisioned Republican suburban housewives sneaking out of the house to vote for Hillary without "telling…

According to MSNBC pundit Michelle Bernard -- best known at NewsBusters perhaps because of her insistence that there is a "war on black boys" in America -- savaged newly-announced GOP presidential aspirant Dr. Ben Carson tonight by alleging his success is all owed to "affirmative action." She also suggested that he's a disgrace to his enslaved ancestors and to the black community in Baltimore,…

The Baltimore riots surrounding the death of Freddie Gray became a moment for liberal reporters and commentators to take the blame off those who destroyed cars, looted businesses, burned a church senior center and hurled objects at police officers.

According to Hardball host Chris Matthews, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is the victim of opportunistic critics "trying to hang" Baltimore's Democratic mayor for her now-infamous statement in which she said that her city's police force tried to give rioters "space" within which they could "destroy" stuff.

Right to work states south of Maryland are partly to blame for the rioting in Baltimore, Hardball host Chris Matthews suggested as he wrapped a Monday night interview via satellite with former NAACP president and former Congressman Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.): "I wish the jobs hadn't first gone south, Congressman, because that's where they went first. And they went to the right-to-work states, you know…

One week ago tonight, Chris Matthews told his Hardball audience that Florida mailman Doug Hughes should pay for his illegal gyrocopter stunt by being sentenced to community service consisting of Hughes lecturing Congress for an hour on campaign finance reform. Tonight Matthews doubled down on that suggestion and gave Hughes a platform on MSNBC's airwaves.

Tonight with his interview of former South Carolina Republican Congressman Bob Inglis, MSNBC's Hardball host Chris Matthews worked a trifecta of Matthewsian tropes into one segment: adulation of all things Kennedy, bashing the GOP as "anti-science," and praising a renegade Republican for taking a liberal position on a policy issue, in this case a so-called carbon tax.