Now, Finally, MSNBC Must Fire Chris Matthews |
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| By: Teddy Partridge Thursday January 28, 2010 9:00 am | |
Really, this man has poisoned our political discourse one too many times. Just let Chris Mattews go now, MSNBC. Just let him go. He is an embarrassment to your network and an embarrassment to our nation.
It’s way past time.
And I don’t really care if Barack Obama forgives him later this week at a Very Special Beer Summit II: The Tweetying. It’s the rest of us who are offended and done with him. Just let him go.
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90 Comments
i wholeheartedly agree
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He’s always been a loose canon… Enough already!
If Matthews goes, who will we dread come the next late night adventure of governance?
They might replace him with MorningJoke™!
•••Save Tweety!•••
…seriously – rec’d
There’s a whole bunch of newly underemployed Air America hosts MSNBC could choose from. Tweety’s time has passed. It is over. This was the last in a long string of awfulness.
I may do a ‘greatest hits’ post tomorrow, if anyone wants to collect some primary and election 2008 video for me… (hint!)
I agree this was awful, but Pat Buchanan is even worse.
He reminds me of a Catholic school kid who wants to so impress the nuns that he becomes a nun to keep his friends in line.
They kick Coco to the curb and keep tweety?
no justice i tell ya.
Why fire Him, when FOX doesn’t fire that bunch of idiots they have on the air.
The drugster never get calls to be fired.
I haven’t heard You calling for any of them to be fired.
I take it that what Matthews was meaning to say was that, for as controversial the idea of a black president was in America, probably, for most of Chris Matthews’ life, that today it’s just another day. Like every time the racial barrier gets crossed in American history.
You know they’ve got guys on the GOP side who don’t even forget one hour, and really just want to see him fail.
I would love to see Thom Hartman take over Rightwing Mathews spot, but we all know the suits would never put a real left winger that is as smart as Thom is on the tube! Instead they have bafoons Like Ed “Repulican for 30 years I’ll play a lefty for the right price” Shultz and that douchebag Mathews!
Matthews is so f***ing shallow it’s pathetic. He has no bloody clue what he’s talking about.
But he portrays himself as someone who’s “followed politics for 40 years” and “loves this political stuff.”
He wouldn’t know a political issue if it bit him in his ample ass.
Yeah, my wife went right to the ceiling with the “I forgot he was a black man” comment.
I get what Tweety is trying to say about how far we’ve come, but the best way to comment on it is to let the fact it does not matter stand by itself.
That plus the Godfather stuff just shows how disconnected he is. Time to go back to Pittsburgh for Chris.
Oh, I don’t think that is true. The real problem with Mathews is he can’t separate his own political views from what the public wants. It makes my skin crawl when he talks about abortion.
It really is time.
I’m sympathetic to your reaction in this specific case, Teddy, but I like watching Tweety.
I think he is good television because of the unpredictability factor. You never know when some stray thought will send him veering off into an unexpected direction.
It’s much more interesting to watch than, say, Rachel, who just repeats the Kos line-of-the-day.
Thanks Teddy, bullseye, as per usual.
If you let Chris go then Rachel and Keith must go too. They all take orders from their owners.
While I do not agree with many of the things Chris Matthews has to say he challenges both, all sides. Matthews is one of the only MSMers who challenged Bill Kristol, David Frum, Gaffney, Woolsey and others when they endlessly repeated the “pack of lies” before the illegal invasion of Iraq. He challenges a few of the warmongers on the endlessly repeated and unsubstantiated claims about an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Rachel never questions the claims about Iran, neither does Keith. None of them even whispered about the Goldstone report. Silence. Not one of them invited Judge Goldstone onto their programs. They have all been bought and paid for on the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
Rachel will show the public endless coverage of the anti govenrment protesters in Iran but never shows the pro Iranian government protest. Never shows the protest against the Israeli apartheid government. Never shows the protest in Afghanistan against U.s. forces. Not one of them has ever mentioned the slaughter of 2000 or more surrendered Taliban in 2001. Not even a whisper about this slaughter that U.S. forces or CIA were allegedly involved in.
Rachel will spend a week covering human rights abuses in Uganda having to do with gays. But will never NEVER touch the human rights abuses taking place in the Palestinian occupied territories. Her human rights concerns are selective and oh so limited and full of contradictions.
Last night Matthews hammered the Republicans for not stepping up to the plate on health care reform. He continaually calls them out for not passing any real refor when they have had the reins. He hammered them on refusing to reach out when Obama has continuously extended a hand.
While I don’t agree with everything he has to say. I find him far more challenging than either Keith or Rachel. Yet all of them have sold out on similar issues. They answer to their owners…all of them.
If you want to call for Matthews firing. Keith and Rachel should line up right behind him
I want him to go but for a different reason. I am soooooo tired of him asking questions, never giving anyone a chance to answer, and then deciding what the other person said. He just likes to hear himself talk and did the same thing when his own wife was on the show with him. I’ve started tuning him out.
If nothing else, could we please just have one hour of the man? There are a lot of people who could fill in the other hour.
As for the black comment, that was just him; nothing mean about it, just him.
Grayson For President!!!Oh sorry wrong blog.Oh well I can’t stand him either.
My recollection is that Matthews was consumed with his mancrushes on authoritarians Giuliani and Fred Thompson, and rarely found anything wrong with Repubs until well into 2008 after Bush was a lame duck.
His open racism and sexism shouldn’t be allowed on the MSM. Can anyone suggest an email address to direct our protests? TIA.
We’re talking about a guy who learned to betray Democratic principles at the feet of his mentor Pat Moynihan, Dick Nixon’s favorite Dem.
Your full of it. And obviously did not watch Matthews before the invasion. While he did not ask the questions that Amy Goodman, and Diane Rehm, (she began to question more as time went on) McClatchy where asking and digging for.
Chris Matthews dug deep when he had Bill Kristol, David Frum, Gaffney, Micheal Rubin on his program before the invasion. I watched and listened closely. Christ all mighty…Libby called Russert and told him to put the squeeze on Chris Matthews for his line of questioning before the invasion.
Now do I think Chris matthews trips over his dick sometimes. Absolutely. His jobs is not to make us happy. Their (Rachel, Keith, Ed, Chris etc) jobs are to help us become better informed citizens. Which on many issues they fail miserably because their owners will not allow them to go there.
I agree that criticism of Israel is taboo in the MSM. I do not agree that Matthews is ‘fair and balanced’, or that MSNBC hosts are all the same.
Do you deny that Matthews is openly racist and sexist?
I agree this was awful, but Pat Buchanan is even worse.
yup.
At least I know when Matthews is going to be on, and can adjust (i.e. switch channel) accordingly.
Buchanan shows up everywhere. A ubiquitous insanity-bomb.
I think you guys are nuts. I didn’t see much wrong with what he said. Sheesh. I do hate Matthews a lot but the above posters are right: he calls a liar a liar. Kept hammering away at the lies about the war.
I don’t get this at all.
Really..this is the fight you want to get into?
What he said was actually a compliment I thought. He didn’t see race for an hour, he just saw the president addressing congress.
That’s what post racial is. Not focusing on race anymore. that’s a huge victory for the first black president. To stop being called “the first black president” and just being called “the president”.
What a foolish thing to get angry about. You give Progressivism, Liberalism, and the left a bad name. Stop wasting time on this nonsense.
I never said Matthews was “fair and balanced” Matthews “sexist” yes. “racist” no way.
How old are you? he made a solid point about people forgetting race. If you think this is not an issue then you have your head up where the sun does not shine.
I was just up in Steamboat Springs Colorado. A town I lived in 35 years ago. Years ago I was out cross country skiing on old abandoned ranch lands. Came up on an old barn went inside and there hung a dummy hung by a noose with KKK scrawled across the t shirt on the dummy. Took pictures,
On this trip I talked to the one black woman that I saw in town during my three days there. She has been there for close to a decade. Our conversation went deep. She told me one story about having three guys in a pick up truck follow her for miles. Pass her and then go slow and then she would pass and they would pass her again. Finally she went into a large dept store to report this odd behaviour, when she came out to wait for police “n*****” had been etched into the side of her car with keys. They were able to identify the men with store cameras that were focused on the parking lot. She had to push the sheriff to follow through with proscuting these racist This was just two years ago.
She then went onto tell me another another story of a young black man visiting in the region. He went into a bar in Meeker Colorado. Some young white women encouraged him to get up on the dance floor with them. he did so. When he left the bar five white guys were outside and beat the living day lights out of him and told him never to come back to their town and to stay with his own kind of women. This was three years ago.
If you think that Chris Matthews was out of line for bringing this up. That it is really different for many people to forget that Obama is black then you have your head up where the sun does not shine for sure.
“I agree that criticism of Israel is taboo in the MSM”
And how is this not racism?
*Yawn*
next
go where you want to go ..next
That clip a few weeks ago when all he could do was filibuster Howard Dean should have been a clue to His Powers That Be… he kept asking him to answer a question, but wouldn’t shut up long enough to let him do it.
Despite that, Dean still got his answer out for anyone who might have still been listening.
I’m gonna take the minority position here. Sure, Matthews could have phrased it better, but he was trying to make a point at how far things have come in a short period of time. A few years ago, the idea of a black president seemed far off in the future. Now, we’re used to it. Sure, there’s still a lot of racism fueling Obama’s right wing opposition – but that’s not what motivates Matthews. He’s just a goof who’s prone to speak before he thinks.
IMO – We’ve got much better things to get upset about.
pulls up a seedling ….. shows us the roots and says ” Look it’s growing”
is it willful or just “look at me” ……
to me bad enough but not as offensive as his choice of guests ….
bingo. But as Matthews points out an issue not to be avoided
This is backwards analysis. There are reasons why corporate media is giving progressives the time of day for the first time in our lives (excepting the back and forth between Gore Vidal and William S. Fuckley in 1968), and that is because we’ve “won” the policy debate, and corporate America needs to coopt those impulses by channeling them appropriately so that they will cause no harm.
By offering up the appearance of progressive analysis, progressives feel like we’re being finally taken seriously by the media. Unfortunately, there is no free lunch, and Maddow, Olbermann, Schultz and Tweety (used to be the SF Examiner’s DC columnist, thought getting rid of him was good, sorry) daince with them whut brung ‘em, and corral progressives into the designated chutes for our trip to the kill floor (its not so much of a floor, but a steel grate that allows material to sluice through).
Fire Matthew’s for what? Because you believe; “He is an embarrassment to your network and an embarrassment to our nation.” Embarrassments to our nation? Are you serious? Jim Moss is correct! “We’ve got much better things to get upset about,” than this…
I have been hammering Maddow’s selective human rights focus for months. I am well aware that they all have their marching orders from their owners.
I just don’t sse the point of hammering on Matthews without hammering on the rest of the so called progressives.
Rahcel is all over the human rights issues in Uganda. All over the Iranian protesters in Iran while ignoring the Gaza Freedom March, ignores the protest by people in Afghanistan protesting against the U.s. occupation of their country.
Very selective in her coverage. Goes only where her owners allow her to go. Just like Matthews and Keith
Yeah, Rachel’s top of the hour smackdown of Jared Bernstein earlier this week over the stupid spending freeze was pure Obamabot. She’s entirely predictable.
Not.
I can’t listen to this at work–what’d Matthews say?
Yeah this post took me an entire ten minutes which I will never get back.
You don’t get to decide what I spend time on, buster.
AND Maddow focuses on the most conservative and least popular, most divisive of LGBT agenda items, the military and marriage, while ignoring the most progressive, working class and popular and not divisive matters of job and housing discrimination protections.
Daince with them what brung y’all.
Gotta add here, that for an a few moments last night, I actually forgot that Chris Matthews was a pasty white, candy ass, self-satisfied cracker. I really did. That goes to show you how far this nation has really come.
Tweedy is like my dog: I love him even though he pisses on the floor too often.
Rachel is like my child: I love her and look forward to the day when she grows up a little.
I wasn’t at all impressed by the phony theatrics of her assault on Jared Bernstein. Bernstein is on our side, for chris sake! He’s OUR guy.
Oberman is the real idiot
He acts like a 3 year old
You might want to check your spelling.
One thing about Matthews: I saw a portion of his special last Friday about Obama’s America and he was taking questions from the audience.
A young man stood at the microphone and asked about reparations. The black members of the panel were, I think, Tony Joyner, Cornel West, and Melissa Harris-Lacewell from Princeton. All three of these folks laughed and told the kid to forget it that there wouldn’t be any reparations, reparations for what, “I’d like my forty acres and a mule,” that sort of nonsense.
Matthews interjected and said something that made me completely change how I’ve felt about him. He said that the Radical Republicans had it right after the Civil War. That had we followed the Radical Republican agenda blacks would have been compensated to a greater degree than they were or have been in the one hundred and thirty-eight years since Reconstruction ended. He wasn’t joking, he was dead serious. Said that until some way was found to repay a people for the indignities they had suffered nothing would be changed (I’m paraphrasing here except for the part about how the Radicals had it right).
I agree a thousand percent. If Johson hadn’t torpedoed Reconstruction and if the Radical Republicans had gone in and let Sheridan and other military governors take land from the Bourbons in the south maybe we wouldn’t be saddled with traitors like Trent Lott, Jeff Sessions, Joe Wilson, David Vitter, and other southern gentlemen in our congress.
Lots that I don’t agree with Matthews on. But on several occasions have found him completely accessible to questions from peasants.
I watched and listened to his coverage before the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq very closely while flipping to the other talking heads coverage also. he was one of the only ones to be hammering away at the claims “pack of lies” that Bill Kristol, David Frum, Gaffney, Woolsey and Micheal Rubin were endlsssly repeating.
At the Democratic convention in Denver in 2008 he came off the MSNBC stage and mixed it up with the peasants several times. Seemed genuinely interested in what the peasants had to say. Neither Keith nor Rachel ever came down off of that stage to mix it up with the crowd
I dont see the issue. He was trying to make a very good point. Are you trying to say he was being racist? In case you have not noticed there have been alot of racism in this country for a few years… Pointing out that we have set a new precident and that Obama is proving this was a good precident is not being racist… just truthful. Just a few years back if we had this president standing up there calling out the Republicans we would have heard not “You Lie!”, but instead “You Ni-ger!” … And it is good to set in solid granite that those days are gone and totally unacceptable.
Quite true, which is why I never said what you should be spending your time on. what I said was if you choose to spend your time on this you’re wasting it.
That’s still true. We could be debating all sorts of more important things..but here we are yapping over something silly tweety said on MSNBC.
And it wasn’t even something bad, it was something worth saying.
I agree. Buchanan’s dismissal should have been demanded long ago. Matthews is a pathetic shallow racist misogynist but his buckshot goes in all directions.
I wish Cornel West HAD been on that panel but he wasn’t there that night. Sorry but I can’t remember who the other member of that particular panel was.
The thing that gets me about Matthews’ comments about Obama being post-racial and his own forgetting Obama is black is that, out of the various panels that participated in that show, nobody could conclude that the America we live in is post-racial; none of the panelists, whose views varied widely on other matters, suggested we live in a post-racial America. Matthews learned nothing from the show he hosted.
Nobody could conclude, either, that Obama, himself, is post-racial or that he aspires to be post-racial; though as POTUS he projects a certain race-neutrality, in his heart and his mind he is very much a black man, perhaps one who is a bit out of touch with black culture and problems which uniquely face black Americans. What’s disgusting is that Matthews attributes post-racialism as a positive quality; that the shoe doesn’t even fit is not the problem. Personally, I don’t want to live in a country that’s post-racial – post-racial to me also means post-historical, a state, literally and figuratively, of denial. But I do want a country which is inclusive of and acknowledges all races and the varied histories of each. I want to live in a state that acknowledges its crimes as well as its strengths. (One problem, of many, I have with Obama is his ad nauseum pronouncements about looking forward and not backward.)
And what’s disappointing about MSNBC is that, while Maddow and Olbermann may have different views than Matthews, they just sat there and didn’t call him out. Didn’t because they couldn’t. Which shows not just the weakness of Matthews but of an entity like MSNBC and, more broadly, of liberal politics, which abrogates certain kinds of debates before they can even begin.
I know “they” all look alike to some people, but I’ve been to events where Mr West was the speaker. He was on the extreme left side of the screen to tweety’s right.
Isn’t this a bit presumptuous?
And, shit, if Cornel West, a southern, black, baptist theologian professor in the Ivy League sees eye to eye on so much with a tri coastal, pink, lapsed Jew anarchist who went to a state school like me, then ANYTHING is possible, anything.
A pollster, Cornell Belcher, was on the first panel. And it was he who made the forty acres and a mule remark. Images of Cornel West are here and, I promise you, he wasn’t at the town hall: http://images.google.com/images?q=cornel+west&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=e_RhS83XF5K1tgec2J3YDQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCcQsAQwAw
I stopped watching cable news about a year ago. I highly recommend everyone else do the same.
First, what part do you find presumptuous? What do you disagree with in and why? Second, and to repeat, Cornel West was not on the panel. And whether he was or not, why is it so surprising you should agree with him? It’s not from where we start, but where we wind up, that matters. West is far more than your limited definition of him which completely ignores his politics, which I gather are even a bit to the left of, if not in sync with, your own.
I think that stream of consciousness is about the way a lot of people saw this speech. If you didn’t pay close attention, that would be your takeaway.
Just more proof. Cornell Belcher not Cornel West: http://storyballoon.org/videos/chris-matthews-town-hall-obamas-america-2010-and-beyond/
See the fifth and sixth videos from the top. Re: your snide comment ““they” all look alike to some people….” how unnecessary that was and to whom would you be referring, anyway?!
I’m always slightly amused by people who take the time to post a comment saying the post wasn’t worth the time.
How can you speculate what goes on in anyone’s heart and mind, especially that of a politician who has probably had surgical procedures done on his heart to harden it and has had his mind altered to operate within the ontology of duopoly politics?
Isn’t that a bit presumptuous?
He was reffering to me. and I never said the post was a waste of time, tho it is. This entire debate is a waste of time.
But like all debates that we should be passed, liek church and states..here we are havign to do it all over again.
I happen to think mathews is an asset
ya, he takes the wrong side often, so do I by the way
but to be sure he takes the right side often as well, I like his style and I like that he takes few prisoners from either side when he’s on a rant
I’ve made some mistakes, made some statements that I would love to take back and mathews did it here
I like chris and I like him alot
sorry
I don’t agree that what I wrote is presumptuous…it was an observation based on what I’ve heard Obama say and what I’ve seen him do. Deducing from what you observe is very different from speculation. How else would you suggest we assess people? He’s a black man – his skin tells me that – and unless he’s a certain character in a Dave Chappelle skit I’d say, uncontroversially, that he has the heart and mind of a black man, that he has self-consciousness of his being black. How that self-consciousness translates into political, social views, etc., differs from person to person and is based on factors at once too complex and too obvious to enumerate.
I also hold him responsible for his words and deeds which, in my opinion, have displayed too little interest in protecting the interests of working class people and in acknowledging systemic realities which militate against black empowerment. You, on the other hand, suggest – or you’re just being silly – that he is the product of ridiculous external influences – surgery, and he’s had his mind altered – which account for what he is. If these aren’t obtuse judgments about Obama’s heart and mind, then I guess I’m just confused, after all.
And keep coming back for more, 18 hours later!
A waste of time? Apparently not.
heh heh
This is all so idiotic, really.
The point is, finally, that Obama isn’t a black man.
He’s of mixed race parentage.
And Matthews never forgot any of it, thus his comment.
If he’d forgotten, actually forgotten, he wouldn’t have made the comment.
He must have remembered at some point, right.
“Content of their character, not the color of their skin…”
Teddy. Chris Matthews has a solid point. When I ask you how old you are I am not in any way demeaning your age. Chris Matthews and many of us have lived through a time where race was a huge issue HUGE. He may have tripped over his tongue when bringing this issue up, but it is absolutely valid.
Race continues to be a huge issue in many parts of our country.
Clearly her owners have approved. But not the human rights issues going on in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Silence complete silence. Her owners do not approve
The LGBT issue is not the most controversial of “off limits” issue by a long shot
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/04/03/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry4917681.shtml
Although six in 10 Americans think some form of legal recognition is appropriate for same-sex couples, only a third of Americans think those couples should be allowed to marry.
————————————————————
So what is your explanation for why she will not touch the Israeli Palestinian conflict or the Goldstone Report? Why not have Judge Goldstone on her program.
Her owners will not allow it
It’s not fair to expect Rachel to speak for all LGBT positions on every conceivable issue relating to the LGBT community. She is the only out lesbian with a regular gig in mainstream media political commentary.
With more progress in justice and equality for LBGT people, we’ll have multiple LGBT political commentators in the MSM, and they’ll represent a variety of political perspectives, just like the presumed-heteros do today. Let’s not cannibalize our young, people.
And btw, Chris Matthews is just a boring liberal white rich guy who is under the delusion that his perspective is somehow objective and who fails to recognize how dumbfoundingly condescending is his comment that Obama’s blackness had turned invisible…and that this was somehow a sign of success.
He’s an idiot, a blowhard, and a doosh.
“Chris Matthews ….. fails to recognize how dumbfoundingly condescending is his comment that Obama’s blackness had turned invisible…and that this was somehow a sign of success.”
Great, finally someone with a meaningful observation. The attribution of some kind of post-racial consciousness to Obama, first of all, is debatable. But to suggest that if Obama actually does project that, then it’s an asset, is unbelievably blind to the implications of such a viewpoint. To suggest that a post-racial mindset is positive is to endorse Brave New World utopianism. It suggests an ahistorical imperative. We rush headlong toward mass forgetfulness, yippee. That’s a world where truly nobody deserves reparations because nobody ever harmed anyone.
If it’s worth saying then by extension its worth responding to. You can’t have it both ways.
Once again for those non-black who thing this is a compliment, WE BLACK FOLKS do not think a condesending remark about blacks not appearing black because we come across as civil or eloquent are a compliments, becuase it implies that those who make such statement believe being black is the opposite of that.
Why can’t some white folks get that!
In short we would rather you ALL hold your fucking compliments if that’s what’s going to come out of your mouth.
Thank You!
Just who appointed you to speak for all black people?
Chris Matthews
“he is post racial”
I think Matthews makes solid points here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/#35132908
more good points by Matthews at
“Obama’s speech positive, seductive” clip
But…but…he has a black friend!
Tweety deserves to lose his job over this, but if they’re going to get rid of him, they should get rid of Pat Buchanan too, who has said a lot more things that were far worse than anything Matthews has said.
Why don’t you get what Monty Karlo very obviously means in terms of its substance rather than taking what he wrote, “WE BLACK FOLKS,” to mean every black person from Moses to Chris Rock. “Please! Ple-e-ease!! Ple-e-ease!!!” (That’s a quote from another black man). The point he makes is valid but if you want to argue it, have at….the substance, that is. Your question is about as purposeless as someone asking you “Who appointed you the questioner of the person you think speaks for all black people?”
I said WE BLACK FOLKS which is Plural. I never said ALL BLACK FOLKS. Idiot! Go relearn your grammar, then you can come and take me on.
Looks there is no need to go around calling people names. And believe me I am not afraid to take any one on. But that is not what I am trying to do. Just pointing out that you seem to be doing some generalizing
You have an important perspective, even if I don’t agree. Would sure like to hear some kind of coverage of how African Americans responded to Chris Matthews statement.
lots of generalizations
Not name calling, just using the most appropriate adjective to summarize my thinking on you based on your idiotic post.
I just find it interesting that one so called liberal white guy would want to attack my statement on straw arguments than on it’s substance by stating that I am appointing myself the spokesperson for ALL BLACK PEOPLE. Then in the next breath (to show how open minded he is)says he is interested in African American’s opinions. I guess you are interested in those opinions if they comport with your views.
For the record, I don’t think Mathews is racist,and I don’t agree that this is at the level that his job should be jeopardized, however I do think he is prejudice in his views on black folks as demonstrated by his comments and the fact is many white folks also share that view which apparently you do as well, since you are unable to divine the offensiveness of it.
I repeat WE BLACK FOLKS would rather you’ll keep your condescending opinions to yourself, we don’t need your “support”, we have enough structural racism to deal with and would rather not have some liberal white guy giving us back handed compliments to burnish is own “I am not a racist” schtick.
“would rather you’ll keep your condescending opinions to yourself” Back at you. I will go along with that statement. And also the one that “Matthews is not a racist” But if you directly call someone an “idiot” or any other personal attack the moderator usually pops up. Not sure why this case would be any different. You can attack what I say but not anyone personally.
I still say “we black folks” is quite a sizable generalization.
Moderator didn’t pop up becuase I was totally within bounds.
You said I appointed myself speaker for all black people which clearly was a lie and in my opinion, as well as, at least one other poster it was also personal attack. But clearly you like to start flames but can’t stand the heat. My recommendation then is try not to start flame wars, stick to the substance of anothers argument. You now trying to appear reasonable is not impressing me much.
Further you continue to act like you are uneducated and do not know the meaning of the word “WE”. The last time I checked “WE” did not mean “ALL”. But go ahead, continue your strawman argument instead of addressing the substance of the post. Anyways you now bore me and I am prepared to move on to something more productive, further I would be willing to wager that I speak for more black folks than you do.
“trying to appear reasonable is not impressing me much.” back at you. Moving on
Nod.
I’m not begging for fair. I am criticizing Maddow for kow towing to conservative interests within the LGBT movement. In a world of scarce resources, that is picking one constituency over another. Maddow presents herself as a progressive. Since marriage and military are at the bottom of the progressive LGBT agenda, under job and housing discrimination both by polls and by the number of individuals impacted by each, she exposes herself to legitimate criticism.
And given that the campaigns for controversial marriage and military have squandered victories on consensus housing and job discrimination protections in the light of otherwise increasing public support, I think that someone’s right to marry or join the military is much less important than the right of someone to not get fired or not hired or evicted or not rented or sold to for being queer. Everyone’s got to contend in the labor and housing markets, everyone except people in the military and those wealthy enough to file a neverending series of lawsuits which have ended up in a 15 year record of 85% failure.
So, yeah, I want full civil rights in my lifetime and I don’t see the only progressive out lesbian moving us towards that and it sucks.
It is political malpractice to pursue narrow divisive issues while broader consensus issues are ripe for the picking.
I am interested in this take, but I am in no position to argue it. That said:
Outside of the LGBT circles (where the political intricacies are discussed almost as abstractions because no matter how sympathetic straight people may be to the civil rights stolen from the LGBT community, we don’t have skin in the game on the same level), doesn’t having someone like Rachel in any position at all advance the arguments? And it seems to me that: if you are to advance the LGBT civil rights argument, isn’t DADT a great place to wedge the fight into public consciousness?
I mean, in sheer numbers, young people don’t give a crap about the arguments of the haters. So while the fight goes forward, the demographics are skewing towards recognition of LGBT rights as civil rights, and not entitlements to a minority population.
OK, ducking out of the way now so as to dodge the current trajectory of that milkshake…
Yes, the GOP want to see him fail. They’re salivating for it.
Chris Matthews has always had Obama’s back and has been pushing for him to succeed. His little statement last night made me cringe to the core, but not because I thought he was showing his nefarious, racist underbelly for the first time, but I cringed because I knew I’d be having this conversation today. Defending him for – like the President did for Reid – his use of “inartful language”.
Matthews is one of the good guys. And yes, we give the good guys slack because we all use inartful language on occasion. Had it been said by a smirking Cantor or McConnell, then yes, bring down the hammer – hard. They get no slack, ’cause they give none….
If Matthews is guilty of anything, its a thing we are all guilty of – occasional lapses into racial insensitivity. I grew up being bombarded with all manner of racially offensive things spewed by my mother. A beautiful black Christian woman, but she always had these little zingers about Asians, Puerto Ricans, Africans, and White People. Oh, and Jews, can’t forget them. I think I was in college before I realized how un-cool it was to say “jew ‘em down” to mean “haggle for the best price.”
We all have work to do with our little insensitive comments and learned biases. Matthews included. But just remember, he’s one of the good guys.
Calling for him to be fired over a ham-fisted statement is silly. We’ve got real enemies to worry about.
Thanks for your insights. I do think he is truly sexist at times.
But racist no. His statement last night did not come out very well but not “racist”
This was one of his most sexist moments
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2007/08/12/leering-chris-matthews-asks-female-cnbc-anchor-move-closer-camera
I disagree that what Matthews said is on the same order as the kind of epithets you’re speaking about. What Matthews said, I believe, is on the one hand more innocuous and, on the other, much more dangerous than such epithets. While clearly intending no harm with his clumsy observation of Obama’s being “post-racial” and his forgetting “he was black tonight for an hour,” Matthews exposes a yearning for some ideal post-racial reality which is unrealistic and, I would argue, not even desirable.
If by post-racial he means a world in which one’s race doesn’t matter, that we can now recognize a time in which race no longer gains one any favor or disfavor, and that Obama holds such a view or projects a color blindness that he, Matthews, deems admirable, or that being post-racial is something to which we should aspire – well then Matthews head is very far up his ass because he’s proposing that denying history is admirable. And he’s suggesting he wants to live in a world where we can forget that black people …..are black. As if the white man’s burden isn’t heavy enough, we also have all that nasty history to contend with and black people still acting like black people and writing hip hop and asking stupid questions about reparations and complaining about Mumia being in jail …….
And he’s also implying the corollary that to acknowledge racial difference is a negative, rather than seeing such acknowledgment to be a pre-condition to conquering racism and appreciating the diversity which, simply put, is (a beautiful) reality of US culture. In fact it was whites who brought that diversity to these shores. When they came here to conquer the brown-skinned natives and everything that was in their path. The legacy of that history, at best, suggests we’re still a long way from being post-racial, even if we would want to be so perilously disconnected from History.
I think it is insulting to say “I forgot he was black.” Being black or at least half black is part of who he is. To say that denies his identity, his background, and his heritage. Chris is dumb and silly and can’t keep his mouth shut. He’s a waste of time and space.
The problem with this analysis is that we’ve already won on housing and job protections, at least with the voting public, yet those gains remain unconsolidated.
In politics, one is only as powerful as one’s last win. When was our last win? Hate crimes legislation last year was the first LGBT federal win, but that posits us as helpless creatures who need Congress to make it safe for us to walk down the streets.
Add to that, what a record of 0 and 33 on same sex marriage, a stalemate on the military, and we start to enter into negative territory. I mean, shit, for many here, Bush II was the most evil president ever even though there is a straight line trajectory between Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama, the hagiography of Bush II as totem of evil stands.
TO paraphrase Woody Allen from “Annie Hall,” politics is like a shark, its gotta keep moving forward to breathe, and once it stops it dies. What we have on our hands here is a dying shark.
The LGBT movement is not democratic in nature, that is rich people can file lawsuits without popular support, put our rights all at risk and force us to deal with the consequences. The HRC veal pen is so innured to being an insider in the game, that they have an interest in slow walking reform because without a campaign, there will be no more gala dinners.
The LGBT agenda is not a massive agenda, housing, job, marriage and the military take up the vast bulk of the non-trans queer agenda, with the trans agenda component still evolving. This could be largely solved in one year legislatively, with DADT, DOMA repealed (controversial but majorities in support) and housing and job discrimination protections (consensus) enacted.
The ideal solution is to incorporate LGBT as a suspect class into the civil rights law alongside women, people of color and disabled, similar to the surviving outcome in the CA Supreme Court, raising a high bar to discrimination. We won’t need all the protections that people of color get, some the same, some different. But the decision was made to go piecemeal in the 1980s, and that decision has yet to be revisited as public opinion has changed.
Rachel is now an “A-gay,” and she appears to be reveling in all the attention she gets from homosexuals that matter. That said, it is always good to have an out lesbian as a progressive spokesperson because it breaks down more barriers. But how many of the few remaining barriers will we have to break down before we are equal under the law?