Drooling
By Michael J.W. Stickings
You know what's hilarious? The McCain-infatuated Weekly Standard complaining about Chris Matthews. And yesterday, Mary Katherine Ham responded to what she called Matthews' "post-debate drooling" over Obama.
"Barack Obama is gifted in birth by a wonderful smile," said Matthews last night on MSNBC. "John McCain, when he smiles, has a somewhat menacing quality. It may not be purposeful, but when he smiles, you wonder what he's really thinking. Barack Obama, for whatever reason, comes off as debonnaire, even under attack."
True, Matthews' isn't much of a political analyst. His punditry consists mostly of expressing his own often very personal observations. It's not so much what he thinks as what he feels, and he often seems to speak without thinking. Hence his all-too-common drooling.
The thing is, the most common object of his drooling over the years has been none other than John McCain, on whom he has long had a pretty obvious man-crush. Indeed, as David Brock and Paul Waldman point out in their book Free Ride: John McCain and the Media (which I've referenced often here), Matthews "may be the head of the McCain fan club among the establishment press." And he wasn't just a cheerleader eight years ago, during McCain's media-manipulative run for the Republican presidential nomination against Bush. In January 2007, to take but one more recent example, Matthews said on Hardball that McCain "deserves to be president in terms of all his service to the country."
Last night, Matthews just called it like he saw it, and he saw it like most of the pundits did and, according to the polls, like most of the people did. Was he drooling? Sure. But, for once, it wasn't over McCain.
You know what's hilarious? The McCain-infatuated Weekly Standard complaining about Chris Matthews. And yesterday, Mary Katherine Ham responded to what she called Matthews' "post-debate drooling" over Obama.
"Barack Obama is gifted in birth by a wonderful smile," said Matthews last night on MSNBC. "John McCain, when he smiles, has a somewhat menacing quality. It may not be purposeful, but when he smiles, you wonder what he's really thinking. Barack Obama, for whatever reason, comes off as debonnaire, even under attack."
True, Matthews' isn't much of a political analyst. His punditry consists mostly of expressing his own often very personal observations. It's not so much what he thinks as what he feels, and he often seems to speak without thinking. Hence his all-too-common drooling.
The thing is, the most common object of his drooling over the years has been none other than John McCain, on whom he has long had a pretty obvious man-crush. Indeed, as David Brock and Paul Waldman point out in their book Free Ride: John McCain and the Media (which I've referenced often here), Matthews "may be the head of the McCain fan club among the establishment press." And he wasn't just a cheerleader eight years ago, during McCain's media-manipulative run for the Republican presidential nomination against Bush. In January 2007, to take but one more recent example, Matthews said on Hardball that McCain "deserves to be president in terms of all his service to the country."
Last night, Matthews just called it like he saw it, and he saw it like most of the pundits did and, according to the polls, like most of the people did. Was he drooling? Sure. But, for once, it wasn't over McCain.
Labels: 2008 election, Chris Matthews, conservatives, debates, John McCain
posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at
2:32 PM
1 Comments:
Michael,
Thank you for doing a great job of live blogging the debate. That's the last time I take "my friends" in a drinking game.
By
Bob's Blog, at 3:58 PM
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