Wow.
I'm alternately laughing and thrilled at what just happened on Hardball.
If you haven't heard of Kevin James, Republican shill, I suspect you'll be seeing him all over YouTube in about 30 minutes [yep, although I overestimated the time by about 28 minutes].
He was spouting the "Neville Chamberlain" talking point and Chris Matthews just totally took him to school. My rough transcription of the more memorable comments are below the flip...
Update [2008-5-15 20:36:48 by Glic]:
Update [2008-5-15 22:5:6 by Glic]: I counted 29 times that Chris Matthews asked him "What did he DO?" or some variation of that before Kevin James finally said "I don't know." And Chris says "That's right, you don't know."
Also check out at 3:31 the priceless look on Matthews's face when he just smiles and says "you don't know, do you? You don't know what Chamberlain did in Munich?"
At 4:41 pay close attention to the way Chris bows his head into his tented hands as if asking for grace from above to deal with the troglodytic rantings of this imbecile.
Listen closely for Kevin James scream out "Nevillin Chamber". Heh.
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This pathetic wingnut comes out screaming and shouting about Obama....
Matthews: Why are you screaming?
Kevin James: I'm glad he did it [referring to Bush's comments in front of the Knesset today]...you better believe this was against Obama
Matthews: I wanna do a little history check on you...let me ask you, what did Chamberlain do wrong? What did Neville Chamberlain do?"
KJ: It's all about appeasement,
Matthews: I'm not going to continue unless you answer...what did he do? WHAT DID HE DOW? You don't know do you?"
Kevin James: "He was an appeaser! He was an appeaser! He energized the enemy!
"What did he do? Just tell me what he did? What did he do?."
Kevin James: Sputter sputter...nonsense...
Matthews: "You're making a reference to our involvement before WW2, I want you tell me what did Chamberlain do wrong?"
James: "He was an appeaser...he enerergized and legitimized...
Matthews: "Your BSing me. What did he do? You can't tell me what he did. You're a blank slate as far as history is concerned. You don't know what your talking about
James: He was an appeaser...his policies, what he was talking about...energized, legitimized
Matthews: "I'm sitting here asking you what the president was referring to.."
James: I don't know
Matthews: What he did wrong, what many people would say is not that he talked to him ,it's that he gave away half of Czechoslovakia....this is PATHETIC"
This was truly incredible.
Update [2008-5-16 8:51:23 by Glic]: For too long, people like Kevin James have gone on these types of shows and spouted their outright lies, inaccuracies, and vicious distortions. In the name of "fairness" and "balance" - and Chris Matthews was certainly party to this - most of their vile went unchallenged.
NEW RULE: (and how pathetic this even needs to be said or celebrated when it happens) When one side of an argument is reality, news organizations are under no obligation to present "made-up crap" as "the other side of an argument. You are, however, obligated to expose the falsehood(s) as Matthews did here.