The first segment of Hardball today was another great performance out of Matthews. He would not let Pfotenhauer spew her nonsense in trying to defend Palin's claim that the VP is "in charge of the Senate." (I'll update w/ video when possible.)He just went to town on her and did it in a pretty logical way. He seems energized now that he has the recent NBC/WSJ poll to back up his opinion.
I have always kind of liked Matthews. He was pretty strongly against the war. He tends to get way too into personal stuff (his coverage of Obama bowling for example was ridiculous). He also seems to share McCain's recent views that Western PA is the mecca of US patriotism.
All that being said, Matthews has really stepped it up over the last few weeks. He seems to be taking the anti-American slurs against Obama very hardly and has absolutely savaged anyone who tries to spew that BS.
In short, Matthews is acting as a journalist and not trying to fake equivocate like so many others (Brian Williams, for example) do. When he thinks the McCain campaign has stepped far out of line with their attacks, he calls them on their BS.
Matthews basically ended the career of Bachmann by giving her just enough rope to hang herself. He has been very forceful in defending the Powell endorsement against charges of racism. He has smacked down Limbaugh. Whatever shortcomings he has displayed in recent years, he has really redeemed himself over the past few weeks in my eyes and has become must see TV over the last few weeks of this election campaign.
Update: His second segment today previewing Brian Williams' interview with Palin and McCain was great as well. Chuck Todd said, in so many words, that McCain and Palin do not appear to get along and that their campaign was about to fall apart from the inside. Can't wait to see more of the interview. Palin was talking nonsense again and McCain looked unhappy.
Update 2: Never tried to embed before, but here is the video of his segment with Chuck Todd and Brian Williams discussing the new Palin interview.
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