One Day After Saying He'll "Never Underestimate Hillary Clinton Again," Chris Matthews Says She's Only A Presidential Candidate Because Bill "Messed Around"
January 9, 2008 -- 9:36 AM EST // //
Normally Chris Matthews isn't worth the bother, because he serves up so much non-stop clowning that there's no humor value left in anything he does, in the same way that printing lots of currency deprives it of worth.
But this Matthews moment really captures something fundamental about the way our pundits have generally approached this race -- and, sadly, will continue to approach it.
Right now you're seeing a lot of hand-wringing and self-flagellation among pundits and commentators who are chastising themselves for getting it wrong and basically writing Hillary's obituary before the voters had their say on the matter. This is all well and good. But the real question now is whether commentators will, you know, learn something from this debacle going forward and let voters speak for themselves. With that in mind, take a look at this...
This is pretty rich. Last night, Matthews said: "I give her a lot of personal credit; I will never underestimate Hillary Clinton again."
But by this morning Matthews had already forgotten his newfound respect for her. He said: "The reason she's a U.S. Senator, the reason she's a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front-runner, is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be Senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win it on the merits..."
Put aside for a sec just how loathsome this statement is on its own terms. The larger point here is that a mere half-day after acknowledging that he'd gotten it wrong and that she deserved a lot of "personal credit" for winning over voters, Matthews was already imposing his own narrative on her entire political career, the current race included, saying that her past and current success have nothing to do with "the merits."
Surely the voters don't see Hillary this way. But already Matthews is back to speaking for the voters again, oversimplifying complex voter sentiment in the most crude and reductive fashion he can muster.
Lesson unlearned. Oh, well. Maybe next time.
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