Unrepentant Matthews Calls On Hillary To Fire "Kneecappers" In Hillary's Press Shop
(February 15, 2008 -- 11:45 AM EDT // link // )

Relations between MSNBC and the Hillary campaign just continue to get worse and worse.

Yesterday I reported here that top Hillary advisers had repeatedly expressed their grievances to MSNBC about Matthews' on-air treatment of Hillary. Now Matthews appears to have responded.

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein has a great catch: In what may be a middle-finger aimed directly at the advisers who have been privately complaining about him, Matthews went on the air this morning and basically called on Hillary to fire the "kneecappers" in her press office...

Matthews: "What she has to do is get rid of the kneecappers that work for her -- these press people who's main job seems to be...going after the press...I think her press relations are lousy...human reaction to intimidation is, `Screw you.'" HuffPo's full report, with more transcript, is here.

A couple of quick points on this. First, should Matthews really be going here? Is he really going to complain about the Hillary camp's pushback against MSNBC in recent days? They primarily objected to David Shuster's suggestion that they had "pimped out" Chelsea -- a comment that is pretty clearly indefensible. What's more, Matthews himself apologized for some of his own less-than-gallant remarks about Hillary recently.

I happen to think that the Hillary campaign's aggressive campaign against Shuster was over the top in some key ways. But it seems ill-advised, to put it charitably, for Matthews, of all people, to be denouncing the Hillary camp's objections to his and Shuster's remarks. It makes it fair game to question whether there was all that much to his apology and to ask whether he thinks Shuster's remarks are objectionable. Come to think of it, maybe someone should ask him this stuff.

At any rate, Matthews has clearly decided to ratchet up the hostilities with Hillary's press people, perhaps partly in response to their aggressive behind the scenes campaign against him. I'm trying to get a response to this from the Hillary press shop. I'll keep you posted.

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Sources: Top Hillary Advisers Have Repeatedly Complained To MSNBC About Chris Matthews
(February 14, 2008 -- 3:06 PM EDT // link // )

Yesterday I speculated that the Hillary campaign's allegation of a pattern of sexist remarks at MSNBC -- a charge that was made in response to reporter David Shuster's "pimped out" remark about Chelsea -- was primarily driven by anger at Chris Matthews.

In making these charges, the Hillary campaign has always been careful to avoid mentioning Matthews by name, but political insiders believe he is who Hillary advisers were talking about, even if it hasn't been confirmed by them.

I've now confirmed that this is the case. And that's not all: Hillary's advisers, it turns out, have repeatedly taken their grievance with Matthews directly to the network.

Several sources familiar with the discussions tell me that top Hillary advisers have repeatedly lodged private complaints directly to MSNBC about Matthews' on-air conduct. They have complained to MSNBC about Matthews' less-than-chivalrous remarks about Hillary, such as this one, as well as coverage of Hillary that they view as unfair.

Among those Hillary advisers who have made private complaints like these to the network are Mandy Grunwald and Howard Wolfson, sources tell me. Meanwhile, Ann Lewis, a longtime Hillary adviser who is her director of women's outreach, declined to comment on the discussions, calling them "private conversations."

Anyway, this should settle it: As dumb and clueless as Shuster's "pimp" remark, this was never really about him. The Clinton campaign, while genuinely upset about what Shuster said, lashed out at the network because they were primarily irked by Matthews' conduct, and were sending a message to MSNBC that it's time that Matthews muzzle himself.

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MSNBC Spokesperson: Shuster Will Not Be Fired And Will Return To Network
(February 13, 2008 -- 3:09 PM EDT // link // )

Updated below.

Over at TPM Election Central I just reported that Hillary had agreed to a Feb. 26th debate on NBC after threatening to boycott the network's debates in the wake of MSNBC reporter David Shuster's "pimp" remark about Chelsea.

This naturally prompted the question: What does this mean for Shuster, who was suspended from MSNBC for the remark and has been in limbo ever since Hillary publicly suggested that his suspension wasn't enough?

Well, it turns out that he won't be fired and will be coming back to the network. Asked about Shuster's fate, MSNBC director of communications Alana Russo tells me this:

"He remains on suspension indefinitely, but he will not be fired and will be returning to MSNBC."

This suggests, I think, that MSNBC wants to wait until after the debate with Hillary is safely over before bringing Shuster back. Also, it bears pointing out that however crude and dumb Shuster's remark was, this was never primarily about him. It was about Chris Matthews.

A great deal of grievance had already been built up between MSNBC and the Hillary camp over Matthews' less-than-chivalrous treatment of Hillary on the network. In denouncing Shuster's remark, the Hillary campaign has chastised the network in general for the tone of its political coverage and pattern of sexist remarks. And though Camp Hillary has always been careful not to name Matthews, this is primarily who they were talking about.

But the Hillary camp just wasn't going to take on Matthews publicly. Shuster was an easier target. So it was Shuster's remark that gave the Hillary camp the opening they need to finally pull the trigger and go after the network in hopes that Camp Hillary's high-profile criticism -- and the attendant media attention -- would send a message to MSNBC that it was time for Matthews to cool it with the anti-Hillary broadsides.

At any rate, it looks as if Shuster will survive this. Whether it will have an impact on Matthews and the network's coverage generally is another question.

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Update: Over at The Huffington Post yesterday, Rachel Sklar made a convincing case that Shuster is little more than a scapegoat for Matthews' ongoing shenanigans.

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Unhinged: Six Of Last Seven Columns By Maureen Dowd And Frank Rich Bashed Hillary
(February 13, 2008 -- 10:00 AM EDT // link // )

It's kind of striking that Maureen Dowd's last four columns in a row, and two of Frank Rich's last three, all bashed Hillary. I mean, the duo has gotten so utterly predictable that even The Times's editors must be dimly aware of it.

It's really not an overstatement to say that their columns at this point read as if the two -- who have a long journalistic history together -- are just writing for each other.

Given the astronomical salary the paper's two marquis political columnists must be pulling down, you'd think that they would feel a bit of an obligation to offer something a tad more original than the same old obsessive and borderline unhinged Clinton bashing week in and week out. It's just "Billary, Billary, Billary," as the two keep putting it with such startling originality. So boring. One can only imagine what the paper could accomplish with that money if they invested it elsewhere.

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Breaking: Another Writer Demands Real Evidence Of Bill And Hillary's "Race Card" Playing
(February 12, 2008 -- 11:36 AM EDT // link // )

Well whaddaya know. I've just found another person asserting that maybe -- just maybe -- we should have something approaching conclusive evidence before alleging that the Clintons hatched a dastardly and bigoted scheme to "blacken" Obama and provoke a white backlash.

Via Krugman's blog, here's what The Atlantic's Clive Crook, an Obama supporter, has to say about this:

I find the idea that the Clintons have "played the race card" -- which is now established as one of the stylised facts of this election -- hard to understand. It is never defended in detail...

Can it seriously be contended that the Clintons thought to advance their campaign (yes, “their” campaign) by alienating black support -- that the crushing defeat in South Carolina is something, as Morris seems to believe, they actually sought? The idea is ridiculous.

It's good to see Crook hitting on what think is a key point: The alleged playing of the "race card" is now established fact. It's not easy to pinpoint when something crosses the line from selected narrative to accepted truth -- it's a bit like trying to specify when a person passes from adolescence into adulthood -- but that has clearly happened here.

Then Crook gets downright freaky. He actually insists on asking whether the individual pieces of evidence allegedly proving that the Clintons played the race-card actually prove that the Clintons played the race card. He concludes:

Some commentators accused Bill of playing the race card when he called Obama's account of his position on the Iraq war a "fairy tale". How so? What did that have to do with race? And does Hillary's comment about King, the only instance Morris bothers to offer, even qualify? She merely said that getting the job done required a can-do president as well as an inspiring and visionary champion. And so it did. I cannot see that this subtracts anything from King's stature, or that it was intended to. Whatever its merits, this is the Clintons' old theme, not a sinister new one: if elected, she would hit the ground running, whereas the inexperienced Obama would be out of his depth. It took a hyper-sensitive press to turn that comment into a racial slur...

I think the press played the race card, not the Clintons.

There are, of course, other pieces of evidence proffered to back up the Billary-race card thesis, as I detailed here yesterday, But the truth is, while it's of course possible that hardball political players like the Clintons could have hatched such a nefarious scheme, the case just hasn't been made convincingly enough to warrant such explosive charges.

And it's good to hear someone like Crook saying so. By my count there's now roughly half a dozen people making these points. It's a veritable movement! It's unstoppable!

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Krugman, His Op-ed Colleagues, And The "Clinton Rules" Of Punditry
(February 11, 2008 -- 4:51 PM EDT // link // )

Updated below.

Paul Krugman keeps saying what (most) others won't say -- today he points out the bizarre degree to which it's become completely acceptable for pundits to state as outright fact that the Clintons are operating purely from evil motives:

What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.

The key word there is "proof," and Krugman is exactly right. But which pundits is he talking about here? Well, he could very easily be talking about his fellow Times columnists. As Kevin Drum notes, Frank Rich had a surprisingly unhinged column yesterday in which he asserted as fact a nefarious plot on the part of the Clintons to "scare off white voters":

But once black voters met Mr. Obama and started to gravitate toward him, Bill Clinton and the campaign’s other surrogates stopped caring about what African-Americans thought. In an effort to scare off white voters, Mr. Obama was ghettoized as a cocaine user (by the chief Clinton strategist, Mark Penn, among others), “the black candidate” (as Clinton strategists told the Associated Press) and Jesse Jackson redux (by Mr. Clinton himself).

Here you see the "Clinton rules" reigning supreme. Putting aside Rich's seeming claim to mind-reading skills -- the Clintons "stopped caring" what blacks thought? -- the three episodes alluded to simply aren't conclusive in the way Rich claims.

Penn did bring up the word "cocaine," but only after the host of the show had spent literally minutes talking about Obama's drug use. The "black candidate" reference was made by anonymous strategists, and the quote alluded to was almost laughably inconclusive. And the Jesse Jackson comment had multiple interpretations.

But Rich strings these all together and concludes that they prove a grand plot by the Clintons to "ghettoize" Obama. Nor is Rich the only Times columnist to throw around such charges with abandon; Bob Herbert has played this ugly game, too.

I want to be as clear as I can about this. It's conceivable that the Clintons had hatched such a grand scheme. The Clintons are hardball political players who leave nothing to chance. But the evidence, as it stands now, simply doesn't support such an elaborate and conspiratorial reading. Something approaching conclusive evidence should be required before such enormously controversial allegations are tossed around.

But here's the real point: When it comes to the Clintons, many pundits have simply stopped requiring themselves to adhere to the most basic evidentiary standards. It has become acceptable, even normal, to say whatever the hell you want about the Clintons, and if you insist on anything approaching real evidence, you're just a party-pooper. The "Clinton rules" governing punditry about them are that there are no rules. Yep -- Krugman was talking about his own colleagues.

Update: Over at The Atlantic, Clive Crook addresses the Billary race-card allegations with a great deal of much-needed common sense.

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Silly Suck-Up-To-Drudge Moment Of The Day
(February 11, 2008 -- 12:32 PM EDT // link // )

That's the name of a new feature that we'll be running on this blog as circumstances warrant.

The idea is that to a far greater degree than you might think, reporters go out of their way to find fake reasons to give plugs to Drudge -- and even at times tailor their own work -- specifically to get linked on his site.

This morning, in a piece piece that touched on the timing of the departure yesterday of Hillary campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, New York Times reporter Kit Seeyle managed to throw a bone to Drudge with this mystifying line:

Some Clinton advisers rued the timing, noting that Matt Drudge referred to the switch on his Web site as the departure of the campaign’s “top Latina” — an emphasis on Ms. Doyle’s ethnicity that Mrs. Clinton does not need as she heads toward a Texas primary on March 4 and tries to court the state’s large Hispanic vote.

Why the gratuitous plug for Drudge? After all, this is hardly going to be any more damaging to Hillary among Latinos because Drudge made this point, unless he has a huge Latino readership I didn't know about. More broadly, it seems pretty silly to use Drudge headlines as a way of gauging whether something Hillary did is politically savvy or not. He's obviously always going to put the worst spin on most things Hillary.

But hey, if the intention was to give Drudge a plug, it worked. Seelye's story has been the lead on his site all morning -- even though it's hard to find anything in it that you couldn't find in about a hundred other articles.

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