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