NewsReal Sunday: Mass Confusion: Chris Matthews's Catholic Education—Wasted

by David Forsmark  •  Sep 21, 2009 at 12:17 am
Cross-posted from NewsRealBlog.com

http://www.davidforsmark.com/2009/09/newsreal-sunday-mass-confusion-chris-matthewss

For months, liberals have been looking for a way to start screaming "racism!" Trial balloons have been floated, and flags run up the pole, but they were mostly ignored and only the already convinced saluted.

Now, they have decided that their way to get this into the general conversation is to use Joe Wilson's "You lie" outburst as their excuse. They formulated a three step process for their rhetorical two-step.

• Hyperventilate about the unprecedented, outrageous, abominably rude, sign of a lack of civility and good faith in our public discourse that Wilson represents.
• Pretend to believe that Wilson is motivated by race hatred (even if he doesn't know it), going to the extent of declaring he must prove that he is not—he is from South Carolina after all. He probably even lit the fuse to fire on Fort Sumter!
• Announce that everyone who expressed anger at Barack Obama'sfalse statements, his announcing a new trillion dollar program on a monthly basis, and the takeover of huge swaths of the American economy must be— RACIST!

But among the most bizarre of the condemnations of Joe Wilson had to come from the mouth of MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Hardball last week. Proving that the Irish-Catholic upbringing he once touted is fading fast, Matthews showed that like many of his political bent, liberalism is really his religion.

While interviewing Congressman Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona, Matthews trotted out his latest reason as to why Joe Wilson's ill-timed declaration (of truth) was a baaaaad thing.

MATTHEWS: Congressman Franks, I've been on that floor as a staffer. It's a hushed moment, as you know as a member…

FRANKS: Yes.

MATTHEWS: … when the president is in joint session. It's very—almost a sacramental religious experience. You're totally in awe of the moment that you're lucky enough to share or been elected to share. Do you really think that that wasn't an offense against the House, for a member of the House to speak against a guest of the House in public on national television in the way that Mr. Wilson did? You say that's just an affront against the person of the president.

Those of us who made fun of Chris's tingly leg while listening to the President speak, or thought it was darkly humorous when he make this declaration had no idea we were making fun of someone's religion. Maybe we should apologize…

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