I really think Chris Matthews owes Rev. Al an apology

[lottie244]

He never would have treated another individual that way. It was so obviously racist and demeaning that MSNBC should fire him. Is there just one media colleague who will call him on it? No, not one.

[Dob Bole]

1. If anybody, it will be Jon Stewart...

We'll just have to see at 11. What happened exactly?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. What did he say/do? nt

[southlandshari]

9. summaries and more discussion

here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2105950

[lottie244]

27. I don't know where to begin. It was sad.

Pulled out the Twana Bawley incident.
Asked Al, why should policemen in this country vote for a party that he (Al)represented. (paraphrased)

It was really nasty.

I'm thinking about starting a campaign to call for Matthews to be removed from his position at MSNBC. Wonder if I could get enough people to support the call? Help me DUers with some advice.

[freetobegay]

3. Chris Matthews

Owes the whole Democratic party an apology!

[Jacobin]

4. An apology is not good enough

What he did should get his fat ass fired. I can remember when sportscasters have been fired for less overt racism.

His ass should be FIRED forthwith. It was disgusting

[PROGRESSIVE1]

5. Spread the new meme: "Chris Matthews is a RACIST"

Chris Matthews will Burn In Hell for his "Klan Style" attack on Sharpton.

It was unacceptable!!!

REMEMBER THESE WORDS: CHRIS MATTHEWS IS A RACIST.

[ClassWarrior]

43. Amen PROGRESSIVE1

[qanda]

6. I mean he cannot turn to joe right there on the panel with him

And ask him about his checkered past. The hypocrisy in the media is astounding. I'm just glad that Al wasn't right there with him because I truly believe Al would have knocked his lights out.

[Jacobin]

8. Joe, the Butcher of Pensacola

Who bashes his mistress' head in, kills her, ruins his upcoming political career and then is hired by MSRNC to shill for neo-cons.

Priceless.

[FredScuttle]

39. or Mike Barnicle

Here Tweety has a disgraced plagarist, a man who committed journalistic treason, sitting no more than 20 feet away from him and he treats him like H.L. Mencken!

[G_j]

7. what did he do?

[nyhuskyfan]

11. Grill Him

The sort of thing that nobody ever does to those on the right.

Started with grilling him about whether his speech was approved ahead of time and breaking from the message.

They got into a long fight over Sharpton's statement that if Bush had been President in 1954 (Brown vs. Board of Education), Clarence Thomas wouldn't have gone to law school. Tweety said that Thomas went to a segreated school, so Brown vs. Board didn't effect him and that the entire point was groundless. They went back and forth on that issue four or five times -- I'm not really sure the importance of the argument and whether it was worth the extended time devoted to it.

Then, he went back to the, "Your career began on a lie" and Sharpton answered back that Howard Beach was his first high profile case, so "you need to get your facts straight"

It was a seven minute interview without a softball, which I guess fits the name of the show.

[underpants]

18. Earlier "Why don't you ask Republicans the same hard questions?"

Around 7 PM an Asian young man in the crowd on the other side of the barrier. MAthews tried to do a man in the street thing and said "What question would you like to ask?" The guy gae it right to him and MAthews yanked the mic.

[southlandshari]

22. description way too polite

that wasn't a grilling, it was an all-out ambush. I can take or leave Sharpton, but Matthews was way, way out of line.

Matthews was like a rapid dog - or raccoon. Around here, we shoot those and bury them in the woods so they won't infect anyone else. Hmmmm...

[underpants]

15. Toyana Toyana Toyana "It is a question of credibility"

Sharpton gave it right back to him

"I made my public career based on Jones Beach which I was right about and I was right about Weapons of Mass Destruction"

"The next time you want to confront the principle you better have your facts together"

"I am sorry your feelings are hurt"

It was truly disgraceful-I swear I will never watch Mathews again that was horrible.

I don't agree with the Toyana Brawley thing-and Sharpton's satnd on it-but no one deserves that sort of treatment. It was demeaning with a smiling jackass face on top of it.

[bo44]

23. Despicable demonstration of racist demagoguery

Tweety is punk. Somebody give the pussycat the key to the kkkage.

[newyorican]

28. Howard Beach...

not Jones...

[DemBones DemBones]

10. Is anyone going to tell us WHAT Tweety said/did?

I'm in the whore-free zone, watching C-SPAN.

:shrug:

[underpants]

20. See posts #11 and #15

a very good recap

[s8hanse1]

12. Disagree

I think that Chris Matthews has a pretty good point here. Look, I like Sharpton's message, but it was really off the message of the convention. He went off script, which is always his best work, the dems Ok'd a very specific speech ahead of time.

Matthews is not racist or demeaning. I think he has done an excellent job covering the convention. He has put every speaker's words through a fine-toothed comb. Just because he put sharpton through the ringer, doesn't mean he is racist.

[underpants]

19. Welcome to DU

:hi:


That being said -Are you insane?

Sorry I am highly charged here but Mathews (and Russert-what did Tip O'Neill do so wrong?) grills Dems and licks all over Repubs. His continual gushing praise of W in a flight suit is well.......well it is something.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lottie244]

29. The delegate, the real Dems, loved it. They don't a script, they want

the truth. Chris was off the message and off the issue. It was a cheap, disgusting shot and anyone with an ounce of integrity knows it.

[candy331]

31. So did he bring up Chappaquiddick when Kennedy spoke, cut the

bull I'm tired of this Brawley crap.

[goclark]

36. It was racist as hell!

Matthews is a whore of the first order.
The nerve of him, and others in the media, trying to tell Al how long his speech had to be! Matthews is NOT Al's mama!

It is but another example of the White man trying to tell my people what they should do. How dare he!

Al Sharpton has given millions of minutes in support of the Democratic Party! He really should have been given as much time as he wanted to speak.

He saved the Primary debates more than any other candidate. He is working like hell to bring the African American vote to the Party. His speech was awesome! He spoke the truth to ALL those in attendance.They LOVED it!!!

How dare he!

Al is a hero to the African American Community and that means that he doesn't always do and say what the White Man tells him to say.

Slavery has ended and we are FREE!

[Tomee450]

41. Chris Matthews behavior

was despicable. His face was full of hatred. To my knowledge, Sharpton has done nothing to him and indeed has done nothing to deserve that kind of hatred. But black men who dare to speak about injustice can expect to receive similar treatment. They even did it to Martin Luther King. This is not the first time this has happened to Sharpton. Tim Russert on MTP was also very disrespectful. Donahue, much to my surprise, attacked Farrakhan. People like Matthews want African Americans to accept second class citizenship and not make a fuss about it. I will never forget the look of such hatred;I will never watch any program that he is on.

[umtalal]

13. Big Time

I was feeling anger and hurt for the Rev.

[r_u_stuck2]

14. Absolutely disgusting

He will never talk to anyone in the RNC the way he talked to Al.

Al is not a dummy. Is he wrong sometimes? Yes, everybody is. Did he deserve the treatment he got. Nobody does.

You folks forget, Tweety is managed by corporate america. GE will reward him nicely for his coverage.

[shoopnyc123]

16. Email [e-mail]

He said that Clarence Thomas was not a product of Affirmative Action, nor benefited from Brown VS Board of Education. He accused Sharton of being wrong on this, because he went to an all black school WHEN HE WAS A CHILD. Email msnbc. Chris's hatred was certainly palpable.

[CaTeacher]

17. We should call Tweety on this--

Sharpton is an American hero, his speech was one of the very best! He deserves to be treated with respect--he is a senior leader and a great representative of the Democratic party.

[southlandshari]

51. has anyone gotten a response?

I'd like to hear whether anyone has gotten any sort of responce from MSNBC (even an autoreply). I have a contact there who would like to know if his network shows any interest at all in viewer opinion. He is in a position to do something about it if no one hears anything back...

[SayitAintSo]

24. Matthews is a prick ... the more excited he gets

The ruder he gets.... He's in need of major old fashioned smackdown - IMO.

[Gold Metal Flake]

25. TWeety did his job.

I am just flummuxed at how many folks here seem to think that Tweety, Bill "Shut Up!" O'liely, insHanity and the rest are about issues or information. They are not. The shows are about conflict. It's a boxing match. It's about who can score the best points. It's aimed at the right wing.

When conversation devolves into shouting, information can not pass. The next stop in this devoltion of discourse is violence. Since we are not yet there as a country, we are stopped at the shouting stage. Communication stops, society becomes fractured. The fractured portions are smaller and easier to mislead.

The screamfests are a vital part of the Corporate Social Control System. To make them out to be a legitimate form of discourse is to become a part of the machine that is destroying us.

I got no solutions here. Don't watch, complain, vote in a whole bunch of Dems and then hold their feet to the fire are about all I can suggest.

My brain hurts.

[DemBones DemBones]

26. NEWS should not be aimed at the right wing, or the left wing,

or anywhere else.

COMMENTARY should be identified as such. INTERVIEWS should be fair and balanced. We had the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE once to ensure that. Ronald Reagan was against fairness and so he ended the Fairness Doctrine.

It's time to stop the insanity.

[southlandshari]

44. Going for the gold

There must be a secret gold medal in media muckraking and nastiness, and Chris Matthews must have been going for it last night.

I think what most people here - who understand the stranglehold big corporations have on mainstream U.S. media today - are reacting to is the fact that the Matthews-Sharpton exchange was much more vicious and obvious than most of the daily fare on cable "news" right now.

I'm not saying the constant bias is exactly subtle on MSNBC, CNN and Fox - just that Matthews' attack went over and above the call of duty most broadcast "news" folks obviously feel to the powers-that-be. It shocked me, and obviously many others here, and none of us are ignorant to the sorry state of affairs in broadcast news these days.

[Doctor_J]

30. if he had enough shame to apologize,

he would've quit MSRNC and gone to work for Smirk long ago.

[lottie244]

32. I sent my letter asking for him to be fired, anyway.

As soon as I get a response, I will post it.

[Gregorian]

33. Absolutely! That was vile.

I don't know how Sharpton held it together.

The worst part of it all is that this is our media. This is not just some game. We the people deserve, and depend, upon this group of journalists to provide us our lifeline of feedback. The media is an integral part of America. Not just some profiteering group of idealogues.

[chaumont58]

34. Tweety's parents owe the world an apology

for not practicing better birth control.

[Shopaholic]

35. I thought Al did just fine

making Tweety look like the idiot that he is when Chris interviewed Rev. Sharpton last night. For those of you who didn't see it, Al more than held his own!

[genius]

37. Mathews is backing Bush. What do you expect?

[napi21]

38. I disagree.

If he should apologized to Rev. Al, he then should apologize to almost every guest he's had on the show. He acts like that to almost everyone!

Ask that he be fired, fine. If he is not doing his job, he should be fired. I just wonder if his job is to create controversy. If it is, then your gripe is with MSNBC, not Tweety.

[FredScuttle]

40. "He acts like that to almost everyone"

Absolutely right...he acts like that if you have a (D) or (I) next to your name. If you're in the loving embrace of the GOP, then Tweety swoons over you and asks you to join him in loving remembrance of Bush standing at Ground Zero with the rescue workers

[Tomee450]

42. Not true

Chris Matthews can be awful but his treatment of Sharpton was especially disrespectful. He showed how he really feels about black people. He was determined to put that uppity Negro in his place. Every time I see him I will always think of this interview. Of course, when he comes on a program I am watching, I will immediately change the channel. Never want to hear another word he says.

[DWolper]

45. You are forgetting

To many here, if it's done to a white person it's just being a "whore," but if it's done to Rev. Al Sharpton it is "racist." If anything, Rev. Sharpton owes an apology to certain families in NYC he destroyed. The man is despicable.

[southlandshari]

46. Source?

Can you give a link to a thread here or article elsewhere where either a DU'er or Al Sharpton himself ever called an alleged rape victim who is white a "whore"?

Maybe I misunderstood your post. Can you clarify?

[Tomee450]

47. What did he do to the families of New York?

If anything, many black families in New York are owed an apology for the mistreatment they received at the hands of the people Sharpton opposed. Sharpton has done a lot of good in his life and did not deserve to be treated as he was. It was Sharpton who brought racial profiling into public view. Sharpton has always fought injustice and some people don't like it. They will go over his past with a fine tooth comb while ignoring the sins of others.

[Tomee450]

48. You seem to be

concerned with only certain families. What about the families of the black youth who were sent to jail in the Central Park jogger case for a crime they did not commit. I think they are owed an apology. Those young men's lives are ruined. I don't believe the Hawkins,Diallo and Louima families ever received apologies for the suffering they endured.

[southlandshari]

50. very good point

I think many are unfamiliar with the details of both the Tawanna Brawley case and the Central Park Jogger case. They were 17 and 15 years ago respectively, and unfortunately, most remember the headlines but not the facts.

Al Sharpton has taken a stand for people he believed were telling the truth. He has proven he would rather be right than popular, because he has taken intense criticism for his positions over the years, yet has never once wavered in his stance in these two (and many other) important cases.

Many, many family lives have been ruined in NYC (and around the country) by dishonest and self-aggrandizing political dealings in the past couple of decades. Al Sharpton has taken FAR more of the blame for that than is his due. It is hard to come up with an explanation for why that is. I think a lot of racism happens in people's subconcious, and many in the "majority" don't even realize their adverse reaction to Sharpton comes from a deep discomfort with black leaders willing to speak truth to power.

[lottie244]

53. I couldn't have said it better my self.

Thanks for your insightful words.

[noiretextatique]

49. that's true to some extent...since racism in public life

almost always is directed at people of color. and of course when it comes to the rw and their friends, they aren't shy about their racist attitudes. the problem is that so many on our side defend them :eyes:

[TeacherCreature]

54. Why is it that you always show up to bash Sharpton?

He didn't destroy anyone. He believed that girl that is not a reason to lynch him publically for the rest of his life.
But then the right loves to do that to uppity negroes. McKinney, Carol Mosely Braun, Jesse Jackson etc.......

[tom_paine]

52. Tweety owes all of Free America an apology

for licking the boots of King George to a high-gloss.

Fuck him and his Toadying Ways.

[mandyky]

55. Along with Howard Fineman and Doris Goodwin

Their comments about Al Sharpton were totally clueless and malignent!
I want all of these media whores rounded up and fired, if not fired upon! LOL

[tishaLA]

56. With Howie, one almost expects it

But damn Doris hasn't evolved very much has she?

I loved seeing those fools put in their places on the Daily Show. What a bunch of turd farmers and goat ball lickers.