Chris Matthews was becoming the weak link in MSNBC ratings

[itsrobert]

Ed, Olbermann, Maddow, and even O'Donnell's ratings were/are all better than his. It is widely known that Chris Matthews is a jealous machivillian behinnd the scenes. He once was a rising star, but he flamed out quickly. He's still trying to be the 'man' on MSNBC, but that ship sailed about 10 years ago. I don't understand why MSNBC still runs Hardball twice within three hour block, when the other shows have better ratings. SOURE FOR RATINGS is http://www.tvbythenumbers.com under cable news. I think Chris Matthews played a (BIG) part in the interior office politics at MSNBC.

[elias49]

1. Matthews is indeed a pouty little chameleon.

[udbcrzy2]

3. Good description n/t

[DesertFlower]

2. i like chris matthews. i think he has a good show.

but i never did understand why they run his show twice.

[Raine]

5. When he's good he's really really good but

he's so inconsistant. KO was called a loose cannon but I think Matthews is the real loose cannon. Matthew's brain and mouth seem to run independant of each other, he can say some of the most nonsensical things.

[felinetta]

19. I agree. You never know which "Matthews" will speak. When he's on fire, it is great, but

he can really be a total a$$ kisser, like with Tom Delay.

[blogslut]

4. His rapid-fire, abusiive interviewing style angers me

Guests never get a word in edge-wise and when they won't follow his lead he verbally assaults them.

He's kind of like an abusive spouse.

[Shagbark Hickory]

20. Kind of like an abusive spouse? Wait, didn't you just accuse me of

using inappropriate/offensive analogies?

[rpannier]

6. The best of Chris

Compared Bush to Santa Claus
Practically gushed over Bush and his codpiece
Was shocked so many people didn't like DUMB-ya
Is Tom Delay's go to guy

[boobooday]

8. I will never forget the codpiece incident

I can still hear his guest, G. Gordon Shitty, saying "look at that. He just got the vote of every woman in America."

Yes, he really did say that women in the U.S. vote based on perceived penis size.

I will never forget it.

[Kurovski]

21. Chris said that Bush "looked good in jeans."

If he hadn't said it, I swear it would be something I could indeed make up. It was that ridiculously pointless.

[Supersedeas]

30. Shallow Matthews is alway attracted to the shiny thing in the room.

Even Chucky pointed this out to Tweety during a televised interview.

[corpseratemedia]

7. can't watch

mr.screechovercantletyourguestsfinishasentencetalkinghead show...

Seems always like he pulls word salads out of his ass/mouth to sound slightly tv-inflammatory-friendly. So sick of it.

[Paper Roses]

17. Agree n/t

[oldlib]

9. I never watch Chris Matthews.

At this time I can't recall what turned me off. I suspect that it was his acceptance of GWB in the early years of that administration.

[malaise]

10. Tweety has his faults

but he has consistently exposed the teabaggers and the loony ReTHUGS like Michelle Bachmann. Sure he's inconsistent and he's definitely not a liberal but he is a Democrat.

[Kurovski]

22. What she says here...

that malaise person. +1

[mmonk]

31. True.

And the "Wilson's wife is fair game" comment really got to him. And he called the neocons, neocons. Something the msm didn't really.

[tularetom]

11. He has a history of stabbing his colleagues in the back

Remember how he went crying to the NBC suits to get Phil Donohue fired because Donohue's anti Iraq war stance would hurt ratings?

At the time Donohue had the highest rated show on MSNBC.

Tweety is a toady and a sycophant. We've all dealt with people like him.

[Kahuna]

12. I find that hard to believe since Matthews also DID NOT support

the Iraq invasion and said so on his show.

[UTUSN]

13. He skewed "anti-war" in his newspaper columns but in the run-up he was VOCIFEROUS

in his jingoism. Here's my Demopedia entry, a paragraph of the live viewing of HIS public firing of DONAHUE on DONAHUE's own show:

****************

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3854829&mesg_id=3855601
Etymology of "Tweety". During Campaign 2000 the media noise machine was swooning over the nicknames Shrub was giving some of them. Media Whores Online ran a contest to nickname Chris MATTHEWS. In the first 3 or so weeks, there was no clear, catchy front runner, with "The Screamer" sort of leading. Then one of MATTHEWS's own Hardball staff leaked to MWO that they themselves called him "Tweety" because of the Clairol shade he favored. This was immediately declared the winner. But in some quarters, it wasn't entirely satisfactory. For one thing, by the time the name was declared, the shade had changed to platinum, leading to a suggestion he be called "Carole LOMBARD".



Plus, "Tweety" sounded too affectionate.



Then M-TV held its 20th or 25th or whatever anniversary, and all the cable echo chambers were doing segments of Britney shedding her duds down to almost nothing. Not to be left behind, Tweety followed suit, with a guest "culture" commentator from Time Mag, the young humor columnist, Joel STEIN. The staff kept re-running the Britney clip, and Tweety was clearly DROOLING disgustingly. STEIN said, "You're beginning to creep me out." Tweety responded, "Yeah, well, wait till YOU're 50." This led to the suggestion that "Tweety" be modified to "Tweezer" to retain the hair reference while canceling out the affection factor and also adding the (dirty old) "geezer" angle.

Darrell HAMMOND "Doing" Tweety on SNL. Tweety's ego was massively stroked after the debut of HAMMOND's impersonation of him, either in 2001 or 2002. He said, "I am now an ICON: I have been 'done' on Saturday Night Live'." The funniest line in the debut was HAMMOND as Tweety, cracking himself up with, "For the...FIFTY...people who watch this show (Hardball, not SNL)..." In the first few times HAMMOND featured him, the target was Tweety himself--manically interrupting, spitting, and drooling. However, the characterization evolved, not true to the original, where Tweety became the "rational" character surrounded by oddball, extremist "guests", with HAMMOND-Tweety shaking his head in disbelief at their partisan spin.

"Turning" from Being a Democrat. He (like G.E.RUSSERT and Pat CADDELL) still trades on having been a Democrat in the CARTER/O'NEILL era. In the hothouse of big time political flunkydom, STATUS and POWER come from the SUCCESS of your boss. RAYGUN kicked Tweety's bosses' rears, and Tweety gravitated to admiring that "success". When he started up his media career he was mentored by G.E. RUSSERT, who had himself already started "turning" by "reaching out" to LIMBOsevic and expending his formerly-Lib-bleeding-heart on those poor wingnuts who had been maligned and marginalized, lo those many years. Tweety started doing video valentines to RAYGUN, walking arm in arm with Nancy. He might have tapped into the frenzy of the FAKE impeachment, but "hatred of the CLINTONs" isn't what made him turn. The last time he was identifiably a Democrat was sometime after 1988 when Hardball (the book) was published.

How Tweety "Executed" DONAHUE on MSNBC. Tweety was on his book tour for another one of his "books" (large type, wide spaces between lines, blank half-pages). It was in the jingoistic hysteria in the run-up to the illegal Iraq attack. The book was about supposed "Americanism" --an American Civ 101 ripoff about books and movies and cultural stuff that are essentially American (think, "The Great Gatsby"). So Phil welcomed him as a colleague and peer on Phil's show for the full hour to plug the book. From the moment he appeared, there was a strange, deadly snake look in Tweety's snake eyes. Phil was walking around, apparently not sensing anything, while Tweety was motionless, following him only with his eyes. Phil brought up something or other questioning blind jingoism, and Tweety STRUCK! He started out with venom dripping, "You see THIS is EXACTLY what's wrong with you Liberals: You are NEGATIVE about this country, you find NOTHING good about it," and on and on. It took awhile before Phil figured out what was happening. Later, Phil was sitting at the table with Tweety and, weaker and weaker, did some of his trademark shoulder shrugging and arm waving. Tweety delivered the coup de grace, "What's THIS (mimicking the movements)??!! What's with the --APE-- movements???" Days or a week or two later, Phil's cancellation was announced and took effect.

How Tweety "Triggered" a Gun Incident (re: Kathleen WILLEY). At the height of the FAKE impeachment, Ms WILLEY claimed that a mystery jogger had threatened her or her cat or somebody. Several months later, there was gossip that the jogger had been identified. Tweety hosted her and it appeared they had discussed the identity off camera. He tried mightily to get her to say the name on the air, which she wouldn't do. Finally, he himself blurted it out, "Was it Name/Surname?" She would not confirm it. Within days there was a bizarre incident, with the mentally disabled brother of Pat and Bay BUCHANAN going with a gun to the house of the supposed jogger, where there were only some foreign exchange students present. Later it was determined that the person Tweety named on the air had NOTHING to do with the supposed jogger incident.

"Heroes" Tweety and Tom DeLAY. In the aftermath of the 07-24-98 shooting of two Capitol police officers when the slain officers were duly eulogized and called heroes, Tweety latched on to this, the way we have seen him attempt to glorify himself in other instances: Like saying he was assigned in the Peace Corps and "WALKED THE SAME GROUND" THAT CHURCHILL passed through. Or when he said, "I am an ICON! I have been 'done' by SNL!". So now that the Capitol policemen were being called heroes, Tweety came forward to say that HE had been a Capitol policemen, TOO, JUST LIKE THEM, when he was starting out. It turns out that he had worked a (temporary?) job for three months as that. In all the years before the officers were shot and eulogized, he probably NEVER referred to that job, most likely thinking of it as a rent-a-cop turn, until he could see in retrospect the glory that he had been DESTINED to from the beginning.

But he is not the only glory hog. When that incident was happening, the news of the moment reported that Tom DELAY had hopped a plane out of town and immediately turned around in Houston when the incident was over. This show of courage is why he has been dubbed, "Tom-DePLANE!-DePLANE!-DELAY".

But searches of countless news reports of that time show no mention of the hopping-the-plane. Only this is left:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm /... "...House members, many rushing out of town, did not have to remain behind. DeLay slipped out the main door of the Capitol less than 15 minutes after the shooting. He looked stricken. Asked if he'd seen anything, he said, "Did I ever. I don't want to talk about it." Aides rushed him into his waiting car. ...."
------------

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. And then Twitty became the anti-Iraq voice when there was a threat

that his son could get drafted? That kind of hypocrisy?

[felinetta]

18. Yes, I remember him getting rid of Donahue. Thanks for pointing it out.

[chillspike]

14. He's a democrat

That's good enough for me.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. I believe he has a relative who is Republican.

He comes across more like a pub Democrat. Whatever he picks up rubbing elbows with the crowd at the local pub, that's what passes for his politics.

He comes across as anti-choice. Saw his interview with one of the NOW representatives and I'll never forget how they angled the camera so that Twitty's outstretched forearm was at the bottom of the frame as he "hardballed" her. I swear that visually, it looked like he was ready to take a swipe at her.

[davidwparker]

24. So is Ben Nelson. What's your point? n/t

[davidwparker]

23. I agree with your assessment. But, I no longer subscribe

to MSNBC.

In the style of KO:

Day 2 since I dropped MSNBC from Dish Network.

Mr. Speaker, where are the damned jobs?

:hi:

[reformist2]

25. Unfair comparison - Chris isn't on in primetime.

I still like his show the best, personally.

[aaaaaa5a]

26. Neither is Ed.

The Ed Show at 6pm is now beating Mathews at 7pm and 5pm. Of course this will change when Big Ed moves to 10pm next week. Prime-time starts at 8pm and generally runs to 10pm. This is when the audience peaks and is thus considered prime-time. Neither show is actually in the prime-time window, but the 7pm slot is generally better than the 6pm slot because the audience builds as the night progresses.

[mzmolly]

27. Olbermann specifically mentioned 2.5 years of difficulty, which tells

me it was a change in management.

Stewart's "restore false equivalency/sanity" rally may not have helped, either. :shrug:

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

28. Running the same episode twice in three hours doesn't help

I watch Hardball at 5, as do my parents, and turn to something else at 7. It really doesn't make sense to split an audience like that.

[Enthusiast]

29. Tweety = Reagan Democrat. nt

[kjackson227]

32. He caters too much to Palin, and Cheney too much for my liking...

He gives Palin way too much credit as do others, but he's worse. I don't watch MSNBC to see this idiot (Palin) pandered to on an almost daily basis. I can go to Fox for that. I know Chris is probably trying to be objective, but I guess I'm too narrow-minded. I just don't want to hear or see it.