Ouch. Seriously, ouch. I don’t think Matthews is going to like the way he comes off in this article. I mean, damn. He comes off really, really, really bad. Some highlights:
Kerry Washington is a big Obama supporter and was in town for the debate; more to the point, she said she likes “Hardball.” Matthews grabbed her hand, and Phil Griffin, the head of MSNBC who was seated across the table, vowed to get her on the show.
“I know why he wants you on,” Matthews said to Washington while looking at Griffin. At which point Matthews did something he rarely does. He paused. He seemed actually to be considering what he was about to say. He might even have been editing himself, which is anything but a natural act for him. He was grimacing. I imagined a little superego hamster racing against a speeding treadmill inside Matthews’s skull,
until the superego hamster was overrun and the pause ended.“He wants you on because you’re beautiful,” Matthews said. “And because you’re black.” He handed Washington a business card and told her to call anytime “if you ever want to hang out with Chris Matthews.”
<snip>
“Did you see me on the ‘Today’ show?” Matthews asked when I called him one afternoon in early March. “I quoted F. Scott Fitzgerald. I think I’m the only guy around who quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald on the ‘Today’ show.”
<snip>
He’s big into the Pennsylvania primary, talks a lot to “Eddie Rendell” and urged me repeatedly to call the Pennsylvania governor’s office and “talk to Eddie Rendell about me.”
“By the way, have you figured me out yet?” Matthews said at the end of another phone conversation the following day. “You gotta understand, it’s all complicated. It’s not like Tim.”
The rest of the article is about the same. Almost makes you feel bad for the guy.
