by Jamison Foser
Chris Matthews' interest in the Pennsylvania Senate seat currently held by Republican Arlen Specter raises the possibility of something that is all too rare among the nation's media elite: accountability.
It has long been clear that if we applied to journalists who cover politics the standards they purport to apply to politicians -- truthfulness, judgment, being in touch with regular Americans, and so on -- many of them would fare quite poorly.
Few journalists are as aggressive as Chris Matthews in purporting to speak for average voters -- or as quick to declare (liberal) politicians to be out of touch with those voters. And few have his track record of failing to live up to the standards he sets for politicians, particularly Democrats. But there is no real accountability in cable news -- no matter how often Matthews is wrong on the facts, or how frequently he offends the concepts of fairness and rational thought, there are rarely consequences.
True, Matthews did have to apologize after a particularly offensive string of commentary about Hillary Clinton earlier this year, though given his long track record of misogynistic comments, it is clear he got off easy even then -- particularly in comparison to his colleague David Shuster, who was suspended after an inappropriate comment of his own. Shuster likely paid the price not only for his own nasty remark about Clinton, but for his more famous colleague's long string of sexist commentary as well. As long as Matthews stops short of Imus-level offensiveness, MSNBC seems quite happy to continue broadcasting his false claims and inane commentary.
Should he run for the Senate, however, Matthews might finally have to answer for his dubious track record. And he'll have to do so outside of his comfortable cocoon of fellow Beltway journalists and political insiders who are too eager to get invited back to ever truly challenge him on his cable program. Indeed, he'll have to do so while facing the very "regular Americans" he has caricatured so grotesquely over the years.
True, Pennsylvania voters aren't much more likely than MSNBC executives to care about Matthews' long string of false claims on Hardball.
But they may well be less pleased than Matthews' bosses at General Electric with his at times effusive praise for President Bush -- and even less pleased with his insults of people who disagree with him. In 2005, for example, Matthews said of Bush: "I like him. Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left -- I mean -- like him personally." At the time the "real whack-jobs" who disliked Bush constituted a majority of the American public. The following year, Matthews called Bush "a wise man ... almost Atticus Finch."
http://mediamatters.org/items/200812190012?newsref=www.eschatonblog.com
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