Welcome, brothers and sisters. Today, I will measure Matthews against Matthew. Please be seated.
Today's text is Matthew 7:1-2: "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you."
Those of us who followed the Bill Bennett flap understood exactly the moment that the racist thinking happened. The moment he took a claim about abortion and crime (from the book Freakonomics) and in his head changed the "crime" into "black crime" into "the crime of being black" by saying: "you could abort every black baby in this country." (As Media Matters reports, he later attempted to argue that the authors of the book also made a link to race, but that is false.)
Tha same thing occurs with the Matthews flap.
Brothers and sisters, follow me below the fold:
Chris Matthews has called the Democrats racist. But let's use his own measure and measure it back to him, shall we?
Racism is a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities. Now that Hunter has shown us the document that Matthews cited, we know it draws no link between Alito's ethic heritage and the Mafia case or any of the other cases that are listed. So when did the bigotry happen?
The moment Matthews linked the Mafia-related prosecution and an Italian-American judge. That was the race-based connection.
Of course, this puts us in mind of Matthew 7:3-5:"And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck out of your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye."
Just as with Bennett, the idea that Alito's participation in a prosecution of the Mafia should be connected with his "Italianness" came from the depths of Chris Matthews' mind. Matthews took a list of many cases, and thought: in this one, they have the same ethnicity, so this is saying something about Italians as whole. That's when, of all the determinants of human traits and capacities, Matthews chose to go with race. Just as Bennett saw the word criminal, pictured an African-American in his mind, and remembered his own racist picture of a black criminal in connection with the book. Matthews' broadcast tells us more about what Matthew would call the plank in his own eye.
Not that I bear him any ill will, but I do want to remind Brother Tweety what Paul said in Romans 2:1-3: "But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?"
I hope to see you in the pews next week, when we will examine the Theological implications of his show's title "Hardball."