Chief among the waiting-for-Godot brand of journalists is Chris Matthews, MSNBC's sustainer of other broadcasts, who pays lip service to his humble origins while demonstrating on virtually every edition of his "Hardball" program the extent to which he has abandoned them.
While hardly unique among those about whom the popular website Daily Howler has coined the term "the perfumed press corps," Matthews presents a striking case-in-point of someone so removed from the "common man" he purports to speak for he truly is ignorant of the irony of such spontaneous outbursts as "most people like George Bush, except for a couple of wackjobs on the left" (Monday, November 28, 2005) and similar preposterous pronouncements breezily emanating from his mouth.
Contrast this remark with the president's contemporaneously issued dismal approval ratings ("We like him, we just don't trust him with our lives" is the bizarre implication) then consider that several months earlier Matthews frivolously expended precious air time in an interview with media mogul and obscenely-wealthy, far-too-influential, and super-elitist Jack Welch, culminating with the question "Is George Bush a nice guy?" This directed to a man eternally immune from the aches and pains of the average citizen, and therefore the repercussions of administration policy. Now consider that the vast majority of the audience presumes no expectation of a golf outing or other social occasion with the ultimate sheltered leader of the free world and struggle to prevent the word "clueless" from leaping to mind.
Furthermore, and by no means an aside, Matthews eagerly contributed to the election of Bush, not so much by praising his agenda or qualifications during his first campaign as by almost giddily participating in the Gore disparagement game, engaging in the infamous and shameless "earth tone" commentary, lies that weren't lies accusations, and Naomi Wolff involvement speculation that became a moderately determinative factor in the 2000 outcome. That these "issues" were as trivial as they should have been inconsequential seems appropriate for a man whose station in life distances himself from being impacted one way or the other by whoever is president.
In addition, Mr. Matthews has published a book entitled "America: A Grand Notion" (or some such declaration not worth bothering research into the verbatim title) which, ostensibly a tribute to the conditions under which its citizens are encouraged to flourish and prosper, merely spotlights the evidence that if Mr. Matthews ever knew the difference between "grand" and "grandiose" he lost the distinction somewhere between obscurity and fame.
Impervious to critiques of his pseudo-, corporate-governed journalism, Matthews has only become emboldened - and further isolated - by his well-compensated, toe-the-line success. It is interesting to note that several years ago he abruptly terminated the shock-for-the-sake-of-shock appearances of polemicist Ann Coulter on his program not due to the cumulative effect of her easily disproven partisan assertions but because she insulted the memory of George C. Scott, one of Matthews' personal icons. While Coulter is largely insulated from written rebuttal by a young webmaster named Tom Scerbo who also runs her public email account, Matthews has his own moat-around-the-castle protector in the person of Dominic Bellone at the email address representing the closest the ordinary non-celebrity will ever get to Matthews - ie, not at all. Through that arrangement, one of Mr. Bellone's jobs is to ensure that Mr. Matthews will never read these words as he continues to spout meaningless platitudes, aching clichés, misleading if not dangerous generalities, and assorted all-purpose nonsense with the best of them as his self-satisfied smile accompanies every cut to commercial break of his program.
Thus, as bogus as he is - might one fairly characterize him as a delusional, fantasy-based, media "wackjob"? - Matthews is even more impenetrable.
