Credit Where It's Due: Chris Matthews File

by: Daniel De Groot

Thu Feb 26, 2009 at 00:00


We in the netroots spend a great deal of time bashing the Villagers for the profound disconnect with reality, and the disconnect has rarely been more glaring than over the Stimulus bill and the lack of bi-partisanship in passing it.  One of the themes I really admire in Glenn Greenwald's writing is the times he reveals prominent journalists implicitly presuming their own opinions must reflect the broad American polity not merely in the absence of empirical proof, but in direct contradiction to it as polling on that very question had been done.  

Well last night on Hardball, Chris Matthews took a laudable step by acknowledging the recent NY Times polling on the bi-partisanship question:

Daniel De Groot :: Credit Where It's Due: Chris Matthews File

Leading off tonight:  We're in deep trouble.  Can President Obama get us out?  Standing before the U.S. Congress and the country tonight, that will be the question on everyone's mind.  Does this man, this inspiring American we elected to lead us, have the answer to the failing economy?  Does he hold in his head the prescription for what ails us?  Can he, to put it in human terms, make us better?

One thing he has going for him is his enormous personal popularity.  People like Barack Obama.  They like the idea he's our president.  Polls out just today show a general optimism about the coming four years.

They also show that we, the American people, want him to be the change he promised to be in the campaign.  They don't want him to simply split things with the Republicans.  In fact, they want him to stick to his positions.

On the contrary, they want the Republicans to give way and lean over to President Barack's side of things.  So, that's how it stands as the new president walks into the House chamber tonight to the hoots and hollers of his fellow Democrats and something more reserved-we will have to see what it is-from across the aisle.  

I know it seems trivial and thus not worth any virtual ink to praise, but we've spent so much time pointing out all the times the villagers either fail to even note the existence of polling, or finding creative and mendacious ways of interpreting the results to mean what they want it to mean, so this is worth something.

Matthews also goes on admirably to question his Republican guest, Senator Ensign (R-NV) on this very subject:


The new CBS/"New York Times" poll shows that three-quarters of Americans now say President Obama is trying to work with Republicans-he's trying to be bipartisan, people think-while only three in 10 think Republicans are trying to work with him.

Earlier, I asked Republican Senator John Ensign of Nevada about that very question.

Here's Senator Ensign.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)      

SEN. JOHN ENSIGN ®, NEVADA:  We want bipartisanship.  I think that's what the American people are asking.  You need to start the process from the beginning in a bipartisanship fashion.  If we're going to craft a bill, you need Democrats and Republicans sitting down together to work things out.

What happened with the stimulus bill, for example, is that the Democrats in the House of Representatives wrote that.  That was a mistake the president made.  He knows he made that mistake.  And that's why you saw so little Republican support.  I think as we're going forward, whether it's health care, whether it's any other issues, we need to start with Republicans and Democrats together at the table to solve some of these major challenges that we have coming forward.

Once again Ensign plays the "Republicans voted against popular legislation because the mean Democrats hurt our feelings" card that Eric Cantor crafted after the original bank bailout vote failed in the House.  Whatever.  Viewers and voters can decide if Ensign's reply makes any sense given the polling Matthews cited telling Republicans to be more conciliatory to Obama's agenda.  

Media stars often complain about the blogs and make it as if we are implacable, and perhaps they really believe it, but this is pretty much all we're after.  Read the polls, interpret them reasonably and stop asserting things the American people "believe" that are clearly contradicted by the polls.  Challenge elected officials when they do the same.  It's not that complicated.  Not that this is the end-all and be-all of journalism, but it is enough to run a passable show that won't generate nastygrams and scornful nicknames like "Tweety."

Bonus plaudits to Matthews for this bit too, while asking Senator Ensign (R-NV) if he believes in the very concept of Keynesian stimulus spending:


ENSIGN: [...] So I don't think you can make a good argument that a stimulus package and spending is going to take you out of a recession.  The right kind of tax cuts targeted especially towards small business to incentivize them to invest and create jobs is the way you pull yourself out of a recession.  That's what's done it in the past, and I believe that's what would help do it today.

MATTHEWS:  But-but doesn't everybody know that the reason we got out of the Great Depression was the huge spending that went on when we began to support Britain in the war against the Nazis, that huge amount of government spending that went on in the late '30s and early '40s?  That's what got us out of the Depression, right?

Ensign's contorted reply (where he tries to claim Hoover tried big spending) is unimportant, but it is good to see Matthews use the universally accepted theory that WWII ended the Great Depression as proof that stimulus spending has worked.  It is an obvious point, but one that I have shouted at the TV a number of times recently watching Republicans bash stimulus spending or FDR with no rebuttal.  

Republicans are arguing against something that everyone (Canadians too) learns in high school history class, and while that doesn't make it true, it should certainly raise the bar of evidence required to claim differently.  It's not like Republicans are challenging the notion that WWII in fact ended the Great Depression, nor do they have a competing theory of how it did so.  If it wasn't the stimulative effect of all the munitions spending, what do they think caused the end of the Great Depression?  Propaganda posters?

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Credit Where It's Due: Chris Matthews File | 26 comments
Bravo (4.00 / 6)
One thing we have to realize is that we are teaching an old dog new tricks.

It hard but possible to do so. But you have to reward good behavior as well as punish bad.

Matthews (4.00 / 5)
I'm not a big fan of his, but I've seen his show enough times to know that the bipartisan thing wasn't one of his particular fetishes.  He'll trumpet whatever the Village is saying, sure, but he's never been the loudest proponent of that particular aspect.  What's important in understanding him, though, is that he's the canary in the coal mine.  When opinion starts to shift, he's one of the first Villagers to change his tune.

I think his biggest sin, though, is clinging to process to the degree that he almost never cares about the policy or the real-world implications of something political.  It's always about the campaign and the gamesmanship.  For him, winning isn't seeing a law or act or whatever end up pulling people out of poverty or something.  It's getting a bill passed and making your enemies look like fools.  (Obviously getting a bill passed is necessary, but it's not the end of the story.)

I agree about the canary thing ... (0.00 / 0)
... and I also think that he's not merely a canary.  I think he helps shape Village opinion.  

There have been several times in the past few years where a certain viewpoint was reaching the tipping point, and I would suggest that a particularly aggressive CM interview or segment helped push it over the edge.  Kevin James/appeaser comes to mind ... that meme was shut down pretty quickly after that.

Maybe I'm reading into things.

Republicans can't fix our country; they're too busy saddlebacking.

[ Parent ]
I agree (4.00 / 3)
Let's recognize 'em for when they do right. Good on ya' Chris Matthews.
OK, I'm still not getting the point (0.00 / 0)
about Obama and the Democrats being the ones on the right side of economic history and theory, and the Republicans being just imbecilic fruitcakes.

Well, alright, I actually do get the half about Republicans being imbecilic fruitcakes.

But I haven't heard of a single prominent economist of a Keynesian bent outside the Obama administration who has said, yes, the stimulus that Obama has designed and signed off on is clearly adequate for its purposes. I've heard any number of such outside economists -- Paul Krugman, Dean Baker, James Galbraith as good examples -- who have declared that the stimulus is only a fraction of the size it needs to be.

Can anybody identify any economists outside the WH who have said the stimulus should suffice, and provided a plausible argument?

If not, then why are we patting ourselves on the back right about now, and bothering to ridicule the Republicans? Why are we pretending to be the reality-based crowd? Why isn't our hair on fire, seeing that the economy will very, very likely tank if nothing more is done? Why isn't getting Obama to push that priority one for those who want to see a second term for Obama -- not to mention the commendable goal of pulling our economy out of the pits?

If I strongly believed in an economic theory, and that theory instructed that the measures we were taking would not save us from ruin, I'd be troubled. Really troubled. I would say to myself, things may feel fine now, but they are going to hurt like a bastard in a year or two or three or four.

And I would try to impress people that my obsession should be their obsession -- perhaps in much the same way and for the same reasons that a few economists who saw the housing and banking crisis coming before it arrived couldn't seem to stop themselves from talking about it.

Adequate (4.00 / 3)
Even those in the White House have admitted the stimulus bill probably isn't enough to do the job.  But this was just a single bill.  More work will be done in most every bill passed by congress this year.

And yes, I really do mean most every bill.  Remember those efficiency numbers everyone posted last month?  Tax cuts for the rich do almost nothing but more money for the poor and middle class do a lot.  Even if you are revenue neutral, every policy choice that directs money away from the richer and towards the poorer people helps the economy.  The health care money put aside in Obama's budget, for instance, will be a big stimulus itself.

[ Parent ]
I certainly agree that every dollar of (4.00 / 2)
spending -- as well as every dollar of tax cut, of course -- creates more stimulus. A stimulus is all about deficit spending, pretty much however achieved -- though of course some methods (e.g., spending on services or infrastructure) are far more effective than others (e.g., tax cuts for the rich).

But that's exactly why Obama's plan to bring down deficit spending to half its current value in a few years is so deeply wrongheaded.

And what I don't see at all is how one maintains and builds on the current stimulus by cutting deficit spending. Both for FDR in 1937, and Japan more recently, attempts to cut deficit spending even three or four years after a stimulus was enacted turned into disasters.

Robert Reich wrote a piece arguing much the same point.

[ Parent ]
Not quite what I said (4.00 / 5)
You said "every dollar of spending -- as well as every dollar of tax cut, of course -- creates more stimulus".  While this is true, this was not my point.  My point was the efficiency ratios work both ways.

For example, raising taxes on the rich is anti-stimulus, but with about a 0.3 multiplier.  Additional money for lower class workers is pro-stimulus, but with about a 1.3 multiplier.  This difference mean you can be revenue neutral and still stimulating.

Take the new health care outline.  Each year about $600 million will be diverted from the rich and corporations to lower wage workers.  This gives a stimulus of $600x1.3 - $600x0.3 = $600 million.  Over half a billion a year in stimulus without a dime added to the national dept.

Every time working people are prioritized over the rich, we get this kind of stimulative effect.

[ Parent ]
This is clear effective analysis and writing, Bravo. (4.00 / 2)

The move toward progressive taxation, the provision of necessary services, and the increase of demand for productive capacity all in one simple step.

Understanding and feeling what Mark has written here us central to helping Obama and progressives not just create a fairer, saner, society, but is also what is necessary for  understanding what is necessary for rescuing the economy. Mark has outlined what needs to be a 'rule of thumb'.

Legislative acts that end the bias toward the rich, eg. making the tax code fairer, establishing universal healthcare, funding the education system as if the students mattered, all work toward repairing the economy and saving the nation.

Each of these initiatives being brought forward is an addition to the stimulus package. Obama has set aside almost 700 billion for funding the establishment of universality in health (!!Bravo!!), which feeds the stimulus. The necessary steps to replacing oil in the economy, building solar panels and windmills et al. is a further third leg.

Thanks Mark.



Change
"We must break up the banks and never again let them get so big that they distort our politics and take down the economy.

[ Parent ]
You are forgetting (0.00 / 0)
that the 600+ Billion for health care is spread over TEN years -- each year, it would of course be roughly only 60 Billion years.

For what it's worth, the current stimulus of 787 Billion actually unfairly represents its overall size. The AMT fix of 70 Billion it was forced to include would have been implemented anyway in further legislation in any case, as it has always been in the past. Using that past as a baseline, then, the real size of the stimulus would be about 720 Billion. Adding the 60 Billion to that figure brings it back up to the roughly 800 Billion dollar mark -- which, again, is considered by all economists of a Keynesian orientation outside the administration (so far as I know) as being very likely woefully deficient.

[ Parent ]
Let me just add my bafflement here (0.00 / 0)
Why are you and Mark defending Obama's approach here, and trying to convince yourself and others that it is something it most clearly is not?

Do you not appreciate that numbers count, and reality always gets the last laugh?

If Obama's proposal won't solve the problem, it won't solve the problem. It's like the levees in New Orleans which are going to break if they aren't engineered adequately to the task.

This isn't a matter of political spin. It's a matter of economic fact.

Why not try to understand those facts and come up with policies that should be advocated for?

If Obama's proposals fail, and do so because they don't respect basic economic prediction, who is to blame for that but Obama himself, his staff, and his uncritical supporters?

You won't be able to lay the blame at the door of the Republicans if Obama's proposal fails -- he himself came up with the inadequate stimulus, and pronounced it sufficient to the job.

I wonder how much amusement the Republicans will have at the Democrats expense should that day arrive? I wonder who our imbecilic Bobby Jindal will be in 2013, responding lamely to the newly installed Republican President's SOTU, trying to foist the blame for the economic fiasco on Republican policies?  

[ Parent ]
Your entirely missing the big picture here (0.00 / 0)
While, as I myself indicated, there are important differences in stimulus effect depending on how deficit spending is achieved, the overall numbers in Obama's proposed budget just don't add up to something remotely resembling sufficient stimulus over the next several years. This is most especially true because of his goal to reduce deficit spending by half by the end of his first term.

While it's easy to applaud letting the Bush tax cuts lapse, if they aren't replaced by something creating a stimulus effect, then it's a net loss for creating further stimulus. Likewise for cutting expenditures for the war in Iraq -- which I would certainly expect to have significantly greater stimulus effect than Bush's tax cuts for the rich. What Obama should be doing is proposing something to replace those expenditures, and instead, on balance, he is simply proposing to cut drastically deficit spending.

I'm fairly amazed that you even bring up the example of the $600 million that you say is going to be diverted from the rich and corporations to lower wage workers (assuming those numbers are anything like correct). Do you not appreciate that when we are talking about a $700 BILLION dollar stimulus as being far inadequate already, that a $600 MILLION item is 3 orders of magnitude too small to make any real dent on the problem?

Basically, you can't get around the big numbers in his proposed budget by expecting smallish differences in stimulus-effectiveness ratios to make up the difference. The basic question is, in Obama's proposed budget, is what is proposed going to increase the clearly deficient stimulus effect of the current package? The answer to that question is a resounding NO -- indeed, the stimulus effect is only going to go dramatically down toward the end of his term.

Again, take a look at Reich's article to get a better sense of this, even though he doesn't delve greatly in the details. At least Reich's suggestion is based on an appreciation of the scope ofthe numbers involved.

[ Parent ]
$60 billion (0.00 / 0)
I had a bit of a brain fart last night.  I said $600 million instead of $60 billion.  Who would have thought dividing by 10 would be so hard!  (For my defense, I was just drowsily checking in before going to bed, but sheesh.)

Anyway, I'm not claiming the $60 billion in additional stimulus is enough all by itself.  The point is these kinds of priority adjustments are taking place up and down the entire budget.  All of it matters.

So I'm really not all that concerned on the stimulus side.  We have a good start and all signs are we will have more going  forward.

On the other hand, I'm very worried about the financial side.

[ Parent ]
Well, (0.00 / 0)
as I said in the response to HousesOfProgress's comment, the 60 Billion per year doesn't even make up for the $70 Billion overestimate of the aggregate size of the stimulus package because it includes a 70 Billion AMT fix that was going to be implemented in any case, and so should have been counted as part of the baseline in the past (which is what we need to get a stimulus effect on top of).

And I think the only correct way to view the handling of the banking crisis is that that, too, is something that must be adequately handled if we are to get out of our economic slump. Failed policies on either front -- stimulus or banking remedy -- will doom us to a very prolonged economic downturn.

So far, the stimulus as it stands in isolation would appear to be quite deficient, and the banking problem certainly remains incapable of remedy by what has been proposed so far by the Obama WH.

Despair over one should not preclude despair over the other.

[ Parent ]
AMT Fix (0.00 / 0)
I agree that the AMT fix sucks.  However, the good news it is already accounted for.  In other words, that is $70 billion that can be added to the budget instead of the AMT fix that was going in, anyway.  Now, that $70 billion that was going to go for bad tax breaks in the stimulus will instead go to spending in the budget.

Of course, if they passed the AMT fix as a separate bill, then this point is moot, so my assumption could be incorrect.  But that doesn't change the fact the AMT fix replaced mostly bad tax breaks in the bill, not good spending.

[ Parent ]
A little off topic but (0.00 / 0)
Did he really say "President Barack?" Perhaps it was a slip, but a) I don't ever really recall a commentator trippingly saying "President George," and b) I swear I heard another network--admittedly perhaps something banal like the Today Show--literally refer to him simply as Barack. I'm not going to go into any of the implications there, and actually in some ways "President Barack" almost has a younger, shirtsleeves but still respectful vibe. Watch for it over the next few months. See if anybody goes casual on the 44th President of the United States. (yep, just checked: still some goosebumps on that one.)  

Help us Optimize McCain! Use these widgets to make it crazy-easy...
He Did That Often (0.00 / 0)
     During the campaign and before the inauguration, I noticed that Matthews often referred to the President as "Barack", rather than "Obama", and it always reminded me of Southerners who address older Black people by their first name. I've never noticed him do so with white people.
    File this one under "Blind Pig Finds Acorn". Matthews is a waste of a human life, but even a stopped clock is right on occasion.
[ Parent ]
i scream too (4.00 / 1)
i write almost a letter a day to
hardball@msnbc.com

usually complaining about some assumption or other such nonsense as you indicated above.  I have to say that Matthews does have his moments and here you have found one that does warrant a "good going champ" email for sure.


No thanks (4.00 / 1)
Matthews remains a cheerleader for Jack Welch and the corporatist state.  He remains a sexist pig.  He remains part of the reason Al Gore was lied about, trashed on a daily basis on the tube, giving W a chance to be elected.

His personal vendetta's against some and his alliances with people like Tom Delay qualifies him as untrustworthy.

Chris Matthews is the ultimate brown noser....the ultimate kiss up to the Village type.  

His claims to be connected to the Philly union types, blue collar workers is bogus.  He is my age and grew up not far from me. No I did not know him.  But I knew his type.  He was a prep school boy, from a conservative Irish Catholic family in one of the whiter burbs of the area.  I was from the Steel town, the one filled with blue collar workers living in the midst of one of the richest counties in the country.  Matthews and his ilk identified with the rich and powerful, not the unions and their workers.  And they looked their noses down at us; resented us when we showed up at their prep school dances; believe me, I know his type.

You want to cheer the guy who said "the only guys who don't like W (in 2003) are whackos on the left";  or whose sexism is so blatant STILL (did you people not hear him blathering over Michelle Obama's "looks")....as a woman, he makes me ill.  
Now he's all serious about the financial crisis. Of course, his investments are losing money.  

Sorry whenever progressives start cheering on someone like Matthews who has shown his sexism, his preference for those in power by kissing up regardless of reality, morality...

Oh man, I need to stop.  I cannot believe any one would devote a diary to praising a man who helped put a loser like W in office; who still worships Reagan and whose public treatment of  and attitude toward women is sick...

so is there no redemption? (4.00 / 1)
This is an isolated instance, and on the whole I am no fan of Matthews.  But what if he starts consistently behaving this way?

And the point of the diary is not "Chris Matthews is great" but "Chris matthews did the right thing today" which are very different points.  If we want media stars to behave differently, we need to encourage the kinds of behaviours that we want to see.  It isn't Matthews, but other media stars need to have the examples of what we'd like to see pointed out so they can at least have some glimmer of what it takes to stop the barrage of criticism.  

Many won't care to, or ever read something like this, but I can only shout from the small hill I'm on and hope they hear.

[ Parent ]
There is redemption (0.00 / 0)
of course...but not for phonies like Matthews.

Just last week, Joan Walsh is insulted by one of the worst sexist pigs, Dick Armey, on Matthews show.  And what does Matthews do?  NOTHING....not a damn thing.  I think he may have forced out a weak "It wasn't nice....well after the fact" and then on Schuster's show, after Schuster or someone said something about how obnoxious Armey was, what was Matthews retort. "It wasn't but he's really a nice guy....."

Sorry, racists and sexists pigs need to consistently show they have changed.  Matthews has not and most women I know find him disgusting.

[ Parent ]
It's Like Global Warming (0.00 / 0)
It's not like Republicans are challenging the notion that WWII in fact ended the Great Depression, nor do they have a competing theory of how it did so.  If it wasn't the stimulative effect of all the munitions spending, what do they think caused the end of the Great Depression?  Propaganda posters?

The sunspot cycle did it.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

An earlier draft (4.00 / 1)
Of that paragraph asked if they thought Patton ended the Great Depression.  I changed it because I fear if I suggest it, they'll actually run with the notion that Patton's victories in Italy cheered up the Western World so much that the Depression ended.  Since they already believe recessions are psychological, they'd be only too open to a new myth like that.

[ Parent ]
It Was Shirley Temple (0.00 / 0)
My sister watched all her movies on UHF when we were kids, and she ended the Depression with a song and a dance in every single one of them!

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3
[ Parent ]
For every brownie point you can give to a Chris Matthews (0.00 / 0)
there are how many turds being laid by the David Broders of the world:
"The size of the gambles that President Obama is taking every day is simply staggering. What came through in his speech to a joint session of Congress and a national television audience Tuesday night was a dramatic reminder of the unbelievable stakes he has placed on the table in his first month in office, putting at risk the future well-being of the country and the Democratic Party's control of Washington."
[snip]
"The risk to Obama's ambitions is likely to arise less from the defeated Republicans than from the victorious Democrats."
The narrative in the media that it is House Democrats -- the "extremists" on the left -- who are endangering the nation, and not the obstructionist conservative Republicans, is way more pervasive than reporting that focuses on the real story about the popularity of universal healthcare, support for education, increased government regulation of big businesses, and other goals of liberal Democrats. Your generosity toward Matthews is to be commended but let's keep it in context.
Matthews is so schizophrenic (0.00 / 0)
He's the type that can get wrapped up in his man-crushes, or trivialities like orange-juice-gate, but other times he's completely on the ball.

A couple other examples... He did a skillful job at helping Michelle Bachmann hang herself... He obliterated Bobby Jindal the other night, offering a more scathing critique than Olbermann or Maddow could offer (though to be fair, even David Brooks produced a takedown of Jindal).

My favorite Matthews moment was when he brought up Bill O'Reilly's story about when he went to Sylvia's in Harlem and was shocked to discover that Black people use knives and forks. He was just beside himself with laughter. I thought he was gonna have a heart attack.

Conduct your own interview of Sarah Palin!

Credit Where It's Due: Chris Matthews File | 26 comments





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