We are at a loss to explain to exactly what, besides halitosis and hot air, Chris Matthews and David Shuster bring to the table in ANY discussion, let alone one about politics. It beggars disbelief that these two are paid good money — Matthews reportedly makes $5 million a year to spew this drivel! — to handicap a presidential election, but then again, the last eight years simply could not have happened without these mice among men. And just for the above exchange, which is about as inane as it gets, these two get to share ASSHAT OF THE WEEK dishonors here at Phawker. That’ll learn ’em.
NEW YORK TIMES: The post-debate tableau at the Ritz was another media-political bazaar, minus the riffraff of the spin room. This is about as glitzy as you’ll get on a snowy night in Cleveland at 1 a.m. The Ohio congresswoman, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, came over from the next table to visit with Matthews, along with the former Ohio congressman, Dennis Eckart, and a guy who told Matthews he ran for attorney general in Ohio and a bunch of suited money people and the actor Timothy Hutton and some fancy Hollywood director. “This is all sort of like a big play world,” Griffin, the MSNBC chief, said, surveying the room. “You have all these politicians and media people and Hollywood celebrities in here. It sort of embarrasses me. It feels a little incestuous.”
“People are a little impressed with themselves,” Griffin went on to say, continuing his commentary about the scene. “It’s a bit of an echo chamber.” Matthews is central to that echo chamber — at the Ritz, as in the 2008 presidential campaign. He is, in a sense, the carnival barker at the center of it, spewing tiny pellets of chewed nuts across the table while comparing Obama to Mozart and Clinton to Salieri. At one point, Matthews suddenly became hypnotized by a TV over the bar set to a rebroadcast of “Hardball.” “Hey, there I am — it’s me,” he said, staring at himself on the screen. “It’s me.” MORE