Matthews and Hardball (Butler Shaffer)

Butler Shaffer on a remarkable admission by Chris Matthews that tells you all you need to know about the mainstream media:

I am not a current follower of major league baseball, but the last guy I remember named "Matthews" who played "hardball" the way it should be played, was a third basement for the Milwaukee Braves named Eddie Matthews. The present make-believe media player of hardball - Chris Matthews - has just announced his conversion to the game of "puffball." After Obama's recent ordination, Matthews declared "I'm going to do everything I can to make this thing work - this new presidency." There is nothing so startling in this revelation - drum-beating for the state is, after all, what the mainstream media have long been doing (as witness its post-9/11 "roll-over-and-play-dead" behavior concerning the Iraq war, the "war on terror," and trillion-dollar bailouts of major corporate interests). It is remarkable, however, that Matthews would feel inspired to openly admit to this kind of institutionalized bias. It is equally telling that his employer - MSNBC - did not immediately fire the man out of some distant respect for the dying art of journalistic truth-telling.

As we embark upon New Deal II, it is interesting to make a comparison of the real journalists of the 1930s who were more interested in informing the public than in cheerleading the political establishment. I wonder for how long Bush and Obama could have put up with the torment of questioning from the likes of H.L. Mencken, Albert Jay Nock, John T. Flynn, et. al.; men for whom "making this thing work" referred to a free society, not a new presidency.