Barack Obama and John McCain won the Wisconsin primaries handily tonight, with percentages in the high 50s, better than 15 percent over their rivals, at this late point in the vote count.
This set in motion a night of three speeches, and a surprising (or maybe not so surprising) outburst from Chris Matthews:
1. John McCain has got to be one of the worst speakers in national politics today, let alone running for President, and all but sure to get the nomination of his Republican party. He has a flat, sing-song delivery, which deflates the few decent lines his speech writers give him, including his best phrase tonight about Democrats wanting to take a "holiday from history".
2. Hillary Clinton was in the process of giving a good if pedestrian speech in Ohio, avoiding any mention of or concession to Obama, when Obama took the stage in Houston to give his speech. MSNBC, CNN, and Fox all switched to Obama.
Later in the evening, some of the Hillary's people thought that was rude, Obama's campaign denied it was intentional, but Tim Russert on MSNBC probably had the best take: Obama's campaign was tired of waiting for Hillary to finish her non-concession speech - not the first lack of concession in the speech she has given after Obama won a primary. I'm inclined to sympathize with the Obama campaign on this one. Why should Obama wait if Hillary is just giving another stump speech on the night she has lost a primary?
3. Obama's speech was a pleasure to hear, as always. I admired his courage in bringing up the immigration issue to his Texas audience.
But to show you I don't blindly support everything Obama says: I disagreed with his use of "television" and "video games" as examples of what American kids should spend less time with - indeed, I certainly think television can be a good source of information and learning, and video games don't do any harm.
But that's ok. Neither I nor anyone has to agree with every single position of a candidate we support. It's more a question of where our candidate stands on the whole constellation of difficult issues facing our country and world.
And Obama's position on most of them suits me just fine (just as do Hillary's - I just think Obama's are a little better, and he would make the better, more inspiring, President).
Which brings me to Chris Matthews.
In a segment after the speeches, Matthews interviewed Kirk Watson, Texas State Senator and Obama supporter, and Ohio Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Clinton supporter. Matthews asked Watson to list Obama's accomplishments as U.S. Senator. Watson was rendered speechless. This triggered a classic Matthews in rude attack mode, in which he asked the same question, repeatedly, as if he were a prosecutor grilling a hostile witness on the stand.
My take on this: Matthews was entitled to ask the question, once, maybe twice, but not repeatedly badger his guest. Watson, for his part, put on an embarrassing (to Watson) display of his lack of knowledge. Obama's accomplishments as Senator are pretty well known, even to the general public, if only from watching his commercials. He worked on bills concerning lobbyist reform, energy, terrorism, and immigration - you can see the details on Obama's Wikipedia entry.
The Obama campaign can be held accountable for putting forth such a clueless or nervous or whatever-Watson's-problem-was spokesperson. But the American people deserve better than Matthews' uncivil badgering, too. Asking the question once or twice would have been enough.
Embarrassing your guest is unprofessional and not what we need in our media commentators.
Here's a link to Wonkette's page with a videoclip of the Matthews-Watson exchange.
5 comments:
I agree Matthews should have stopped
the questioning after 1 or 2 times,
however, Watson should have been able
to come up with one or two answers, besides "inspiring and hope." After all that's exactly what the Clinton
supporters are saying!
I don't think that Matthews was so out of line. Perhaps he was overdoing it with grilling Watson, but he should have been ready to have a few examples of legislation that Obama has pushed, especially as a State Senator. The only thing that I thought that Matthews did wrong was that he did not ask Ms. Jones the same question about Clinton's legislative history. At least if Matthews had done so, he would not look as biased towards Clinton. It just looked like Matthews was giving Jones preferential treatment over Watson. I think that Jones was not questioned as much because people assume that since Hillary Clinton has been on the political scene longer than Obama, everyone knows what her legislative history is. Matthews was trying to ask a tough question to throw Watson off, and I do not critique Matthews for that because that is what he is supposed to do, but he could have done the same to Jones as well
I'm curious why you disagree with the "turn off the TV and video games" line. Every successive generation spends more time in front of television and less reading. Aliteracy is one of the most challenging problems we face as a society as the cognitive shift between literacy and secondary orality breaks down our social bonds and tribalizes, doesn't it?
Robert Putnam has shown a direct link between the penetration of television as the primary source of entertainment and the exponential decrease in civic participation.
What of "Amusing Ourselves to Death"?
I don't think Matthews was out of line. Come on this guy tries to trumpet himself as the tough guy from hardball.
He's a showman. It is that simple. He knows that badgering like that gets people watching. Conflict is always more popular- the more emotionally charged it appears, the better.
I think the guy is a tool, but thats just his TV persona. He's probably decent enough off camera.
anon and Katrina - absolutely the Texas State Senator was lame almost beyond belief - but that doesn't excuse Matthews' truculence ... had I been on the panel, I'd have (verbally) put the bully in his place, and told him to pick on someone who was not a deer stunned in the headlights of television... :)
Mike P: Postman was wrong in Amusing Ourselves to Death (I told him so, many times, but he never listened :)
The disproof of Obama's and your concerns about television making us less participatory is the enormous surge of political interest and participation that his very campaign is generating... (In fact, I'll probably write a blog post about this....)
Mikespot: you're right that what Matthews did is a good way of generating higher ratings ... but doesn't mean we should refrain from criticizing it ...
Beating up a state senator in an alley would probably get high ratings, too, if there was a camera to capture it...:)
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