Come for the Politics, Stay for the Pathologies



Thursday, February 17, 2011

Matthews and O’Donnell: the Remaining Ms.NBC Braintrust

What exactly are they putting in the water at Ms.NBC these days? First we catch Chris Matthews locked in some kind of white-hot love trance with Obama:

 

 

 

Matthews: "Watching President Obama today explaining and defending his budget, both the substance and politics, I was struck by the question -- could any of the possible Republican candidates out there do this? Does any one of them have the precision of mind, the command of recall, the orderly process of thinking, the reasonable moral compass.

(See Please Help Save TOTUS: the Voice of America for examples of all of the above).

While irrational infatuation can be sweet when experienced by teen-somethings, it loses its luster when it infects the mind of a “journalist.” So smitten is Matthews that he honestly believes that his hour of political fantasy each night is “absolutely nonpartisan,” -  which is reason enough to dismiss him out of hand. If you need more though, here’s his description, from 2008, of what constitutes  a “journalist’s role:” (via commenter gary)

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Yeah, well, you know what? I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work , and I think that --

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Is that your job? You just talked about being a journalist!

MATTHEWS: Yeah, it is my job. My job is to help this country.

I think you can finish his thought with “ anyway I deem fit.” Unfortunately, nobody elected Chrissy to help the country, so I wish he’d do it on his own time. If I thought “net neutrality” might address this type of insidious campaigning masked as journalism, I would at least have to reconsider my position on it for a few seconds.

From a man with an undeveloped emotional IQ, we move to a man with a simply under-developed  IQ. With his command of tax code, no - strike that - tax theory,  Lawrence O’Donnell not only makes Ed Schultz look smart, but he may be at the head of the line next time we need a economics advisor.

I’ve read the transcript twice now, and have concluded that O’Donnell’s allegation is as absurd as it sounds at first blush. He is accusing Chaffetz of cheating on his taxes for not reporting the portion of his congressional income that he would have spent on housing in D.C., had he not chosen to be frugal and sleep in his office while Congress is in session, as income. Again. In addition to the first time he declared it as income.

“Congressman, you have seized, you have illegally seized from the federal taxpayer a personal income benefit that saves you the rent money that you would pay in Washington like all of your fellow congressmen who are responsible, who pay rent in Washington. How much money do you save by not paying rent in Washington? Would you say you save $20,000 a year off your $175,000 salary?”

“Do you declare that savings as income as you are legally obliged to do or are you sleeping in your office as a tax criminal?”

Perhaps this is a trial balloon for Obama’s new deficit reduction program: until such time as America is back to full employment, we’ll just have everyone who is working declare their income twice. Think of how much revenue we could raise through income taxes! WTF! And it’s a natural, since Democrats like to count everything on the revenue side twice anyway.

Here’s the whole transcript:  draw your own conclusion.

It’s no wonder these Ms.NBC morons think that Obama possesses “precision of mind, the command of recall, the orderly process of thinking, the reasonable moral compass.”

A one-eyed man in the land of the blind is king.