Taunting With A Tire Iron

by digby

So Limbaugh has been pimping a bogus Drudge story that somebody has been threatening Wolf Blitzer not to “pull a Russert” on Hillary Clinton in tonight’s debate, and go easy on her. (I’m not kidding.)

Wolf laughed it off and said that nobody had threatened him. Limbaugh and others are still at it:

LIMBAUGH: You know what Wolf ought to do at that debate on Thursday night? He ought to have a disclaimer prior to every question. “This question approved by Ann Lewis. This question approved by Bill Clinton. This question approved by Howard Wolfson. This question approved by Hillary Clinton herself. This question planted by Hillary Clinton herself.”

Here’s the only safe line of questions for Wolf Blitzer to ask Hillary Clinton at the debate on Thursday night: “Mrs. Clinton, what points would you like to make this evening? Mrs. Clinton, do you need more time to make your points? Mrs. Clinton, what would you like to be asked about now, as we’re nearing the end of the debate? Mrs. Clinton, have we asked the right questions to help you get your points across? Because frankly, we haven’t understood a thing you’ve said tonight.” Well, better not throw that in there. We know Wolf’s already got a reservation he’s not aware of to Fort Marcy Park.

This is what’s called working the refs. Limbaugh and the boyz are basically calling Blitzer a chickenshit and daring him to prove them wrong. The “pulling-a-Russert part is so absurd that it makes me wonder if the wingnuts aren’t losing their touch.

Blitzer, needless to say, will work very hard to show that none ‘o them bitches told him to say anything. He won’t even know he’s doing it.

Update: If you haven’t been reading the series Somerby is doing on Chris Matthews this week, you are really missing the boat. I confess that until recently, I hadn’t paid close enough attention to Matthews’ misogyny. I was well aware of his worship for the “manly characteristic,” and have written about it extensively. But I failed to see just how much he has been focused on this idea over the years that women are a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty, particularly as voters. Somerby has it all documented and it’s really, really revolting:

But yes—that July 29 [1999] program was pretty much like other Hardballs. Except for what happened when Mary Boyle tried to defend Gore’s performance—when we got to see, as we saw last week, Matthews’ familiar loathing of women, especially liberal women.

In fairness, Boyle made a mistake on this show. A first-time guest, she tried to offer sensible commentary about Gore’s actual Cleveland speech, which she had actually witnessed. As noted above, when she said that Gore hadn’t seemed like a sci-fi monster—when she even tried to list the issues he had discussed—Boyle quickly found herself confronted with Matthews’ standard lunacy. Here’s a slightly fuller excerpt, so you can drink it in:

MATTHEWS: Mary Boyle, who ran for the Senate out there. Go ahead, Mary.

BOYLE: Listen, the vice president was in Cleveland today. I want to tell you just very briefly about it, because you probably would like covering the news.

MATTHEWS: What mode was he in? Was he in—was he in the quiet mode, or that sort of—

SCARBOROUGH: Did he scream?

MATTHEWS: —Clutch Cargo craziness he gets into, or was he—

BOYLE: No, no, but he was—

MATTHEWS: —or was he in the “Altered States” where the head starts to bubble? What state was he in today?

That was the way this sick, disturbed kook was covering your White House election.

At any rate, Boyle was on the wrong program. “I want to tell you just very briefly about [Gore’s speech],” she said, “because you probably would like covering the news.” Condescendingly saying, “Can I give you a chance here?” Matthews quickly took the discussion back into dumber waters. But when Boyle spoke up in a later segment, the full force of her host’s scorn was unleashed. He told his guest he would speak very slowly so she could get what he was saying:

MATTHEWS: Mary—Mary, let me explain—

BOYLE: OK, Chris.

MATTHEWS: —why we’re doing this now.

BOYLE: All right.

MATTHEWS: The reason we’re doing this now, to give you a little bit of history, Mary—

BOYLE: Yes.

MATTHEWS: And I say this to a fellow Irish-American. The reason I’m telling you this very clearly—I’m speaking like Al Gore now, very slowly—

BOYLE: Very slowly.

MATTHEWS: —like, like, like Mr. Rogers—

SUSAN MOLINARI: There’s still a little too much passion there.

MATTHEWS (overt condescension): The reason we’re doing this, Mary, is because in the last election, if only men had gotten to vote, we would have President Dole right now. Men voted for Dole, after running the—good guy, worst campaign in history. Men still hated Clinton so much, they voted for Dole.

Somerby wonders why nobody has done a serious profile of Matthews. That’s a really good question, isn’t it? You’d think he’d have been done in Vanity Fair or Esquire or even the NY Times Magazine. Nope.

It’s funny how the nasty, crazy Village gasbags who populate the political cable world never seem to get that kind of treatment, isn’t it?

Update II: Here’s a little bit of that amazing bit from Hardball last night regarding the Judith Regan allegation that FOX News president Roger Ailes told her not to reveal her relationship to Bernard Kerik because it might hurt Rudy Giuliani:

MATTHEWS: Well, then why are we talking about it? Why is it an issue if we don‘t even know what the hell she‘s saying? Is this just—is she just holding them up for money? What‘s she up to here? …

MATTHEWS: You know what it strikes me as? A media echo chamber here. You have got her lawyered up to the hilt suing for $100 million. Whatever that means, it makes a headline. You know, I could sue for a billion dollars…

MATTHEWS: … If you wanted to shut her up, you wouldn‘t have fired her and kicked her out the door and humiliated her, because that guarantees a lawsuit. You have got to figure that somebody like Judith Regan is litigious as hell. Why would they set her up as a main enemy? It makes no sense to me why they would do that…

And, number two, then they come back with Howard Rubenstein, the number-one P.R. guy in New York, to say it‘s preposterous. You know, it does seem like “Bonfire of the Vanities” to me, this whole thing.

CARTER: Well, it does appear to be shaky on the merits, when you look at it.

But—but, again, the point is that—OK, here‘s my point. It‘s been page-one news in almost every major newspaper around the country.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

CARTER: And Judith Regan knew, by making these allegations, exactly what she was doing.

MATTHEWS: I know.

CARTER: And, so, Giuliani finds himself in a position—and he did this, Chris, quite a bit in New York City as mayor. Again, I want to be very clear, cleaned up the city of New York.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

CARTER: But, on topics that he didn‘t feel comfortable with, like most politicians, he tried to defer and deflect and not answer the question.

MATTHEWS: Can I ask you really a New York City question?

CARTER: Go for it, Chris.

MATTHEWS: Does Rupert Murdoch have to write a big check to Judith Regan to shut this down?

Scooter Libby’s biggest mistake, apparently, was in failing to offer Matthews and Russert a big enough bribe. This is what passes for journalistic integrity in the year 2007.

Meanwhile, let’s not forget that Hillary Clinton claps her hands like a communist Chinese illegal immigrant.

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