OPINION
8
Matthews Takes Record for Hot Air at Chilly Inauguration
MSNBC host's 'sizzling free-associations' provided some hot air in chilly DC
By Harry Kimball
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Posted Jan 22, 09 3:25 PM CST
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(Newser)
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It's a good thing Chris Matthews didn't run for the Senate after all, Jack Shafer writes for Slate, after listening to the MSNBC star let his mouth run wild Inauguration Day. "Drawing from a larder filled with old anecdotes, unreliable metaphors, wacky intuition, and superficial observations, the always-animated Matthews steers whatever's handy into the hot wok that is his brain," Shafer writes, parsing offending comments about everything from Muhammad Ali to Ted Kennedy's hat.
Shafer was particularly irked by Matthews' assertion, looking out over the ebullient crowd on the mall, that the Obama celebrants are MSNBC fans. "This is the network that has opened its heart to change, to change and its possibilities. Let's be honest about it. These—these people watch this network out here," Matthews opined. “MSNBC is the ‘it’ network for the Obama masses? That’s news to me,” Shafer writes, adding that Keith Olbermann wasn't having any of it either, and "approached his colleague like a teetotaler trying to talk down a drunk."