Legal Commentary

Tweety's Clinton Rules

By Big Tent Democrat

By Big Tent Democrat

Jamison Foser explains:

When The New York Times ran a 2,000-word article about the state of the Clintons' marriage in May of 2006, the paper passed on gossip about Bill Clinton and a Canadian politician named Belinda Stronach. . . . Chris Matthews, among others, loved -- loved -- the article. He discussed it again and again and again on Hardball. He -- approvingly -- described it as a warning from The New York Times to Clinton that "he better watch it" and "behave himself." . . .In short, Matthews did not criticize the Times article; he endorsed it.

More...

. . . Now, how did Matthews react to the Times article about McCain, a man Matthews has said "deserves" to be president? Did he repeatedly ask if McCain would "behave himself" during the campaign? Did he approvingly note that the Times had sent a warning that McCain "better watch it"? Of course not. . . . Instead, Matthews turned on the Times for the same type of reporting it had employed in the Clinton article. Again and again he used his perch at MSNBC to rail against the Times not only for using unnamed sources in the McCain article, but for failing to explain why it was granting the sources anonymity, which, as Matthews pointed out, is inconsistent with the Times' guidelines. . . .

If NBC was worried about its pattern of behavior, here is yet another example of it. Chris Matthews, as opposed to David Shuster, SHOULD be fired.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 23, 2008 (boomark / email).