Quote of the Day (Margaret Sullivan, on the Real Reason Why Chris Matthews Had to Go)

“This casual sexism wasn’t at the heart of why [MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews] had to go. One of the most prominent and well-paid hosts in the cable-news game didn’t listen, didn’t do his homework, and treated politics as a game in which noisy confrontation was a necessity. The problem was less about green-room boorishness and far more about what you could see and hear on the air — especially in recent weeks, but also going back a long way….

“For many years, he had the power to sway public opinion on the crucial topics of the day. Not infrequently, he failed the main test of someone in that role. He was ready to offer his own views, but not prepared to hear those of his guests or to bring deep knowledge to the conversation.”— Media columnist Margaret Sullivan, “The Real Reason MSBC Host Had to Go Is More About Performance Than Sexism,” The Washington Post, Mar. 4, 2020

Ms. Sullivan offers the most pointed and devastating explanation that I’ve read so far of the departure of Chris Matthews (pictured) from the cable channel he helped make an institution over the past 20 years. But I don’t think it accounts for all of the circumstances of his abrupt—i.e., forced--retirement, nor what made him such a polarizing but compelling TV presence for so long.

Laura Bassett’s complaints about his “long history of misogynist behavior”—including toward her just before a guest appearance—have sparked much of the commentary in the last several days.  But Matthews’ recent comparison of Bernie Sanders’ Nevada primary win to Nazis overrunning France in 1940 had already put MSNBC squarely in the crosshairs of the Democratic Party’s left wing--a very uncomfortable position for the channel.

There were other signs, plainly visible, of Matthews' on-air vulnerability that have been multiplying over the last year or so. Last August, New York-based author and columnist Celia Rivenbark, in a piece for the Charlotte Observer, noted that he had been “coughing a lot more on TV than usual, which…was already plenty annoying.” That stubborn chest cold seemed to linger into the new year. 

I also noticed that he seemed to experience more instances when he would become momentarily forgetful on air, sometimes in ways that made one cringe, as when he confused Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina with another African-American politician from the same state.

I was, to put it mildly, surprised that the legendary motormouth was slowing down in plain sight. If it was observable to me, someone who is not an MSNBC junkie, it was probably over more apparent to those who watched Matthews closely. 

Evidently, one of those was his wife of 40 years, who, according to an article by Lloyd Grove, Maxwell Tani and Andrew Kirell of The Daily Beast, had increasingly urged “a more limited schedule” for her husband, lest he come out with exactly the kind of mistakes that have undone him now.

Like Dan Rather and Helen Thomas, Matthews saw his long and distinguished media career end because he did not know when it was time to step away from the game. I would not want to be remembered as merely the sum of my worst mistakes. In the same vein, I think Matthews deserves to be remembered as a more multi-faceted figure than the high-decibel caricature of the airwaves that he himself did so much to foster. 

His biographies of old boss Tip O’Neill, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Jack and Bobby Kennedy allowed him to display a more ruminative side, and an appearance on “Meet the Press” some time ago revealed a slower, more thoughtful and engaging person than the frequently rude host who stepped on guests’ lines and ruined their concentration while they were on the air. 

Beginning this post with a searing prosecutorial brief by Ms. Sullivan, I think it only fair to balance it with a not-quite-defense by her conservative fellow Washington Post colleague Kathleen Parker, who summed up what made Matthews must-see political TV for so long: this “dazzling, obnoxious, interrupting, heart-on-his-sleeve, preemptive, pontificating, passionate, personality-filled, iconic, flirty, dragonslaying lover of all things political.”