NewsBusters readers should be quite familiar with Ron Christie, the Republican strategist who loves to tangle with the liberal commentators on MSNBC.

Following his terrific encounter with Chris Matthews last week, NewsBusters spoke by phone with Christie about his experiences on the nation's most left-leaning cable news outlet as well as what it's like to be a black conservative in the year 2011 (video follows with transcript):

NEWSBUSTERS: Ron Christie is a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and deputy assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney. He is currently a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and has published two books, Acting White: The Curious History of a Racial Slur  and Black in the White House: Life Inside George W. Bush's West Wing (Nelson Current). NewsBusters readers are likely most familiar with Ron’s appearances on MSNBC where he’s had some epic battles with hosts Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz. Welcome to NewsBusters, Ron.
 
RON CHRISTIE: Absolutely a pleasure to join you.
 
NEWSBUSTERS: Great. Ron, given the racially-charged atmosphere we’re currently in with a black president and a black presidential candidate, I hope you don’t mind if I begin with some questions concerning race and politics. Is that okay?
 
CHRISTIE: Please do.
 
NEWSBUSTERS: Good. First off, what’s it like to be a black conservative in America today, Ron, and I mean a REAL black conservative like you and Herman Cain – not a Colin Powell quote Republican?
 
CHRISTIE: Well, I have to tell you, it can be very difficult at times. People ranging from my family members to colleagues to people I encounter on a day-to-day basis saying, “What’s wrong with you” or “Why would you be a conservative?” And my answer’s always the same. It’s: "What are your core beliefs? What are your core convictions? What do you hold most important to you?"

And for me, it is a strong national defense, it’s reducing the size and the scope of the federal government, it’s reducing regulatory burdens so that small business can grow and thrive, and allowing individuals to control their destiny rather than a one size fits all solution in Washington. So, for me it was not a difficult choice to be a conservative, but there are some very difficult encounters that I have had in the past and I continue to have with people who confront you and want to be hostile about your political beliefs.
 
NEWSBUSTERS: Interesting. Another kind of a strange question here. Do you believe black conservatives and black liberals have different views about racism? We’re constantly seeing black liberals shout racism at the drop of a hat where it seems to me that black conservatives don’t see that as the cause for all conceivably offensive behaviors. Do you agree that there seems to be a difference between how both demographics view racism, and if so, why do you think that is?
 
CHRISTIE: Well, there’s no question. I think the distinction is a clear one and for me it’s a simple one. Do you believe that society owes you something? I believe that society doesn’t owe me anything other than the freedom of opportunity to thrive or fail on my own. You contrast that with people who believe that the government is there to pick winners and losers, and that the government is there frankly to adjudicate. And I look at those who utilize the race card as a weapon. And that’s exactly what it does because when you decry racism and when you allege somebody’s engaged in racist behavior what you’re really doing is stifling debate. You are trying to cower people into submission. And ultimately what it does when there are cases of real racism or legitimate cases that ought to be examined whether people are being discriminated against – I think it’s almost like the child who’s yelled “Fire” too many times in the theater – that the prudency is not what it could be because at the drop of a hat, people will cry racism as opposed to examining what are the true underlying issues that confront them.

NEWSBUSTERS: But why do you think black conservatives feel that way, and that seems like a reasonable position, but for the most part black liberals don’t?

CHRISTIE: Again, I think it’s a simple one. It goes back to what I said originally: the only thing I think the society owes you is the opportunity to compete as an individual and as an American citizen. And I think that when you start identifying your politics with your ethnicity, you’re going to run into trouble.
 
So, for example, any opposition to President Obama, some might say, is rooted in racism. And you look at the comments of Harry Belafonte, you look at the commentariat on television that say, “Oh well, he’s not legitimately black” or “He’s not authentically black,” and as a conservative I would say, “Well, what exactly does that mean? How’s one’s authenticity somehow diluted because you believe certain philosophical or political positions?” I just think it undercuts their credibility and it undercuts what their message is, which is, “We’re only going to look at black folks as black folks.” Whereas I think conservatives look at people as individuals regardless of their racial affiliation.

NEWSBUSTERS: No, and I agree with that. I’m sure you’ve seen there’s been some speculation of late that the media’s treatment of Herman Cain has a racial component. The sexual escapades of white Democrat presidential candidates like of course Bill Clinton and John Edwards seem to either be largely ignored or downplayed where just mere allegations directed against Cain have resulted in media attention like none of us could ever have imagined. Do you think there’s actually a racial element in that, or is this just merely the difference between how liberals and conservatives are treated by the media?
 
CHRISTIE: That’s a tough question. On the one hand I think Cain’s viability as a candidate came about because people were tired of the size and scope of Washington and they wanted a fresh speaker and they wanted a new perspective which I think he certainly gave them. On the other hand, I can’t ignore the fact as you just articulated that John Edwards was largely given a pass. Bill Clinton was largely given a pass. A number of white politicians who were in similar circumstances, “Oh it’s a personal matter” or “Oh it’s all about sex, it doesn’t have anything to do with job performance.”
 
I can’t help but think at some level the possibility of a black man having an affair or having an inappropriate relationship with a white woman, I can’t help but think that hasn’t fueled some of the coverage that he’s received.

NEWSBUSTERS: I think so, too. Finally on this issue, and I’m expecting a little giggle from you, are you tired of always having to answer race questions, and won’t we know that we’ve actually finally licked this problem when you no longer have to?
 
CHRISTIE: I think you’re absolutely right. Am I tired of it? No, I’m actually not. I tell you, I actually welcome the challenge because one of the things I’ve learned here at Harvard with my students is that I want people to question why they believe what they believe. And I put my students to the test of, you know, they’d say, “Why are you a conservative Republican?” I always would turn that on them and say, “Why aren’t you? Why is it you believe what you believe?”
 
Several of my students said, “Well, it’s because that’s what my parents think or my brothers and sisters and my friends.” And I say, “I’m not interested in what they think. I want to know what you think.” And a couple of them it stopped them dead in their tracks, and they were hard-pressed to identify why in a concrete matter they were Democrats and liberal other than that’s what everyone else is.
 
So, if I keep getting the question, and if I can change an opinion or cause one person to reflect on why they believe what they believe, I’m happy to engage in that dialogue.

NEWSBUSTERS: You’re I think 41, 42 years old, I’m a little older than you are.

CHRISTIE: 42.
 
NEWSBUSTERS: 42, I’m 51. Do you think that in your life the race issue with ever be done as a problem in our nation?
 
CHRISTIE: Not until people stop using race as a weapon and as a tool to advance their own political and ideological means. The election of President Obama has shown that America is willing to look at a candidate and an individual based on their attributes, based on their skills, and based on their appeal, and this was a barrier that I never would have thought we’d seen shattered in my lifetime.
 
But at the same time I think, frankly, race relations in my adult lifetime are getting worse rather than better. And it’s, “Well you’re a racist” or “You don’t agree with me” or “You don’t agree with the President. You must be racist.” We must step away from using race as a weapon, and instead, assess individuals on their own strengths and merits and weaknesses as individuals rather than their external appearance.
 
 

NEWSBUSTERS: It’s fascinating to me that you say that because I was born in 1960, and the son of very, very liberal parents. So I grew up worshipping JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King Jr., and it amazes me that we’re 44, 43 years since King’s assassination, and to a large extent, well first of all, it shocks me that racism isn’t over as a problem 44 years later, and it shocks me in certain respects I agree with you. I think the problem, again in certain respects, is even worse than when I was seven and eight years old.

CHRISTIE: It is, and you can trace the evolution of the assassinations of King and Kennedy in 1968, and the rise of the Black Power movement, and the riots we had seen. Then heading into the '80s and '90s, I think there was a certain degree of racial tranquility, of Americans learning to live and work and interact with each other as individuals. But if it's one thing that really surprises me and upsets me, quite frankly in the era of Obama, is that it seems to me that there is a certain retrenchment based on race of, “If you don't support the President, you're racist.” Or “The Tea Party opposition is racist.” Or fill in the blanks. And, again, we have got to move away, and that's the only way that we can come together to fulfill the motto of this country which is E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one. And it seems to me that we're starting to be fragmented based on ethnic and racial lines rather than pulling and cherishing that which is most important which is our American citizenship.

NEWSBUSTERS: Well, and the sad part about that, Ron, is even for we conservatives, irrespective of the ideological differences that we had with Barack Obama, you weren't an American if there wasn't a part of you that was proud of the thought that America actually voted for a black president. And a lot of people thought that was going to usher out racism as we knew it. And yet it seems like it's made racial issues even worse.

CHRISTIE: Well, let me put it to you this way. I don't think anybody who's an American citizen could not look at the election, could not look at the inauguration of President Obama and say that wasn't a magnificent step forward for the country. And I think it is remarkable when you see the President, the first lady and their beautiful family stepping off Air Force One in a foreign land and recognizing that they represent all of America and who we are as a people. I take immense pride in that.

At the same time I've been very disappointed by the President and his administration for the way that they have handled matters of race. Eric Holder saying to the American people just a month after the inauguration that America has been a nation of cowards on racial matters I think didn't set a proper tone. I think President Obama that summer saying the Cambridge police officers acted stupidly in arresting Henry Louis Gates sparked a conversation on race that we didn't need to have by a president who by the oath he took to uphold the Constitution was supposed to be an impartial officer and not take sides. And the subsequent decision by the justice department not to prosecute the New Black Panther Party in one of the clearest cases of voter intimidation I think that we've seen given that it's on videotape now has Americans saying, “Why would the President and his administration not only refuse to look at the law in a race neutral manner, but appear to take steps that favor one racial group as opposed to the other?”

And my last comment to that was, the President in the 2010 election cycle when he mentioned Republicans can come along, but they have to ride in the back of the car. The reference of where we were in the Civil Rights movement and the inferiority of African-Americans having to sit in the back of the bus and to somehow insinuate that Republicans needed to be in the back of the bus I thought was just really, really poor form and not the sort of leadership and not the sort of tone the President of the United States should demonstrate.

NEWSBUSTERS: No. Agreed. Well, let's try to talk about something a little happier. You're a bit of a contributor to MSNBC these days on a number of programs from time to time. Do you enjoy being typically the lone conservative on a show facing unfriendly fire, or would you prefer to have some allies by your side from time to time?

CHRISTIE: No, I actually revel in it. I take great joy in being on programs, Chris Matthews' show Hardball for one. The Bill Maher show which I did for the first time last month. And pretty much anything on the MSNBC dial. Of being able to not only try to put forth not only the best position for conservatives, but to also demonstrate not through yelling, not through histrionics, but through the facts of why I believe our position and our ideological perspective is the correct one. Being the lone person there gives you ample opportunity because they often feed off of their own inaccurate comments and inaccurate facts.

It's like something I said on Hardball earlier this week: you're not entitled to devise and to have your own set of facts in a particular narrative. The truth is what the truth is. So I revel in it.

NEWSBUSTERS: What was interesting about that, that was Monday's Hardball (Ron Christie Schools Chris Matthews: 'The Facts Get in the Way of a Good Narrative'), and not only were you with Chris Matthews, but also the perilously liberal David Corn. Did it strike you as odd that they were both so woefully uninformed about the payroll tax holiday extension proposed by Obama and the Democrats?

CHRISTIE: Yes. I don't understand how anyone could go on national television and not have a firm grasp of what the facts are. Maybe it's my training as a lawyer that you either have the facts or you need to understand what the facts are. In that particular case, you can look at a temporary expansion of the payroll tax holiday, but you need to understand that there are permanent ramifications of doing so.

One, you're using a ten year mechanism to pay for a temporary tax holiday. Number two, by doing so, since money that ostensibly was going into the Social Security trust fund which we know isn't going to, but ostensibly, you're taking funds away from Social Security that aren't coming from the general revenue which will hurt the program. So, they can talk about things on an ideological or a political perspective, but I just merely stated the facts. The facts are you're going to harm Social Security, you're going to harm the middle class that you purport to protect, and at the end, looking at many economic reports that I've read, I don't believe that a two percent reduction in one's payroll tax liability is going to stimulate the economy. I just don't.

NEWSBUSTERS: Well, it didn't the last time we tried it. That was part of the previous bill that went into effect January of this year. It didn't really help, did it?

CHRISTIE: No it didn't. Now to suggest that raising it from two percent to 3.1 percent is going to somehow now have a stimulative effect is absurd on its face. I think that's the reason why the public holds the Congress and holds the President's handling of the economy in such low regard. Actions speak louder than words, and the American people were promised that the stimulus bill was going to do all of these wonderful things and it hasn't. The American people were told that the President's healthcare plan was going to reduce costs, was going to be not only deficit neutral, but reduce the size and scope of the deficit and also bring down the cost curve. And none of those things have happened.

I think there is a cynicism that is growing now, and it's not Republican and it's not Democrat, but it is an electorate that feels and believes that their elected officials are out of touch, and I think that is a danger if you're an incumbent heading into the election next year regardless of your political affiliation.

NEWSBUSTERS: One of the things I found interesting about that exchange with Chris and David, and I find this rather interesting when someone like you who actually knows what he's talking about is on one of those programs, is the question as to whether or not they didn't know what the President and what the Democrats had actually proposed – meaning are they stupid or are they such good shills that they're willing to misrepresent the truth even though they know it?

CHRISTIE: Well, full disclosure, Chris Matthews has actually become a dear friend of mine. People would never expect that, but off-camera and off-air I find him to be a remarkably intelligent person. And so when you hear him say something like, “I didn't realize that's what the President's plan was,” it makes me scratch my head because he's remarkably well-read, and he's remarkably well-informed albeit many of the conclusions that he draws are inaccurate. So, to go on national television and host a show and say, “Ron, why do you believe that, and isn't this going to hurt folks, and oh by the way, I didn't realize the President's plan was going to pay for this extension by raising taxes by 3.25 percent" I thought was rather shocking. Either you know the facts, Chris, or you don't.

NEWSBUSTERS: Well, especially since it was all over the AP wire. It was a big deal that day that that's what this was about, and yet he's saying, “Well, I don't really think that's the case.” I found that a little peculiar.

CHRISTIE: As did I, and as I said, I find it interesting because I actually do read the commentary of folks in the blogosphere and at the MSNBC site saying, “Christie, you're just in favor of the rich.” “You're in favor of that.” I look at it this way: the Obama justice department took a survey back in 2009 of the number of millionaires we had in the country, and it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 392,000. 311,000 of those 392 identified themselves as business owners. And I can't sit here and scratch my head and think if you want to impose a 3.25 percent surcharge on someone because they are a small business owner and they might have revenue of a million dollars or more, plus have the ObamaCare surcharge kick in next year, plus repeal the Bush era tax cuts. If all those things came to pass, you would have the upper marginal rate income bracket at 44 percent when you take account of the surcharges and the taxes for success. And I look at that and think, “How can folks not know what they are advocating for?” And the answer to that is when you have a country and you have a system where half the folks aren't paying federal income tax, what difference does it make to them because they're not paying for it.

NEWSBUSTERS: Correct. And if you're someone in let's say New York City, let's say you're a Wall Streeter or anybody in Manhattan, now add in New York state tax and New York City tax, and you're probably closer to about a 60 percent hickey.

CHRISTIE: Yeah.

NEWSBUSTERS: That's a big hickey.

CHRISTIE: And Sean Hannity has said that repeatedly actually on his show that if you add in the local and the state taxes that his tax liability is over 50 percent. And the fundamental question for me, and I believe I asked this of Chris this past week is, “When is enough enough?” And I would love for someone to answer that question. When do folks believe that they have taken enough out of your back pocket that you've fully paid for what you ought to pay for?

And that's my biggest problem with what we see with the Occupy movements and the entire notion that there's income inequality in America. Of course there's income inequality in America. People who are willing to take risks, people who are willing to receive an education, people who are willing to apply themselves to a trade are in essence assuring that they are doing everything they can from an economic standpoint, from an education standpoint to achieve the American dream. But sitting back and protesting and suggesting that I should have more of your money because it's not fair isn't the American way.

NEWSBUSTERS: No, and especially one of the things I was just writing to a friend about this, a liberal friend, that one of the things I think that people ignore is one of the ways that so many of the people that are for lack of a better term in the top one percent, what differentiates them is their ability and their talent to take and assess risks. Some of these folks will risk at times ten percent of their wealth, 20 percent of their wealth, 30 percent, whatever it is, and you and I conceivably and most people aren't willing to risk that much of their savings on a future investment. Yet there's a percentage of our population, and they just so happen to be the most successful and the wealthiest, who are, and that's one of the reasons why they are.

CHRISTIE: I think that's exactly right, and you look at the fact that I'm a small business owner. I work seven days a week. It's not that I want to work seven days a week. It's that I have clients and I have deadlines and I have responsibilities and obligations that I have to meet. It would be nice to sit on the couch and watch football all day. It would be nice just to sort of say, "You know what, I'm not going to apply myself for the next three days," but I don't have a choice.

It's through innovation, it's through ingenuity, and it's through hard work and rolling up your sleeves that allows folks to be successful. And I think there's a certain level of complacency that seems to have crept into our national consciousness that I find abhorrent. And I'll tell you, the interns I've had who've worked for me in the last several years believe that they're entitled to something. And I counter that no one is entitled to anything other than a fair opportunity to succeed through hard work. That's the only thing that people in my view are entitled to.

NEWSBUSTERS: I think there's another side of this, and I think that is something that the Occupy Wall Street crowd doesn't get and the folks that are supporting them don't get, is there's a percentage of people in our country who don't believe they've got enough, and are willing to work harder and take risks to get more. They don't understand that someone who is worth let's say $100 million, you know what, for some reason, that guy wants to be a billionaire. I've made jokes in the past because of you know where I live, so we've got a Larry Ellison here who has less money than Bill Gates. His goal in life is probably to have more money than Bill Gates. It's just a goal that the people in the Occupy movement and the people on the left just don't seem to understand, and he's willing to work 80 hours, 90 hours, 100 hours and continue risking his own money to get there.

CHRISTIE: That's exactly right, and that is something I only wish people would take a moment or two to reflect upon. Money doesn't grow on trees. You're absolutely right. If you want to work 80 hours a week and apply yourself and take risks, that could come with some significant reward, but it could also come with some significant failure. As a business person, you have to take risks in order to advance, and sometimes those risks pay off and sometimes they don't. I've had clients that I thought would have been a very productive relationship that didn't turn out to be. And I've had others that I didn't think would be as productive that have in fact blossomed. So, you never know, but you never know unless you take a risk and you apply yourself.

NEWSBUSTERS: Exactly. Okay, I want to move back to MSNBC for a second. Do you remember last year, you have a tendency to always be put in the position on MSNBC where it's your job to defend conservative talkers like Rush Limbaugh. You remember last year when he did his little parody of Driving Miss Nancy which was Rep. Clyburn in the front seat and Nancy in the back, and MSNBC and the liberal media were all going crazy. Do you remember that?

CHRISTIE: Vividly.

NEWSBUSTERS: So, everyone immediately jumped on Limbaugh once again calling him a racist. Do you think what he did there was racist, or was it just good satire maybe in questionable taste?

CHRISTIE: I think as a society, and this goes back to the conversation we had at the beginning, people are too quick to pull out the race card and apply it. The issue at stake was whether Rep. Clyburn, James Clyburn, then the House Majority Whip, should be in a position where even though the leadership structure for the majority/minority party in the House of Representatives says that if you're in the minority, you've got the Minority Leader, you've got the Minority Whip, and that's pretty much it. Clyburn felt that there should be a special spot if you will provided for him at the leadership table, and Rush's comment was why. Why should he have something carved out for him unless of course it was – and this was all over the media – that the most senior ranking African-American would lose his leadership position. And my comment was, again, it's politics. If you win, you're going to have more leadership spots. If your party loses, then you lose. The Democrats lost that midterm election, and therefore that slot that Clyburn had at the leadership table had extinguished.

And so, for Democrats to say that we need to have a special position for Clyburn, or need to have a special seat for him at the table because he's black I think only undermines the notion that blacks are equal because why does he need a special set aside? Why does he need special treatment? If he's going to run for office, and he's going to run for election, and those are the rules, and those are the spoils if you're in the majority, and them's the bad breaks that you get if you're in the minority, I don't understand that, and I think Rush was trying to add satire to a very serious question in a conversation that people overlooked and instead accused him of just being racist.

NEWSBUSTERS: Are conservatives allowed to make jokes that involve black people, or if they do, they're automatically racist?

CHRISTIE: Oh, no, that automatically brands him as a racist. I think there is such a double standard of blacks are allowed to use the N-word amongst each other, and that's not racist. But if a white person does, then you're racist. Or that black folks believe that there should be certain provisions set aside for them due to the color of their skin that I just find absolutely abhorrent. The whole notion that I should be treated any differently than you or anyone else because of skin color is absurd.

The thing that I find most abhorrent is the fact that we have a Congressional Black Caucus in the Congress. There's no Congressional White Caucus. And the fact that the CBC will not allow you to join if you're Hispanic or if you are Caucasian seems to me to be racist in and of itself and on its face, and I don't understand why we need such a caucus.

NEWSBUSTERS: No. There's no Congressional Jewish Caucus, there's no Congressional Chinese Caucus. When are we going to learn that if we want to solve the race problem we have to stop delineating people by race?

CHRISTIE: That's exactly right.

NEWSBUSTERS: Yep.

CHRISTIE: And it just goes to the notion again of inferiority. Why should blacks have, and the pushback that I get is, “Well, you know, blacks have special challenges and what not.” I'm like, “We all have challenges as Americans.” I don't care what your color is. I believe very firmly that education is the civil rights issue of the 21st century, and that we're getting killed overseas.

If you look at our scores in math, if you look at our scores in science, if you look at our scores frankly even in English comprehension and reading comprehension, we're getting killed. We're not going to be able to compete on a world stage unless our students apply themselves to the books and study hard and work hard. And this notion that somehow one should be treated differently due to the color of their skin might work in the short term, but in the long term, it's not going to make that individual competitive with the rest of the society as well as the rest of the world.

NEWSBUSTERS: The other thing that was interesting about the Driving Miss Nancy incident was how on one of the Ed Schultz programs, it might have even been two, you had Joe Madison of XM radio on, and he and Ed were almost barking dogs, lather coming from their mouths they were so upset about this. Do you think that they were really that upset or is it good theater on MSNBC?

CHRISTIE: I think that frankly Ed Schultz will say or do anything to get a headline and to remain relevant. I find it interesting that there was the GQ study that came out, the survey of the 25 least influential Americans, and I think Ed Schultz was number three of the 25 least influential Americans. So I think his outrage is more feigned and more designed to elicit ratings. This is a guy who used to be a conservative Republican and a small business owner, and now he's a small business owner who's gone 180 degrees on his axis and is now a populist and a man of the people, and I find that transformation to be a little bit suspect at best.

Joe Madison, I believe he is truly upset in a legitimate manner. Having conversations with him about growing up in the Civil Rights era, and many of the injustices that he had seen, I can't take that away from him. For him, I still think it's very vivid in his mind, and that's how he believes. I don't question his sincerity.

But Ed Schultz? Yeah, I entirely question the sincerity and the level of feigned outrage and indignation he brings to issues in general, but particularly dealing with issues of race and inequality.

NEWSBUSTERS: And yet when you pointed out to both of them that they didn't have much outrage when Harry Belafonte called Colin Powell and Condi Rice slaves, that didn’t go over very well with them, did it?

CHRISTIE: No, and you remember that well. I think there's selective indignation, and that's the thing that really upsets me, particularly the notion that the Tea Party is racist. You know, the incident that we had a year or so back with a fellow who was going to a town hall meeting – I believe his name was Kenneth Gladney – who was beat up by a white and beat up by a black SEIU member, and they called him the N-word. And I just remember that the local NAACP refused to step in and refused to come to his aid and in fact said something to the effect of, “Well, due to his politics, he had it coming” or something.

You can't say that you're going to be protective of people based on their skin color and make sure we have equal rights when you selectively apply your outrage and your indignation to those who don't agree with you philosophically or ideologically. That to me is even worse.

NEWSBUSTERS: I agree. Well, staying on MSNBC for a second, do you think the commentators there are as liberal as they come across, or this upper-management’s strategy to be the counter to Fox?

CHRISTIE: That's an interesting question. I think there's no question, particularly as you look at their evening lineup, their prime time lineup of Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow and the folks that they have on in the evening that they are clearly to the left of center in their ideological perspective. I think that has to be a calculated decision by senior management at MSNBC that these are the folks that we're going to put on our prime time lineup to counter what Fox News is putting on their prime time lineup, and Fox News is killing them. So, yes, I do believe that that is a calculated decision, and it's one that's not working. If you look at the demographics, if you look at every hour from 5PM until midnight, Fox News is beating every MSNBC and CNN show in that time slot. And I think there's a reason for it.

This is not a liberal country. This is a center-right conservative country, and I think that the views espoused by many of the hosts on MSNBC don't reflect the reality of where many Americans come from. I just don't.

NEWSBUSTERS: I agree. Finally, I can’t let you go without asking you about your experience in the Bush White House. What was it like to assist President Bush and Vice President Cheney?
 
CHRISTIE: The highest honor and the greatest privilege I've had in my life. I think that all Americans regardless of your political affiliation once you step through those iron gates you try to do your best to help the country and help the leaders that the American people gave the trust and the opportunity and the responsibility to lead the country. As one of the few people who've worked for both the Vice President and the President, they're both so different in their management style and their personalities. It was such a thrill to get to know both of them both professionally and personally. And the memories of being in some remarkable settings, being in the Oval Office, which is such a thrill. Even now and looking at a picture I have of myself and the President in the Oval Office, you just sort of pinch yourself and say, “How in the heck was I ever so lucky to have been in this spot and for four years of my life going to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was my place of business.”

There's just really nothing more I can say other than I loved every day of it. It was the most challenging job that I've had. It was the most difficult that I had, but it was also the most rewarding – not by the perks and the power, but by being given the privilege to do everything in my power to try to help advance the United States of America was just a really awe-inspiring responsibility.

NEWSBUSTERS: I assume if given the opportunity you would do it again

CHRISTIE: Well, I don't know. That's the thing. I felt so strongly that George W. Bush was the right person to lead the country in 1999 and 2000 that I tried to raise money for him, I tried to help his campaign, and ultimately I went to Florida as a lawyer in the recount. I think that those who wish to go to the White House need to go for the right reasons. I went because I thought President Bush and Vice President Cheney were the leaders that America needed at that time. I would never want to cast aspersions on other people's motives, but to do that job and work that hard and to be in that pressure-cooked situation, really, it's a 24/7 job. You just can't do it because there's a Republican sitting in the Oval Office. You have to do it because you believe in that individual and you believe their direction for the country.

So, if the right leader came along, and if that leader extended the opportunity for me to serve again, of course I would do it. But it has to be the right leader and it has to be the right time for me and my family. It's a really emotionally and physically exhausting job as much as it is awe-inspiring, and it takes a really heavy toll on you. It really does.

NEWSBUSTERS: Well, we thank you for your service, thank you for your time, Ron, and maybe not as importantly, we thank you for being one of the few reasons any of us can stand watching MSNBC.

CHRISTIE: Well, thank you, the privilege is all mine in joining you. I'm going to keep fighting the fight because let me close with this: I travel the country quite frequently, and there's never a chance that I walk through an airport that someone won't walk up to me and grab me and say, “Hey, I've seen you on MSNBC” or “I've seen you on the cable outlets. Thank you for saying what you're saying because you are giving me the strength to fight back and to tell people there's a different way and there's a different voice.” If I can do that by going on MSNBC and have a ball doing it, I'm all in favor of it, and I just wish that people wouldn't be attacked based on their political beliefs, and that we could all respectfully agree to disagree.

NEWSBUSTERS: Nicely said. Thank you very, very much, Ron, and Merry Christmas.

CHRISTIE: Merry Christmas to you. Thank you so very much, Noel.

Just how totally out of touch is MSNBC's Chris Matthews?

At the beginning of Wednesday's "Hardball," he said the actor who famously rode the bomb at the end of the classic film "Dr. Strangelove" was "Sam" Pickens (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Good evening, I'm Chris Matthews in Washington. Leading off tonight: Republicans gone rogue. If this deficit crisis were a game of chicken, by now the Republicans would have tossed the steering wheel out the window, dumped a cinder block on the accelerator, and be yahooing like Sam Pickens riding the bomb at the end of "Dr. Strangelove.”

Nice job, Chris.

Try to keep this in mind the next time you devote an entire segment to a teleprompterless misstatement by Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, or any other conservative you despise.

Sam Pickens…sheesh!

Chris Matthews Tuesday once again showed that his tenuous grasp of reality is getting dangerously weak.

During the final segment of "Hardball," the host unequivocally blamed the 2007 financial crisis and resulting recession on George W. Bush just moments before he said, "Okay, Obama hasn't been able to get us out of it yet, but…there’s no sense blaming one Party or the other" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me finish with a simple political question: Why on God's earth should we reward the people who got us into this financial mess? You can't sell a house because you can't get a decent price for it. You can't buy a house today because people can't believe what you're offering for it.

What? You can't sell a house today? One just sold two weeks ago four houses down from me, and another just last week up the street.

I see houses in my neighborhood selling all the time, which also means you can buy a house as well.

If you can figure out what Matthews was talking about in those opening sentences, please let me know.

Let's continue:

MATTHEWS: Who created this political dung hill? Who created this financial horror show that has older people dying over their miniature 401(k)s, young people hopelessly out of work, certainly out of good work?

Hmmm. My just graduated from college son accepted a fabulous career opportunity last Friday.

As for people's 401(k)s, as they are self-directed, whatever they are worth is the fault of the owner and nobody else.

If people didn't want their retirement funds to have stock market risk – especially after what happened in 1987 and 2000 through 2003 – they should have reallocated their funds exclusively into bonds and money markets. That is after all their choice.

But Matthews was clearly in the mood to blame all this on someone other than homeowners, job seekers, and investors. Care to guess who?

MATTHEWS: It all started in a splurge of greed and deception and grab what you can before the building falls down that George W. Bush begot us late in the year 2007.

Yep. It's all George W. Bush's fault.

Forget about Bill Clinton signing into law the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 which completely deregulated banks, brokerage firms, and derivatives thereby ushering in the excessive speculation and leverage that led to the global financial crisis that began in 2007.

And let's certainly forget about Clinton and his Party greatly expanding the lending authority of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac whilst also blocking all attempts by Republicans to increase regulation and scrutiny of these government-sponsored enterprises.

No, this economic calamity was all George W. Bush's doing:

MATTHEWS: That's what we're living right now. Okay, Obama hasn't been able to get us out of it yet, but, no doubt on that front, but that's what we're suffering from, and there’s no sense blaming one Party or the other.

Got that? So regardless of all the other indisputable causes of the economic crisis, it's all Bush's fault. But "there’s no sense blaming one Party or the other" for why we haven't been able to get out of it since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007 and the White House in 2009.

This is what's called critical thinking on MSNBC these days:

MATTHEWS: But there's a hell of a lot of sense in keeping your eye on the people who did it to us, who made millions on all kinds of off the wall investment products and then dumped them out there to people who didn't know what they were getting. All I ask is why anyone regardless of political philosophy would want to be out there barking for better tax breaks for these people? Why they should be so shameless as to tell us it's better to screw the old people out of their Medicare so you can keep the tax breaks that Bush jammed through heading out the door, even if we have to deliver them in hot checks courtesy of the latest borrowing from abroad?

Is anyone trying to screw old people out of their Medicare? Congressman Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) plan doesn't impact anyone over the age of 55.

As for "tax breaks that Bush jammed through heading out the door," his last tax cuts were implemented in 2003. He didn't leave the White House for the last time until January 2009.

Makes you wonder if Matthews was hitting the sauce Tuesday:

MATTHEWS: Why? Ask somebody. Why reward the big shots who shot this economy dead with more millions in tax breaks, a running bonanza of generosity from you and the people who got screwed by the very people now with their hands out for more?. It’s a no-brainer for the average taxpayer. It's simple. If there has to be pain to keep this country solvent so we don't go the way of Greece, where do we come up with the deal? Do we sock it to the people who are old and sick or to the people making the big bucks who never really came on, never felt the hell brought down on this country in the first place – the hell they left in town behind them?

Once again, who's trying to "sock it to the people who are old" other than the Democrats whose only plan on the table for Medicare is to let it die in 2024 meaning that all current recipients as well as those that are about to receive benefits in the next twelve years are guaranteed to get socked?

MATTHEWS: Fair is fair. Please repeat – fair is fair. This isn’t just about the ability to pay. It's about who, given how we got here, ought to pay.

Well, using that logic, since we got here by Democrats increasing spending by 41 percent since 2007, they ought to pay.

Fair is fair. Please repeat – fair is fair.

As NewsBusters has been reporting since Monday's Republican presidential debate, MSNBC's Chris Matthews is suddenly a big fan of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's (R-Minn.).

On Saturday's "Fox News Watch," syndicated columnist Cal Thomas said, "Chris Matthews praises her, which is sort of like getting a civil rights affirmation from David Duke" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

JON SCOTT, HOST: That's new Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann striking a cord at a Republican debate earlier this week. Cal, she got some pretty good reviews from the mainstream press, and yet many of those same members of the press were trying to tear her down before the debate.

CAL THOMAS: Right, the Left likes to build up people in order to tear them down. One of my favorite lines on this was that she exceeded expectations. Well, who set the expectations? The media did. And then, she got endorsed. Your time is coming. It's actually passed, but we're keeping you here anymore.

ALAN COLMES: You would know.

THOMAS: Yes, I would. Yes, actually. Chris Matthews praises her, which is sort of like getting a civil rights affirmation from David Duke.

COLMES: Let’s attack the liberal media. Oh, come on, it's getting old, will you please?

THOMAS: Like you are.

COLMES: You’re still older.

THOMAS: That’s true, but I’m better.

Indeed you are, Cal. Indeed you are.

Readers are advised Thomas was given the Media Research Center's “William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence” at the MRC’s annual Gala on May 7.

Chris Matthews Wednesday actually asked Ron Reagan, "Did [your father] really believe if you lowered the tax rates the government made more money?"

Frankly, I'm not sure which was more absurd – the question or the answer (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Ron, I got to get back to you and then to Doug. Did he really believe if you lowered the tax rates the government made more money? I mean, really believe it?

RON REAGAN: You know, I think he actually — honestly, I think he did. All evidence to the contrary, I know, find me a time when that actually happened, but I think he believed somehow that that would happen.

Well, let's see. In Jimmy Carter's last budget (fiscal 1981), total tax receipts were $599 billion. In Reagan's last budget (fiscal 1989), they were $991 billion, a 65 percent increase.

Any questions, Ron, or is this too tough for you?

(H/T NBer David)

MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews on Thursday continued to obsess over his favorite issue, the birthers. He excoriated the Republican Party, smearing that the "haters" now "have a party to call all their own, the GOP."

Painting with a broad brush, Matthews mocked, "How did the right-wing fringe manage to take over the Republican Party?" He later repeated the talking point, wondering, "Coming up, the party with the fringe on top? How did the right-wing fringe get control of a major political party?"

Of course, a 2006 Scripps Howard poll found that 50.8 percent of Democrats believed it was "somewhat" or "very" likely that George W. Bush knew in advance of the plot to murder 3000 Americans on 9/11. Such a number would seem to indicate that there are a significant number of "haters" in the Democratic Party.    

[See video below. MP3 audio here.]

The host also mentioned just one Republican who, in the last day, has condemned birtherism: Mitt Romney. In fact, many, including House Speaker John Boehner and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus have done the same.

Matthews interviewed former Newsweek editor Jonathan Alter and linked the belief that Barack Obama wasn't born in America to the whole of the GOP. He speculated, "I'm going to get very ethnic here. Is this because of '64? I think it is. LBJ…Once Lyndon Johnson, a man of the south and the southwest, once they pass the civil rights bill, you can forget the white south in the Democratic Party."

The liberal anchor  teased the segment by talking about Wednesday's release of Obama's birth certificate. He lectured, " Yesterday the doubters got cut off from the haters. Let's face it, the skeptics in the middle, politically, now got the old, original birth certificate and are satisfied. The haters on the other hand, are still out there and they have a party to call all their own, the GOP."

A transcript of the teases and part of Matthews' segment with Alter, which aired on April 28, can be found below:

5:01pm EDT

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Leading off tonight, you can't handle the truth. That's what we learned yesterday about some people when President Obama released his long form birth certificate. They don't want the facts. They want to deny the facts. The President went out and practically hand delivered just what they spent months saying they wanted. They wanted it. They got it. They kept on yelling. Now, they're scrambling. Questioning the birth certificate itself, asking for more documents, more paper. This can't be true. Staring wildly into the headlights of the 21 century. They just don't like the reality of who's in the White House, lets face it. Yesterday, the doubters got cut off from the haters. Let's face it, the skeptics in the middle, politically, now got the old, original birth certificate and are satisfied. The haters on the other hand, are still out there and they have a party to call all their own, the GOP. Plus, party with a fringe on top. How did the right-wing fringe manage to take over the Republican Party? Well, the Democrats hope to cook the Republicans in this birther stew. Can the GOP stop the weirdness on their part? Does it want to?

5:13

MATTHEWS: Coming up, the party with the fringe on top? How did the right-wing fringe get control of a major political party? Now, this is amazing. How did it happen? It wasn't like this when I was growing up. They were sort of a middle of the road to right party. How did they go- I think Civil Rights Act 1964. Just guessing. Is it too late for the mainstream Republicans to stop the zanies?

5:20
                   
MATTHEWS: I'm going to get very ethnic here. Is this because of '64? I think it is. LBJ, we were talking about him in the break, once Lyndon Johnson, a man of the south and the southwest, once they pass the civil rights bill, you can forget the white south in the Democratic Party.

JONATHAN ALTER: He said for a generation but it's really going to be several generations. Look, there's always been a looney tunes element. Same on the Democratic side. You had the John Birch Society folks that were an irritant to the Republican Party of the '50s.

MATTHEWS: Okay. Who are the Democratic Party's loony tunes? Come on. Fess up.

ALTER: They have had plenty of 'em over the years. You know, those conventions that go to 3:00 in the morning.

MATTHEWS: Okay, the truthers, maybe, if you want to go all the way over.

ALTER: Nowadays they're a more moderate party. But, they've had their innings. My point is that you're right that a lot of this is about race. And this is something that has given the Republican Party a foothold in the south but a lot of this is fear of the other. There is a racial subtext here. Like when they talk about a guy who is obviously terrific on his feet, gives more spontaneous interviews than anybody else and talk about him as somebody that depends on the Teleprompter, why are they saying that? They're basically saying he is a black man and he's not that smart. He needs a tell prompter. And the birthers think-

MATTHEWS: Donald Trump is now questioning the application to Harvard.

ALTER: Of course.

MATTHEWS: Harvard law and Columbia and he didn't deserve to get in. He would never say that about a white person right off the street he wouldn't say it.

ALTER: This is race, Chris.

MATTHEWS: I don't know why you would say it!

ALTER: That's where the 1964 point is critical. The Republican party decided that it was going to- after being the party of Lincoln and Jackie Robinson in the '50s decided it was going to go for-

MATTHEWS: Jackie Robinson was for Nixon.

It's certainly not surprising that the New York Times would publish a hit piece on Glenn Beck, but coming hours after CNN's Howard Kurtz spent almost ten minutes bashing the Fox News commentator makes me smell a rat.

Add to this the increased pressure Beck has come up against from MSNBC personalities since Keith Olbermann surprisingly left America's most liberal television news network in January, and one has to wonder what Times author David Carr had in mind with his Monday piece "The Fading Power of Beck’s Alarms":

Since last August, when he summoned more than 100,000 followers to the Washington mall for the “Restoring Honor” rally, Mr. Beck has lost over a third of his audience on Fox — a greater percentage drop than other hosts at Fox. True, he fell from the great heights of the health care debate in January 2010, but there has been worrisome erosion — more than one million viewers — especially in the younger demographic.

He still has numbers that just about any cable news host would envy and, with about two million viewers a night, outdraws all his competition combined. But the erosion is significant enough that Fox News officials are willing to say — anonymously, of course; they don’t want to be identified as criticizing the talent — that they are looking at the end of his contract in December and contemplating life without Mr. Beck.

On Thursday, Beck garnered almost two million total viewers. Not only is that more than his combined "competition" on CNN, HLN, and MSNBC, it is more than any show on those networks gets at any time of the day.

Frankly, no one is even close.

Within his own network, Beck's numbers are consistently higher than Shepard Smith's and Greta Van Susteren's while typically being on par with Bret Baier's and Sean Hannity's. Only Bill O'Reilly consistently bests Beck.

Is that the kind of commentator you want to get rid of?

Consider, too, that Beck and O'Reilly seem to have a solid working relationship with the former a frequent program guest of the latter and the duo going on a nationwide tour last year. Clearly, Fox's number one star shows no concern for his colleague across the hall.

For his part, Carr offered not one named source inside or outside of the Fox organization claiming the top-rated cable news network is even considering dumping one of its top-rated stars. Instead, Carr offered innuendo:

What had been a fast and loose assault on all things liberal has grown darker and less entertaining, especially with the growing revolution in the Middle East, a phenomenon Mr. Beck sees as something of a beginning to some kind of end. He’s often alone in the studio with his chalkboards and obscure factoids, a setting that reminds me of an undergrad seminar on macroeconomics with an around-the-bend professor I didn’t particularly enjoy. [...]

Part of Mr. Beck’s appeal is that he seems as if he is about to lose his marbles. But recently, he acts like he’s a little tired of the game. He can still draw a huge crowd, but he looks lonely in that studio all by himself.

As NewsBusters has been reporting for weeks, many MSNBCers – including Beck's competition at 5:00 PM Chris Matthews – have been aggressively attacking him since Olbermann's departure.

In a period from late January to early February, the "Hardball" host bashed Beck six nights in a row. Matthews went after him twice last week.

Compounding the intrigue, as NewsBusters reported Sunday, CNN's Howard Kurtz did an almost ten minute segment on "Reliable Sources" bashing the Fox News star with the help of conservatives David Frum and Jennifer Rubin.

Kurtz teased at the top of the show, "Glenn Beck is drawing sharp criticism these days from the right. Some conservative commentators speaking out against the Fox News star, saying he's hurting their cause, which raises the question, has Beck finally gone too far?"

This coming hours before the Times published a lengthy hit piece on Beck has to make you wonder if the liberal media have finally had enough of him and are beginning to mount a full-scale assault to get Fox to not renew his contract.

As we learned from last year's JournoList scandal, nothing is beyond these people.

As NewsBusters previously reported, advocacy media outlets such as MSNBC and the New York Times Tuesday cherry-picked comments by Mike Huckabee to make him look like a birther.

On Wednesday, the former Arkansas governor went back on the Steve Malzberg radio show to address his accusors who he claimed are attacking him because they're afraid he "might end up getting some traction running for president and [beat] Barack Obama" (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: Some of these guys don’t seem to be able to read, because if they would read my book, they would know exactly what I said and what I intended. I clearly said that I misspoke when I used the word Kenya instead of Indonesia. But, I’ve never seen the media so completely desirous to write their story before they even found out what was actually said.

STEVE MALZBERG, HOST: Well, Governor, the thing here is, and let’s take the New York Times first. They were one of the first to call over here and wanted the interview sent to them. As far as I know, we sent them the interview. I gave a statement to a girl who said, “Okay, let me start writing down.” And I said, “This is a bunch of nonsense.” And then they, we sent them the interview, they did their story, and I’m holding the headline of the story in my hand, “Huckabee Questions Obama Birth Certificate.” Now, that’s insane because you said completely the opposite. And it’s not just me that heard. They heard it because I sent it to them.

HUCKABEE: Well, it’s really inexplicable because I have been very clear. I’ve said it on “Good Morning America,” I’ve said it on C-SPAN. I’ve said it in front of a room full of a hundred reporters in Washington last week when I spoke at the National Press Club. There were plenty of reporters, both cameras as well as audio there to capture it. I’ve said it in spite of the fact that it isn’t necessarily something that a lot of conservatives want to hear. But I’ve said it because that’s what I believe. I’ve written it that way in my book. I’ve answered the question every time I’ve been asked. But they are determined to say that I said something that I did not say. I’m just simply beyond myself to explain how to get them to get it. […]

It’s hard for me to understand. I mean, Obama can talk about visiting all 57 states, and that’s just, “Gee, he’s tired.” You know, I’m doing 30, 40 interviews a day on the book tour. I’m going from five in the morning till midnight every night. And clearly what I wrote was about his childhood in Indonesia, about his Kenyan father and grandfather who he says was tortured by the Brits during the Mau Mau revolution. All of that is spelled out.

Indeed. As Britain's Sunday Times reported in December 2008:

Barack Obama’s grandfather was imprisoned and brutally tortured by the British during the violent struggle for Kenyan independence, according to the Kenyan family of the US President-elect.

Hussein Onyango Obama, Mr Obama’s paternal grandfather, became involved in the Kenyan independence movement while working as a cook for a British army officer after the war. He was arrested in 1949 and jailed for two years in a high-security prison where, according to his family, he was subjected to horrific violence to extract information about the growing insurgency.

“The African warders were instructed by the white soldiers to whip him every morning and evening till he confessed,” said Sarah Onyango, Hussein Onyango’s third wife, the woman Mr Obama refers to as “Granny Sarah”.

Mrs Onyango, 87, described how “white soldiers” visited the prison every two or three days to carry out “disciplinary action” on the inmates suspected of subversive activities.

“He said they would sometimes squeeze his testicles with parallel metallic rods. They also pierced his nails and buttocks with a sharp pin, with his hands and legs tied together with his head facing down,” she said The alleged torture was said to have left Mr Onyango permanently scarred, and bitterly antiBritish. “That was the time we realised that the British were actually not friends but, instead, enemies,” Mrs Onyango said. “My husband had worked so diligently for them, only to be arrested and detained.”

Mr Obama refers briefly to his grandfather’s imprisonment in his best-selling memoir, Dreams from My Father, but states that his grandfather was “found innocent” and held only for “more than six months”.

This report was all the rage that month in 2008, even getting quoted by the far-left website the Huffington Post.

As such, all Huckabee was citing in his book and repeated on Monday was established history of Obama’s family.

Is this suddenly verboten? Was Arianna guilty of hate speech for mentioning Obama's Kenyan father and grandfather at her website? Or are only liberals allowed to bring this up? But I digress:

HUCKABEE: I immediately corrected it and said, “Let me clarify.” I don’t think he ever grew up in Kenya. But he did spend part of his formative years in Indonesia. But he did have a Kenyan father and a Kenyan grandfather. So I believe he was born in Hawaii.

Stop the tape. Huckabee just clearly stated, "I believe he was born in Hawaii." Doesn't sound like he's either a birther or pandering to them, does it?

He continued:

HUCKABEE: I have no reason to think otherwise personally. Others do. I’ve made that clear. Somewhere in the midst of all this, I’m considered guilty of hate speech, incompetent to be president. It’s really one of those things where it must be that there are people in the media who are afraid that I might end up getting some traction running for president and beating Barack Obama. I can’t figure out any other reason that they would be so exorcized over a verbal gaffe that I have immediately not only acknowledged but corrected and am in print being very clear as to exactly what I meant. […]

I’m surprised by Joe Scarborough. I’ve known Joe. He’s a friend, and frankly he’s the kind of guy I think would have picked up the phone or sent me an e-mail and said, “Did you mean this?” But, you know, it’s a, it’s a fun story for them to blow up, but I, I think it really shows the sad state of American journalism when people fail to do a little source checking. I’ve had people call my office, and even when my staff said, “It’s in his book – read it,” and gave them the page numbers, they still called back and said, “Well, does he believe that he was born in Indonesia?” Nobody’s ever said that. […]

It’s one thing for the bloggers, people who really aren’t journalists but they’re just opinion makers. But when you have what used to be legitimate organizations like the Associated Press and the New York Times who can’t get it right, who can’t even read a simple book that was written so simply that they could understand it, then I do worry about the future of journalism in this country.

Indeed. However, Huckabee could have added MSNBC's Chris Matthews to this list, as for the second night in a row, the "Hardball" host attacked the former Arkansas governor. He even lead with this so-called story:

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Leading off tonight: The Huckster. When Mike Huckabee's spokesman says Huckabee didn't mean to say President Obama grew up in Kenya, that he really meant to say he grew up in Indonesia, it's a lot to swallow. First of all, both assertions are wrong. The president grew up, if you will, in the United States. He went to the best prep school in Hawaii. Second, Huckabee mentioned British imperialism. Well, the Brits were in Kenya, not Indonesia. And the Mau Mau revolution, that also occurred in Kenya.

No, Mike Huckabee just joined the long list of discredited Republicans spreading the bogus story that Barack Obama's presidency is somehow illegitimate because he`s some kind of foreigner, the right's favorite propaganda that won`t die. That`s our top story.

Later, with guests David Corn of Mother Jones and Salon's Joan Walsh in the studio acting as willing accomplices, Matthews proved Huckabee's point that this is all about liberals fearing he could actually beat Obama:

MATTHEWS: This guy, Huckabee — we ought to put it on. He's leading the Republican polls right now…

JOAN WALSH, SALON: He's leading.

MATTHEWS: … in our latest poll.

WALSH: I know.

MATTHEWS: He's not some character offstage we're beating up here tonight. He's some guy who may well be the Republican nominee for president. And he walks out there and starts talking like this in the world, I think it's going to shake the — there he is, 25 percent.

If you needed any more proof this about assassinating a possible threat to Obama, here's how Matthews ended this segment:

It's scary, and I hope the rest of the world is not paying attention to Mike Huckabee.

But that wasn't enough, for Matthews concluded Wednesday's program by going after Huckabee again:

Thank you for proving Huckabee's point, Mr. Matthews. You're obviously scared to death that someone is going to emerge and actually beat the man that gives you a thrill up your leg.

As a result, since Huckabee is suddenly leading in the polls as the GOP's front-runner, Matthews, ever the good little Democrat shill, has to take the Arkansas governor on over a simple mistake the man has already acknowledged and apologized for.

You see, only Democrats like Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are allowed to make gaffes. As this episode once again clearly demonstrates, Republicans aren't.

Sad state of American journalism indeed.

Four of MSNBC's extended prime time hosts on Tuesday cherry-picked something Mike Huckabee said on Steve Malzberg's radio show in order to depict the possible Republican presidential candidate as a birther.

Before getting to their highly unprofessional snippets, implications, and conclusions, here's what the former Arkansas governor actually said Monday (videos follow with transcripts and commentary):

STEVE MALZBERG, HOST: I mean, don’t you see black liberation theology as a, as something that, that was fair to bring up as McCain did not, and if you were to run against Barack Obama, would you consider Rev. Wright and all those years in the church as fair game or not?

MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: I would spend more time asking Barack Obama whether he believed in black liberation theology rather than Rev. Wright did. I really want to know, does he believe that salvation is individual or is it corporate and grouped. I’m very frankly delighted that we saw an African-American elected to the presidency. I just wish it had not been someone that was so leftist that he just, world views are just completely opposite of that of any American president. I take great issue with virtually every position Barack Obama takes as a president. In my book, I mean there not, there’s some sharp elbows thrown, but not at him, but at his positions, because I think his actions as president are hurting this country, and hurting our future. I have no hesitancy in taking him on for his domestic policy, his economic policy, his policy toward national security or our role as Americans. One of the comments I make, Steve, in the book that I think sums up my view of his foreign policy is that Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” His is, “Make apologies and throw away the stick.” And it’s hurting this country, and he said that we shouldn’t have any country fear us. I take great exception. I think we ought to have a military that everybody in this world is scared to death of.

MALZBERG: So you would be different than McCain in many ways. You would confront him, especially now since you have four years of policy to scrutinize, correct?

HUCKABEE: Absolutely.

MALZBERG: Alright, one more for you.

HUCKABEE: I think that’s the key is to go, go head to head and show the clarity of differences between the two.

MALZBERG: One more for you, well, two more, the second one will be short. Don't you think it's fair also to ask him – I know your stance on this – "How come we don't have a health record, we don't have a college record, we don't have a birth cer – why Mr. Obama did you spend millions of dollars in courts all over this country to defend against having to present a birth certificate." It's one thing to say, I've — you've seen it, goodbye. But why go to court and send lawyers to defend against having to show it? Don't you think we deserve to know more about this man?

HUCKABEE: I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American. When he gave the bust back to the Brits –

MALZBERG: Of Winston Churchill.

HUCKABEE: The bust of Winston Churchill, a great insult to the British. But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.

MALZBERG: Oh, he despised the West, he despises the Brits, and I think he could take it all out on Israel, and that’s why he despises Israel. He’s not too thrilled with our history either. But let me just try to get an answer from you. Would you say to him or at least ask him in a debate, “Why did you go to court and spend millions of dollars on lawyers to prevent from having to show your birth certificate? If you have one and it’s there, why not show it?”

HUCKABEE: The only reason I'm not as confident that there's something about the birth certificate, Steve, is because I know the Clintons well, and believe me, they have lots of investigators out on him, and I'm convinced if there was anything that they could have found on that, they would have found it, and I promise they would have used it.

To be sure, Huckabee was 100 percent wrong about Obama having lived in Kenya. A spokesman Tuesday said the former governor misspoke. However, that didn't prevent the resulting firestorm.

At 1:26 PM, the shills at Media Matters posted a video and transcript of much of Huckabee's relevant comments to Malzberg under the headline "Huckabee: Obama Grew Up 'In Kenya.'"

Not at all surprising, the George Soros-funded, far-left organization concluded from Huckabee's comments that he was claiming Obama wasn't born in Hawaii although he never said that:

PolitiFact has noted that there "is not one shred of evidence to disprove PolitiFact's conclusion that the candidate's name is Barack Hussein Obama, or to support allegations that the birth certificate he released isn't authentic."

As this disgraceful organization's next step is typically to do an e-mail blast of their baseless conclusions, it was not at all surprising that by 3:13 PM, the New York Times Caucus Blog had bitten and bitten hard with a piece entitled "Huckabee Questions Obama's Birth Certificate":

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, said on Monday that he would “love to know more” about where President Obama was born and claimed — falsely — that Mr. Obama was raised in Kenya.

Actually, that's not at all what Huckabee said. In response to a lengthy question from Malzberg in the middle of a lengthy discussion about Obama, when asked, "Don't you think we deserve to know more about this man," the former governor said, "I would love to know more."

But the genie was now fully out of the bottle, and left-wing websites were running with this ball like a wide receiver in the open field seeing nothing but the end zone in front of him.

Consider that at press time, a Google search of "Huckabee, Obama, Kenya" produced 206,000 results.

Dutifully looking to take down any potential presidential threat to the object of their affection in the upcoming elections, the shills at MSNBC were quite willing to similarly cherry-pick Huckabee's comments in order to depict him as a birther:

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Back to HARDBALL. Time for the "Sideshow." First up: We know a lot of Republicans wrongly believe that President Obama was born and raised in Kenya, over in Africa. Guess who recently joined the birther chorus? Mike Huckabee. Here’s Huck on radio yesterday talking about the president.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MALZBERG: Don’t you think we deserve to know more about this man?

HUCKABEE: I would love to know more. But what I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, the reality, of course, is President Obama grew up in Hawaii, one of the states of the union, and Indonesia, when he had a stepfather there. In fact, he didn’t even visit Kenya in his entire youth ever.

Huckabee’s spokesperson, by the way, finally backpedaled late today, saying his boss simply misspoke. Yes, he was pandering to that radio guy.

Next up was the totally hapless and unwatchable Cenk Uygur:

CENK UYGUR, HOST: Alright, is Mike Huckabee a birther? During an appearance on the Steve Malzberg radio show, the host was trying to keep the ridiculous conservative theory alive. He wanted to know why President Obama spent millions in court defending against having to present a birth certificate and all that same nonsense. Now here's a response.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MALZBERG: Don't you think we deserve to know more about this man?

HUCKABEE: I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American. When he gave the bust back to the Brits –

MALZBERG: Of Winston Churchill.

HUCKABEE: The bust of Winston Churchill, a great insult to the British. But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UYGUR: Now there he said that Obama grew up in Kenya not once but twice. In reality of course President Obama was born in Hawaii and was raised in Hawaii. He did go to Indonesia for some years. Oh my God, wait until they get a load of that. And by the way, just in case you’re keeping track, the number of years that President Obama lived in Kenya would be zero. A spokesman for Huckabee commented today saying, “It was nothing more than a misstatement. Of course, we meant that he grew up in Uganda.” Okay, he didn't say that last part, but you know they were thinking it.

At 7PM was a replay of "Hardball" followed by "The Last Word":

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL, HOST: Time for tonight's Rewrite. If you think of Mike Huckabee as a genial, guitar playing, singing former governor of Arkansas who meets the basic integrity standards typical of former governors of Arkansas, you will be shocked, absolutely shocked by what he said yesterday.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MALZBERG: Why Mr. Obama did you spend millions of dollars in courts all over this country to defend against having to present a birth certificate. It's one thing to say, I've — you've seen it, goodbye. But why go to court and send lawyers to defend against having to show it? Don't you think we deserve to know more about this man?

HUCKABEE: I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

O’DONNELL: Well, maybe it would be if he grew up in Kenya, but Barack Obama did not grow up in Kenya!

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

HUCKABEE: His perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

O’DONNELL: No, no, no, no, no. He did not grow up in Kenya. Yes, he did have a Kenyan father and grandfather, but he did not grow up there. This is what we know. This is what is beyond dispute. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. He lived in the United States until he was six. His mother moved to Indonesia, Indonesia, where Barack Obama went to school from ages six to ten. At age ten, he moved back to Hawaii where he lived until he went off to college in California, not Kenya, California.

Huckabee refers to Obama growing up in Kenya as, quote, “The one thing I do know.” If that is the one thing that Mike Huckabee knows, then Huckabee knows less than nothing. That would presumably hold for governance. What does that mean Huckabee knows about Social Security? What does Huckabee know about Medicare? What does Huckabee know about the defense budget? What does Huckabee know about what we should do next in Libya? What does Huckabee know about anything other than how to lose weight?

As the pressure mounted today on Huckabee for lying about where the President grew up, Huckabee’s handlers issued the lamest possible press release in reaction to getting caught in an outright lie. It was, quote, “Gov. Huckabee simply misspoke.” Huckabee wants to leave it at that because he knows this particular brand of misspeaking is very, very useful for inspiring support of the 51 percent, 51 percent of national Republican primary voters who believe that Barack Obama is not a citizen of the United States. Mike Huckabee desperately wants every one of their votes if he's going to run for president next year. In his ugly pursuit of those votes he has now fallen below the already low standard for integrity that we have come to expect from former governors of Arkansas.

That last sentence of course was a slam on Bill Clinton, which is interesting considering the man setting the “low standard for integrity that we have come to expect from former governors of Arkansas” was honored last week by MSNBC in a love letter from Chris Matthews called “President of the World.”

More importantly, all three of these MSNBC hosts up to this point dishonestly omitted the beginning of Malzberg's relevant question, "Don't you think it's fair also to ask him – I know your stance on this – 'How come we don't have a health record, we don't have a college record?'"

Malzberg wasn't just talking to Huckabee about the birther issue, but also other questions media members largely ignored during the 2008 campaign. As such, when he asked, "Don't you think we deserve to know more about this man," it wasn't just about where he was born.

Furthermore, not one of the three hosts played the part of the Malzberg interview when Huckabee disavowed birthers altogether:

HUCKABEE: The only reason I'm not as confident that there's something about the birth certificate, Steve, is because I know the Clintons well, and believe me, they have lots of investigators out on him, and I'm convinced if there was anything that they could have found on that, they would have found it, and I promise they would have used it.

Indeed.

Yet Matthews, O'Donnell, and Uygur didn't play this part of Malzberg's interview with Huckabee, and neither did Ed Schultz:

ED SCHULTZ, HOST: Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee wants to have his cake and eat it, too, but the only thing is he put his foot in his mouth today. Now Media Matters heard his appearance with conservative radio talk show host on the low-rated Steve Malzberg show. Here’s Huckabee’s response to questions about the President’s citizenship.

Notice Schultz is such an idiot that he doesn't know the interview he was playing happened Monday. But I digress:

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MALZBERG: Don't you think we deserve to know more about this man?

HUCKABEE: I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

SCHULTZ: So, Mike Huckabee says President Obama grew up in Kenya even though the President’s own biography says he grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia. Maybe Huckabee just misspoke.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

HUCKABEE: His perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

SCHULTZ: Hmmm, hmmm. Interesting. Huckabee tried to clarify these statements on his Huck PAC website saying, “I simply misspoke when I alluded to President Obama growing up in ‘Kenya’ and meant to say Indonesia.”

Actually, here was Huckabee's complete statement concerning this matter:

On Monday, while on Steve Malzberg's radio show on New York's WOR Radio, I was asked about the President Obama's birth certificate issue. In my answer, I simply misspoke when I alluded to President Obama growing up in 'Kenya' and meant to say Indonesia.

As I have stated on page 1 of my new book 'A Simple Government' and in numerous interviews with dozens of reporters – I don't believe there is an issue with Barack Obama's birth certificate. However, I do believe there are serious issues with the President's policies, and I have been openly opposed to the President's world view.

I'm not surprised the NY Times chose to sensationalize this story. In fact, the New York Times, the AP, and other news organizations ran with the "sensationalized story" despite being specifically told by Steve Malzberg himself that they were incorrect in their assessment of the sound bite. You just can't help but laugh when my simple slip of the tongue, becomes a huge story – and a certain Presidential candidate claiming to visit all 57 states, gets widely ignored.

More on that later, but let's get back to Schultz:

SCHULTZ: So he misspoke and meant Indonesia even though he said Kenya twice – you heard it! – and talked about the Mau Mau rebellion against the British in Kenya.

But take a look at Huckabee’s past statements about the President of the United States. This is the first sentence of his new book. Quote: “Since Barack Obama was elected, plenty of books have been written criticizing his administration and accusing him of all sorts of things – from being a Marxist to lying about his citizenship to being a Muslim. But if you know me or you’re familiar with my commentaries on TV and radio, you know I don’t like to make politics personal.”

Well, he made similar comments about birthers on “Good Morning America” last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUCKABEE: For Republicans to even be bringing it up, I think it’s a waste of energy and time. Let’s focus on the issues with which we have disagreement not on really the extraneous personal things that are immaterial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHULTZ: Now, you may ask, “Why didn’t Huckabee say the same thing to Steve Malzberg on the right-wing radio today?” Well here’s why. A recent poll showed 51 percent of likely Republican primary voters believe President Obama was born in another country. Of those 51 percent, Mike Huckabee is their top choice for president. So, when you ask the non-birthers in the GOP their choice, it is Mitt Romney. Huckabee has to keep the birthers happy. But he can’t win the general election by pandering to them. He hasn’t officially announced his candidacy, but make no mistake about it, Mike Huckabee is already running a couple of campaigns.

So, here's Schultz's logic: Huckabee is comfortable publishing a book in which he disavows birthers, has no compunction against disavowing birthers on a broadcast television morning show that is now averaging 4.7 million viewers, but when he goes on what Schultz described as a "low-rated" radio program, he suddenly feels the need to speak differently on this issue.

And this man has his own show to espouse such utter nonsense.

The reality is that conservatives know Huckabee isn't a birther, so he doesn't have to pretend that he is. As Hot Air's Allahpundit wrote Tuesday:

My read on this is the same as Weigel’s, that Huckabee’s not questioning Obama’s citizenship so much as mistakenly making a hash of his biography. He knows that Obama grew up abroad, but somewhere along the line, between Birther chatter about Kenya and Gingrich’s talking points about Obama’s “Kenyan, anti-colonial worldview,” he forgot that it was Indonesia where O was raised.

Indeed. But such logic is inconsequential when the goal is to take down all of Obama's potential opponents next year.

And this is the kind of unprofessional reporting Americans should expect from MSNBC the next 20 months as these shills do everything within their power to get the object of their affection re-elected.

They're going to cherry-pick, convolute, misrepresent, and flat out lie when necessary.

The folks at NBC and new owners Comcast must be so proud of the lack of integrity and journalistic malpractice now on display at this so-called news network.

Interested readers are advised that Huckabee will be back on Malzberg's show Wednesday to address this issue in greater detail, and can listen to Malzberg's take on the media's pathetic response to the former Arkansas governor's comments at WOR radio's website (relevant section begins at minute 18:40).

A Gallup poll released Friday found Americans are most likely to say Ronald Reagan was the nation's greatest president.

On Monday, MSNBC's Chris Matthews was visibly angered about these results and actually insulted those in Reagan's camp as having a "limited memory" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well, today's George Washington's birthday, by the way. You can call it President's Day if you're buying a mattress. Otherwise, forget it. A new Gallup poll rates which presidents the American people think are best. By the way, this is a memory quiz more than a historic quiz. At number seven, the current guy in charge, Barack Obama, number seven. Number six, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. At five, George Washington, our first president. Number four, John F. Kennedy. Bill Clinton's number three. He's, by the way, the subject of our big historic documentary tonight at 10:00 Eastern. And Abraham Lincoln at number two. The greatest president in history, according to the American people with their limited memory, is Ronald Reagan.

Keep in mind, these are not historian rankings. These are people's. By the way, they should insist before anybody participates in one of these ridiculous polls, "Please list the presidents and then pick the best." Don't just go with the ones you can remember. It's like the greatest movie of all times was the one I just went to.

Isn't it interesting that Matthews had no problem with Obama being listed even though he's been in office for only two years and currently is the only president besides Roosevelt to have an unemployment rate above eight percent for this many months?

Beyond this, given the "Hardball" host's adoration for Clinton, would he have groused if one of the two presidents in our history to have been impeached took top honors?

As for the memory issue, Matthews must be ignoring the appearance on this list of presidents long gone such as both Roosevelts, Truman, Eisenhower, and especially Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson.

Does it really appear folks have memory issues when Abraham Lincoln comes in second in this kind of poll?

This seems especially absurd as according to Gallup, "Reagan, Lincoln, or John F. Kennedy has been at the top of this 'greatest president' list each time this question has been asked in eight surveys over the last 12 years."

As such, Matthews' anger has nothing to do with people's memories or their intellectual capacities. He just can't stand the idea that Reagan ever comes in first.

Pretty juvenile for a man that hosts an American cable news program, wouldn't you agree?