Matthews Slimes GOP as Racist for Going After Holder: An 'Ethnic' 'Stop-and-Frisk'

NewsBuster.org ^ | June 20, 2012 | Scott Whitlock

[Kaslin]

Liberal MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews on Tuesday slimed the House GOP investigating Attorney General Eric Holder as racist, insisting that the possible contempt charges over Fast and Furious had an "ethnic" feel. Using charged, racial imagery, Matthews demonized, "Is this sort of stop-and-frisk at the highest level? Go after the attorney general, get him to empty his pockets, stand in the spotlight."

The Hardball host, who had previously been ignoring the Fast and Furious scandal, changed course and portrayed the whole thing as a bigoted witch hunt. Talking to former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Matthews speculated: "I don't want to start too much forest fire here, but it is my instinct: Is this ethnic, Mr. Mayor?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

The left-wing journalist weirdly speculated as to Congressman Darell Issa's motives: "If he can humiliate this guy, if he can get to him, he'll be a big star in the Republican caucus. He'll be Dick Nixon."

Congressman Richard Nixon became a "star" in 1948 by exposing communist spy Alger Hiss. Hiss, of course, was very guilty. So, perhaps this is not the best metaphor for Matthews to use.

Showing just how little he had covered Fast and Furious, Matthews asked Wade Henderson of the Leadership Council, "Explain Fast and Furious." His viewers could be forgiven for not knowing anything about it.

A transcript of the June 19 segment can be found below:

Liberal MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews on Tuesday slimed the House GOP investigating Attorney General Eric Holder as racist, insisting that the possible contempt charges over Fast and Furious had an "ethnic" feel. Using charged, racial imagery, Matthews demonized, "Is this sort of stop-and-frisk at the highest level? Go after the attorney general, get him to empty his pockets, stand in the spotlight."

5:42

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Up next, when Republicans won control of the House of Representatives, their real prize, of course, was the subpoena power. They have got it and they are using it to go after the attorney general. Is this sort of stop-and-frisk at the highest level? Go after the attorney general, get him to empty his pockets, stand in the spotlight as long as they can and see if anything happens? That's ahead.       

5:46

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Up next, when Republicans won control of the House of Representatives, their real prize, of course, was the subpoena power. They have got it and they are using it to go after the attorney general. Is this sort of stop-and-frisk at the highest level? Go after the attorney general, get him to empty his pockets, stand in the spotlight as long as they can and see if anything happens? That's ahead.

5:46

MATTHEWS: That was the House Oversight Committee chair, Darrell Issa, behaving in his usual way, two weeks ago hammering Attorney General Eric Holder for not turning over documents related to the so-called Fast and Furious campaign, the flawed gun tracking operation carried out by the ATF. Shortly after that, Issa set a vote to hold Holder in contempt of court, or contempt of Congress rather, for tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Holder and Issa just wrapped up a meeting, by the way, a few moments ago, after which Issa says he's still waiting for the documents he wants and hopes to get them tonight, or wants to get them tonight. Willie Brown is a former mayor of San Francisco, former speaker of the California House, and Wade Henderson is the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Let me go to Wade first because I want to understand is there any reason why we should put any trust in the good intentions of Darrell Issa here?

WADE HENDERSON (Leadership Council): None at all, Chris. Chairman Issa is pursuing a politically motivated witch hunt that's designed to discredit the Justice Department and to force Attorney General Holder to resign. He's using Fast and Furious as the vehicle to pursue that witch hunt. But the truth is, nothing could be further from the factual bases for him making the assertion about Holder's lack of cooperation.

MATTHEWS: You know, when I look at this, Willie Brown, Mayor Brown, I just look at it- and I don't mean to use this term too much- but it's almost like a stop-and-frisk. Here's a chance to humiliate a distinguished member of the United States government, the attorney general- and everybody knows- close friend of the president's. It's a surrogate operation. If he can humiliate this guy, if he can get to him, he'll be a big star in the Republican caucus. He'll be Dick Nixon.

nd Furious.

HENDERSON: Fast and Furious was a gun-walking program where guns were purchased in the United States, taken across the border back to Mexico, and distributed by individuals who had no license or right to purchase --

MATTHEWS: And the idea was to track them.

HENDERSON: We were tracking those guns to find out where they went and hoped to buy the purchaser -- to get the purchaser as well as the recipient. It was started under the previous administration. General Mukasey actually had Operation Wide Receiver which was the precursor of Fast and Furious. It ended up with in the depth of officials who were involved with the U.S. government and ATF official, I believe, was killed. But this was a terrible operation. It should never have taken place. Much to his credit, Attorney General Holder ended the program, he disciplined ATF officials who were involved. He convened and -- inspector general to take a look at the issue. He testified over eight times with the Congress and he's provided thousands of documents-

MATTHEWS: And your theory is with this guy Darrell Issa, his goal is to push this further into rub the guy's face into it.

HENDERSON: Absolutely. And to force the attorney general to resign as a discredited official. Now, here's what's ironic -- there has never been an attorney general held in contempt of Congress. There's never been a vote by the House of Representatives on the contempt citation. To do it now against Eric Holder is to ignore all the facts of the case and to use a fiction to promote this kind of political agenda and I hope that both members of the Democratic Party as well as Republicans will see this for what it is.

MATTHEWS: I don't want to start too much forest fire here, but it is my instinct: Is this ethnic, Mr. Mayor?

BROWN: I think it has some ethnic flavor to it. It will be interrupted by some in that vein.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

BROWN: And you have to be careful you don't give the opportunity to make that case factually and what Darrell Issa is doing is -- has given some individuals the opportunity to make that case and to compare it to a stop and frisk.

MATTHEWS: Well, I just did it because -- it smells like it to me and I think there is a disdain on the part of some Republican, not all. Certainly not Boehner. But some of them down in the rank and file, red hot end of the team, that do talk down to the president and his friends absolutely.

[Baynative]

[Oldexpat]

I wonder what the Mexican press is saying about today’s developments? They were pretty upset about being in the dark about this program and the resulting deaths. Maybe some Freeper out there reads their papers and sites and can illuminate us on the Mexican opinions. They were big victims of Holder, Obama and Clinton’s program.

[Hardraade]

CM knows anything about *anything*? I thought his whole mental process was just, you know, the tingly stuff?

Oh, and here’s another example of the grotesque racism coming from the Obama faction:

http://theobamacrat.com/2012/06/20/congress-holds-ag-holder-in-contempt-america-holds-congress-in-contempt/

Thanks to Tel-Jonah Stern for pointing out the Obamacrat. Goes in the tables along with probably the whole linklist.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

Why do they call this show “Hardball”? Shouldn’t it be called “Cement head”?

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

Why do they call this show “Hardball”? Shouldn’t it be called “Cement head”?

[digger48]

Thanks.

Thanks a lot.

Now I won’t be able to sleep tonight.

[Hotlanta Mike]

[TigersEye]

Matthews us utter slime. His viewers were not informed about anything and misinformed about much after this lame “report.”

[factoryrat]

The race card is useless now. The feds all the way up to the president are caught red handed. Partisan politics will take a back seat when it comes to the charges brought against the current administration. If the people lose faith in the federal government, and it's ability to uphold the law of the land, ie: the Constitution, then none of them are immune from dismissal or prosecution, if they're lucky.

[smoothsailing]

[MestaMachine]

Grotesque and obama in the same sentence is redundant.

[pallis]

Chrissy was showing off for the black folk, trying to be cool, getting his race baiting groove on for the plantation masters.

[jonrick46]

We have to understand these moral mutants, whenever the have no answers, they reach for the Race Card as if it were a Get-out-of-jail-free-card . . .

[Terry Mross]

Proves liberals are mentally challenged. They actually believe the crap they spew without any facts whatsoever.

[Still Thinking]

Chrissy, please sit down because what I'm about to say will probably shock you, at least once you manage to decode all the words and stuff. See, real people with real "brains", get these things called "ideas", and they organize these "ideas" in their "brains", and communicate them using patterns of sounds that are formalized and known as "words" (the sounds form a sort of code that allow many of these real people to share these "ideas").

A smart person, whose "ideas" are based on "logic" (which is at least 10 pages away in your average dictionary from "leg tingle", even though, yes, I know they both begin with "L"), and who wants other people to go away knowing more than they did before, can become a "journalist" and share these "logic"-based "ideas" with their "audiences" (I won't even try to explain to you a concept that foreign) using "words". You don't qualify. Go do something you're equipped for. Your leg all tingly now, Chrissy?

[5th MEB]

Thanks a lot Baynative; now I am going to have to have another double scotch and move the Remington 870 next to the bed just to get to sleep. I’ll probably still have nightmares.

[5th MEB]

Your forgetting; to do the things you wrote about one actually has to have a functional brain. Chrissy can only do what is called stimming, a term used when the severely retarded (I know, a politically incorrect term) use some sort of physical action to stimulate themselves. In Chrissy's case this is his tingle up his leg, in the case of his audience (if there is one) it is watching his lips move in a nonsensical and nonfunctional way.

[lentulusgracchus]

Imagine the liberal heads that would explode if Issa hired Ken Starr as counsel.

Especially if Starr promptly indicted Holder in Arizona, so that Holder couldn't get an all-black, automatic 12-votes-innocent jury. Which is what Bill Clinton counted on (and was laughing at Ken Starr about), esp. when he granted corrupt pardons and took Chinese reptile money for the '96 campaign. Which was why he took that groveling, debasing "apology tour" of Africa: Didn't have a damn thing to do with Africa, but to sucking up to the black DC jury pool.

[lentulusgracchus]

Maybe some Freeper out there reads their papers and sites and can illuminate us on the Mexican opinions. They were big victims of Holder, Obama and Clinton’s program.

I imagine they won't be saying much.

Remember, this was a political operation from the git-go, in which the Mexican government was fully complicit and its leading politicians fully engorged and tingling, to pin the blame for Mexican violence and mesoscale death and destruction on American citizens and our Bill of Rights, in order to get the BoR changed and our RKBA impugned, vilified, and finally extinguished by legislation, U.N. treaties, and executive orders.

The Mexican government's gradually fading LE resources are the only thing between these journalists and the cartels. They won't be exposing any current or past presidents of Mexico on F&F.

[agere_contra]

Starr was portrayed in the media as a mean attack dog, but he was actually a roll-over pussycat secretly welcomed into the impeachment process by the liberals.