Either he’s really good at memorizing speeches someone else wrote, or he’s at least sometimes capable of rational and coherent thought.
His speech delivery is pretty natural, comes off an honest. It's easier to 'act stupid" day in and day out, than it is for a stupid person to "come off an intelligent in a fifteen minute speech."
Just to close off the discussion, my only point was that (at least IMO), Matthews is no dummy, and his output on MSNBC is deliberate shtick. Agree or disagree, I've exhausted the evidence I would bring to support my opinion.