By David Futrelle
Chris Matthews’ abrupt on-air resignation from his MSNBC show Hardball on Monday caught a lot of people off guard, none more so than the network’s go-to political numbers guy Steve Kornacki, who found himself with nearly an hour of live television to fill after Matthews walked off the set. (He got through it.)
Matthews’ passive aggressive resignation speech made it pretty clear that he had been pushed out (a fact that’s now been confirmed) While offering a sort of apology for some of the behavior that got him in trouble with both women viewers and network brass, his weirdly defensive language and the tone of his remarks both made clear he still didn’t quite understand the complaints against him. He said the right words, or something close to them, but it’s clear he wasn’t feeling the music.
“Compliments on a woman’s appearance that some men, including me, might have once incorrectly thought were okay, were never okay,” Matthews begrudgingly acknowledged. “Not then, and certainly not today—and for making such comments in the past, I’m sorry.”
That’s what you’re calling them, “compliments?”
Matthews, a man with almost no filter, has been talking about women’s looks on his show for decades now — mostly gushing over the “beauty” of guests and fellow journalists who appeal to his own personal boner, but sometimes (as in the case of Ann Coulter) putting them down.
The Daily Show gathered together some of his, er, greatest hits here.
For many, many more examples, see here.
Matthews’ comments in private seem to have been even worse. Way back in 1999, NBC paid out $40,000 in a settlement with a woman who had accused him of sexual harassment. Last week, journalist Laura Bassett wrote about Matthews allegedly creeping on her backstage in a piece for GQ. Who knows how many more women have similar stories.
But Matthews misogyny extended way beyond “compliments” on air and off. His commentary on female politicians and other public figures was tinged with sexism and often outright hostility — describing Hillary Clinton, one of his bete noires, as “witchy” and “anti-male.” For examples, see this Media Matters piece by Jamison Foser, who ultimately concluded that
Chris Matthews has been treating female guests as sexual objects for years. He has been judging women — senators, presidential candidates, the speaker of the House — on their clothes and their voices and their appearance for years. He has been referring to women as “castrating” for years. He has been applying double standards to male and female candidates for years.
This was written back in 2008, by the way, and it’s still as true now as it was then.
Despite this long and hardly secret history, some have been defending Matthews and decrying his forced resignation. Kornacki, even thought he was the one left holding the bag for Matthews after his sudden departure, offered his former colleague a glowing tribute on air. On Twitter, Matthews has been defended by fellow MCNBCers Joy Reid, Nicole Wallace, Andrea Mitchell and Morning Joe’s Joe Scarbourgh and Mika Brzezinski. Columnist Kathleen Parker offered this hot take:
One person’s innocent flirtation is another’s sexual harassment. That’s why you’re not supposed to pull this shit at work — a lesson Matthews somehow failed to learn despite having been called out for this behavior for more than two decades.
It’s good he’s out. I just never thought I’d see it.
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@Allandrel
In some way, that actually makes things worse. It just means that they have thoroughly dehumanized immigrant children to the point that they no longer see them as worthy of freedom. They have divided humanity into 2 unequal groups.
So, you guys know that Bloomberg is out? Thank fucking Christ!
@Naglfar
That is conservatism in a nutshell: “The world is Us, who are Good, and Them, who are bad, and the highest Good is hurting Them.”
My ex-therapist, and others defending conservatives, kept insisting that conservatives don’t want to hurt Others, but feel they need to in order to accomplish this Important Thing. And that Thing. And this other Things. Really, every single thing just requires conservatives to hurt Others, even though they really don’t want to. And if hurting Others for decades hasn’t accomplished the Thing, that just means that conservatives need to hurt Other more. That will work.
But it is absolutely impossible that conservatives just want to hurt Others and keep coming up with justifications for doing so. Thinking that means that I’m the one who is hurting people. Because I’m not being compassionate to the ones caging children in concentration camps.
“Before you condemn him, think of all the women Harvey Weinstein didn’t rape!”
Sorry, I’m more interested in all the people that are being hurt, not the chosen few they decided to not hurt.
@Schnookums
This was the last straw for me with my therapist.
Me: Sees people being hurt, feels compassion for them, is angry at the people hurting them.
Therapist: You are not being compassionate.
@Allandrel
This reminds me of an argument I was a part of in the Nyla Rose thread with a TERF called Croi. Croi declared that Rhuu, Catalpa, and I were bigots because we wouldn’t support their view that I didn’t deserve human rights.
Yeah, that’s a problem I have with a lot of liberal lines of thought. There’s a focus on the emotion/principle itself rather the the context or impact of that emotion. In this regard I just employ Paradox of Tolerance 101 thinking — a lack of reciprocity will always pave the way for abuse. Treat everyone with a baseline of compassion, of course, but when doing so facilitates a lack of compassion in certain people you share responsibility.
@Allandrel
This. Shit.
The way they flip the script at you and DARVO the fuck out of you, to try to get you to fall in line is outrageous. To be honest, I didn’t come to the full realization, until recently (2016), that conservatives could never be reached, because they weren’t fighting for principles so much as fighting for hierarchies and control.
And the same goes on for the liberals. They want to enjoy and benefit from hierarchies, so long as they are not overt and give them plausible deniability, in case anyone ever accuses them of being bigots.
Because that’s the crux of the matter: they don’t want the “THING”, what they want is control over others. Period. Once you accept that, you will notice that there is no contradiction in their policies and views.
Does the crap that therapist pulled actually work? I mean I came up with better tripe when I was 7, and tried to blame my 2yo brother for leaving my bedroom window open when it rained.
If someone tried to explain how I was the one lacking compassion because I was perturbed with those caging children, I think I would have said what my mom did: *long stare*, “You obviously have no idea how ridiculous you sound, do you, Chad.”
And, yeah, the goal isn’t The Thing. Control is the endgame. Rich white guys bargain for economic control over non-rich white guys by allowing the non-rich white guys to control women and minorities.
I know it’s a cliché to quote 1984; but, well…
@Diego Duarte
Perhaps it’s naive on my part, but I still try to convince liberals. Because I was one not long ago.
I’d argue that if one is determined to feel bad for fascists, then the most compassionate thing one can do is stop them from hurting people; after all, if you can dissuade them now, they’re much less likely to be imprisoned as war criminals a few years down the road.
I realize that’s probably over-optimistic in several different ways.
A lot more people than it seem can be convinced. Part of why it seem so hard to convince people is that most people are too afraid to show weakness by showing they changed opinion. A lot of science have tried to ascertain whether people can be convinced, and currently the result is “maybe? sometime? people lie when we try to evaluate how convinced they are”.
There is also the issue of cognitive dissonance. Sure, conservatives do all they can to get, and then keep, all the control. But a lot are sincerely persuaded it’s for the greater good, or even that it have nothing to do with control.
As far as my experience can tell, the best approach is to lightly touch every shitty part of conservatism (how it’s self contradictory ; how its stated goals aren’t their actual goal ; how losing control isn’t actually horrible ; etc …), and let it simmer a bit. And never, ever ask if the target changed opinion, since its answer will be “no” regardless.
@Moon Custafer : I feel bad for animals infected with rabies, and put them down anyway. I feel bad about thoses animals that are aggressive against humans because of a mix of human encroaching their territory and bad treatments, but I still want them relocated or dead. Feeling bad for fascist should not mean going easy on them, especially since they are dangerous.
@ olhmann
Just to be a bit of a pedant; cognitive dissonance isn’t the ‘doublethink’ thing per se; it’s the feeling of discomfort that arises from a person acknowledging they are holding mutually incompatible views simultaneously.
A problem is that many people, perhaps most, can quite easily ignore the inconsistencies in their positions. So evidence and logic has no persuasive effect; they just rationalise it away.
i interpreted the use of the word “compliments” as not compromising the sincerity of the apology but making it double as a statement directed toward men who might otherwise have followed his example, or felt more justified in their actions because of him doing the same visibly on tv. which would have made it an unusually good apology.
i know nothing about the guy and am probably not coming to this with the kind of mistrust he deserves. but if i heard it this way, maybe some of the people it could have a positive impact on will, too.
@Alan Robertshaw: you’re right, and I should amend my statement to say that the cognitive dissonance they suffer from their doublethink is one of the reason for which people can be convinced, rather than being the doublethink.
Cognitive dissonance is a bit like having a bit of salad between two teeth, or a hole in a sock. It’s not really painful, just annoying, but it’s enough of a constant reminder to make people wish it’d go away.
@Alan Robertshaw: To expand on your point, the rationalizations aren’t generally because of intellectual laziness (though they can be, at least in part) but because the contradictory beliefs are in some sense foundational. Sometimes it’s because they know they are a good person and they know that good people have to believe certain things in order to stay good – giving that up means taking social and moral risks, with the worst case scenario being ostracized from everything they’ve known. Sometimes it’s because they’re keystones in their worldview – lenses which influence how they view the world and their place in it – and giving something up means that they have to reevaluate everything they thought they knew, not even certain that this new perspective is actually any better… and worst-case scenario, a complete collapse of the self, being barely able to function until they’ve picked up the pieces and become someone completely different, which could take years.
It’s an instinctive self-defense against trauma and exile (the latter of which is likely to lead to trauma). In the case of genuine cognitive dissonance, sometimes it only kicks the issue further down the road.
@ Olhmann
It can be a powerful tool; as can guilt; especially if the people you are trying to persuade has a conscience.
Of course, a lot of our ideological opponents revel in their nastiness.
Saying ‘The cruelty is the point’ isn’t an argument with them; it’s a badge of honour.
@Sunnysombrera:
Since you mentioned “But the taxes!” I think I know which interview you watched. But I think this is the one that helped get him canned (I don’t seem to be able to find the direct video, so gotta go through YoungTurks). Not only is his usual shouty, spitty, assholery on display, but also his misogyny, as he questions her again and again about why would she believe the woman’s claims.
That and his frothing hysteria about Bernie dragging him off to Central Park to be executed. ::Thunder rolling eyes into last week::
@An Actual Chad
I have not spoken to her since. I had to have my mother answer when she called after I canceled three appointment in a row, and tell her that I wished to find a new therapist, because I just could not deal with her BS any more.
“You’re not being compassionate to the child concentration camp people” was the last straw in a line of irrational arguments that she had been pushing on me – this was just the one that was an attack on me, rather than an attack on logic.
Previous greatest hits include:
Moral equivalencies! “You think conservatives are bad, but conservatives think that progressives are bad, so no one is right and no one is wrong.”
…uh, no, because one thinking something does not make it so. If Alice thinks that Bob is evil because he eats babies, and Bob thinks that Alice is evil because she kick puppies, it is very important to determine if those claims are true. If Alice does not kick puppies, but Bob does eat babies, then Alice is right and Bob is wrong.
The golden mean! “When two groups hold opposing views, the right answer lies somewhere in the middle.”
..oh, of course! So when the Nazi say “We should murder all of the Jews,” and I say “We shouldn’t murder any Jews,” the right answer is to murder half the Jews. That’s just logic!
And my favorite, that I don’t even know how to categorize: That I should not try to stop Bad Things, but instead only work on helping Good Things. This was not because it would be better for my mental state, which would at least be a valid argument, but because:
“There’s a saying ‘What we resist, persists.’ It means that by opposing a thing, you only strengthen it. So you you think something is bad, trying to stop it will only make it worse. Instead, try to accomplish good that exceeds the bad thing.
“You’re angry about voter suppression, but trying to combat it will only result in more voter suppression. What you need to do is try to get people registered to vote faster than they can be disenfranchised.”
…ah, yes, of course! This is why our attempt to stamp out the guinea worm has only made it more prevalent. It’s why smallpox is a more virulent disease than ever. It’s why every invaded country that fought back only found itself conquered even faster.
So if there is an arsonist burning down buildings, trying to stop him will only result in MORE burned buildings. The productive thing to do is to try to build buildings faster than he can burn them down. That’s very logical.
…I am still debating whether or not to make a formal complaint about her. Because while she did help me years ago (I would never have been tested for autism if she hadn’t referred me), I’m worried about her pushing this crap on people who aren’t able to immediate see it as BS as I was.
@Allandrel
I don’t know much about how lodging a formal complaint works in this case, but I would say it is not a bad idea. What she’s pushing is not only wrong but dangerous. Imagine a patient who is flirting with far right ideologies and then is told they aren’t wrong when they want to kill civilians. That’s an extreme example, but I can easily see how the therapist could end up reinforcing and affirming dangerous ideologies while shooting down safe ones.
@Allandrel
She sounds like a full-blown Trumpanzee making excuses for herself. I remember I had a couple of run ins in a facebook group of survivors from narcissitic abusers. They were all but praising Trump and every time I would call them out on the child-concentration camps they tried to DARVO and accuse me of “bullying”.
Thankfully, they were the ones kicked out. But with regard to your therapist, my take is that this is highly unprofessional. Therapists are supposed to help you understand yourself and provide you with mechanisms to cope with your feelings.
I’m not sure about my therapist’s political allegiance because, in the two years that I’ve been visiting her, she has never given so much as a hint of it. By now I already understand that the purpose of these therapies is to find out why I feel the way I do about things, and the main components of my identity, and how they interact together. Any contentitious topic, such as politics, can be used for the purpose of discovering your feelings, but they cannot become the focus of the session.
To summarize, she is leaking a lot of herself into these therapies and coming accross as defensive, instead of trying to help you.
@ Allandrel, I would have no qualms about reporting her. She sounds manipulative, and it appears that she studied the abuser’s playbook instead of therapy texts. She did one good thing for you, but that came with a whole lot of bad stuff, which I’d have a hard time overlooking. I am so sorry you had to deal with her, as gaslighting/manipulation is bad regardless of the source, but from a therapist that’s supposed to help you, it’s the pinnacle of awful.
Welp. As a Canuckistani I can’t say I know the guy but I generally trust the judgement of people here (plus wow he sounds like an asshat in those clips) so good riddance. Also, that Kathleen Parker needs to learn to put herself in others’ shoes. Is it really that hard to imagine that not every woman likes being leered at or being told a variation on “lookin’ good, babe!” every day?
@Allandrel: If I heard any professional therapist say bullshit like that (I mean, really? The Golden Mean fallacy?), I would definitely not put up with it, even if they’d helped me before (your example really resonates with me, given that my Asperger’s was diagnosed due to a good referral as well). I’d say do it (for pretty much the same reasons as Naglfar), but only as long as it doesn’t cause you any undue stress or discomfort.