Chris Mathews, Moralism, and The Music Man

From the recent Salon interview with Chris Mathews:

Some liberals still won't watch "Hardball," remembering the excesses of Matthews' impeachment shtick. In his new book, "What Liberal Media?" Nation press critic Eric Alterman insists Matthews is no better than Fox's O'Reilly, calling him "a showman rather than a journalist," though Matthews was a Washington correspondent for the San Francisco Examiner and then the Chronicle for 15 years. Like O'Reilly, Alterman notes, Matthews is never more apoplectic than when going after elitist liberals, especially Hillary Clinton, whom Matthews nicknamed "Evita." He once bragged to Ad Week, "You're never going to see Hillary Clinton on my show," because, he predicted, she wasn't man enough to face his hardball questions. But Hillary Clinton, at least, seems to have forgiven Matthews -- and he's sweetened on her, too. They sat down for an hour-long conversation late last year as part of the "Hardball College Tour," at State University of New York's Albany campus, and it was as flirtatious as a first date. In a long talk with Salon, Matthews admitted the New York senator has won him over with her hard work, but he says he still can't stand her husband. Still, with the Bush administration on the verge of war with Iraq, the "Hardball" host even admitted to second thoughts about his over-the-top crusade against Clinton, given the magnitude of the issues that threaten the nation today.

Matthews is a moralist. He saw in Clinton's behavior a manifestation of the decay of western civilization and it blinded him to all the faults of Clinton's enemies. He's also a member of the beltway cliche who, like David Broder, thought that Clinton came in and trashed their place. There are none so easy to manipulate as those who are so convinced of their own moral standing. It's how flim-flam artists like the salesman in "The Music Man" make their living: by playing to people's prejudices and sense of their own importance. George W. Bush is a master at it. The problem is that, once fooled, it becomes that much harder for a victim to come back because doing so requires admitting that you have been fooled. For Matthews to even come this close to admitting it is an indication of just how bad it has become.