It was funny to see a furious, spitting-mad Chris Matthews on Morning Joe today. He was excoriating New Hampshire voters for “lying to pollsters.” Matthews had been one of the nastiest anti-Hillary pundits, attacking her so personally and proclaiming the Age of Obama so stridently, that even I was turned off. (He agrees with both ideologically, of course, so it was merely a matter of style.) Democrats are racists, Matthews implied, because they didn’t vote for Obama, or were unwilling to tell a pollster they were for a white woman, white man, or Hispanic man. People should have to stand in a room and declare their support, a snarling Matthews said, and not be able to do so in a “little dark place.” Does he mean the voting booth? Very funny.
Of course, it was great to see the pollsters with egg on their faces. It’s good to undermine these state-affiliated enterprises, since their fundamental purpose is to tell us what to think.
Matthews also revealed the inner-man when he denounced Huckabee for coming from the wrong social class, and said he therefore couldn’t appeal to the rich suburbs of Philadelphia or Chicago. Now there is a whole host of things wrong with the kristo-fascist Huckabee, but his class origin is not one of them. Of course, media pundits identify with the upper class, which they assiduously serve, while the upper class laughs up its sleeve at their social pretensions when they are out of the room.
BTW, is it “lying” in a moral sense to play games with pollsters? Surely not. Some stranger for the regime calls you at home and demands to know your innermost thoughts in a 45-minute, unpaid interview. He could be from a federal agency, or sharing information with one. Some people might think it is a moral imperative not to tell the truth to such an operative.
8:23 am on January 9, 2008
