WOW

It is hard to believe this is our elite political commentary. Chris Mathews has no respect for Hillary at all. What a republican tool.

Update:Tritero over at Digby's place has this to say.

He's absolutely right. But really now, what does it matter? To be charitable towards poor Mr. Fenn, it's perhaps an error of omission. After all, Fox represents Absolute Evil and the networks aren't in that league, right?

No. That's simply not so. And if you think so, take a trip through the Howler's archives and marvel at the unbelievably nasty and gratuitous lies and distortions in the coverage of Gore, of the Clintons, and of other major Democrats from the major networks, from the major papers, from media outlets who claim to disavow Fox's biased agenda but whose hateful coverage of leading Democrats is just as bad.

It's true. Fox is not the problem but only part of it. Whatever the reasons, the major media hated/still hate Gore, hated Kerry, hate the Clintons. By all means read all about it on the Howler. Follow the links. Read what the non-Fox media, the "better" outlets have said and done. That is why Somerby won't tolerate Fenn's failure to include the mainstream in the list of Clinton bashers:

If the mainstream press corps turns on the next Dem nominee, will voters understand what they’re seeing? Or will they assume that, since it’s not Fox, the trashing must be well-founded?

The dead of Iraq are in the ground because of the story we liberals wouldn’t tell. Peter Fenn seems like a nice guy. Last night, within the context of insider Washington, he did keep himself highly likeable.

I don't know the answer to Bob's rhetorical question, whether viewers today -given the amount of pushback from blogs and a less turgid Democratic party - will think bashing from the mainstream has some foundation. But if I had to answer it, I'd guess they will assume the bashing must have some basis. But even if every reader and viewer in America was savvy enough never to be taken in by the media's unprofessional coverage of the Clintons and other Democrats, it makes no difference. The media have a job to do and that is to provide us with dispassionate reporting. And, as we've recently seen, they are once again failing to do so, acting like sulking children. As they have done for years and years and years.

Again, Somerby is right. We should howl bloody murder at the way the media covers the candidates. The press needs to grow up, stop their addiction to Republican talking points and their lies. They need to report; how the candidates make them feel is, or rather should be, of no one's concern except to their mommies and daddies.

Update 2: Glenn Greenwald:

All of the points Brokaw made would have been just as valid even if their Wicked Witch had been crushed last night by 15 points, just as they were all hoping, predicting, and (therefore) trying to bring about. The endless attempts to predict the future and thus determine the outcome of the elections -- to the exclusion of anything meaningful -- is a completely inappropriate role for journalists to play, independent of the fact that they are chronically wrong, ill-informed, and humiliated when they do it. It would all be just as inappropriate and corrupt even if they knew what they were talking about, even if they were able to convert their wishes into outcomes.

But Matthews' response to Brokaw is perfect in several ways. The very idea of discussing issues, examining the candidates' positions, or even analyzing voter preferences does not and cannot even occur to Chris Matthews. That -- the most elementary nuts and bolts of standard, healthy journalism -- is way, way beyond the scope of what our media stars are able to do or want to do.

Update 3: Christy Hardin Smith at Firedoglake:

What is wrong with Chris Matthews? With all of these media people? I mean that, in all honesty, what in the hell is wrong with them? Their personal loathing of Hillary Clinton shone through in every sniggering, overwrought report this week. Their building up of Barack Obama is only their prelude and set-up for the frenzied clawing and shredding of him that is to come. And they have well and truly written off coverage of either John Edwards or Bill Richardson solely based on their current fundraising numbers, and never mind that, as of yesterday, there had been two -- count them, only TWO -- Democratic contests.

None of it has anything to do with substance. It's as if a pack of hyenas were crossbred with the characters in Mean Girls and then sent out to play at journalism.

Maureen Dowd's column this morning reads like J.J. Hunsecker in drag, although it's not exactly a shock given that its Dowd we are talking about, is it? Rachel Maddow let Matthews have it last night (C&L has the clip.) as a proxy stand-in for all the media idiocy. And Pam Spaulding nails it, calling it "'The Tweety Effect,' where the misogyny of a talking head in the MSM so enrages a demographic that they go out and vote in a manner that will put egg on the face of the talking head."