Low Point

by digby


I've been watching Chris Matthews talk about the Stupak Amendment all week while banging my head against the wall so it's been hard to document the atrociousness of his arguments. Jamison Foser soldiered on through the headache so I didn't have to:

If you want an illustration of how conservative framing dominates media coverage of politics and policy, you need only watch Chris Matthews talk about abortion each night on Hardball. Since early summer, the Hardball host has been hyping anti-abortion complaints about proposed health care reform, even though the proposals would have done nothing to expand abortion rights. In doing so, he has trafficked in falsehoods, embraced flawed and illogical conservative talking points, and portrayed pro-choice advocates who have already compromised as rigid, unyielding ideologues.

[...]

(Matthews' comments about abortion and health care reform have by no means been unique; I focus on him here because he has addressed the subject regularly over the past several months, and because it serves as yet another reminder that, despite conventional wisdom, neither Matthews nor MSNBC is really "liberal.")

That really can't be pointed out often enough. It's really worth reading the whole column for a full rundown 0f Matthews' frustrating misinformation and ill-informed opinions on this subject.

Whenever this subject has come up this week, I can't help but recall this post from last spring:

Chris Matthews says we have to find middle ground on abortion. Apparently, he just read Lord Saleton's most recent screed in the NY Times and was very affected by this:

Eight years ago, the Alan Guttmacher Institute surveyed over 10,000 American women who had abortions. Nearly half said they hadn’t used birth control in the month they conceived. When asked why not, 8 percent cited financial problems, and 2 percent said they didn’t know where to get it. By comparison, 28 percent said they had thought they wouldn’t get pregnant, 26 percent said they hadn’t expected to have sex and 23 percent said they had never thought about using birth control, had never gotten around to it or had stopped using it. Ten percent said their partners had objected to it. Three percent said they had thought it would make sex less fun.

This isn’t a shortage of pills or condoms. It’s a shortage of cultural and personal responsibility. It’s a failure to teach, understand, admit or care that unprotected sex can lead to the creation — and the subsequent killing, through abortion — of a developing human being.


Matthews let fly with his interpretation that "the problem is that we have a lot of abortions, a lot of them, in cases where the person is having sex and not doing anything to prevent getting pregnant and that they have no intention of taking to term. What do we do about those people who have sex and have no intention of taking the baby to term?" [Burn them! --- ed]

Ken Blackwell replied that science has shown that human life begins at conception whether it's brainwaves or fingerprints. Yep.

Lord Saletan of Will added that mating is the engine of history.

And then Matthews railed some more against women for just having sex without taking any precautions, and just figuring they can go get an abortion if they get pregnant. He said, "I want these little bitches to think!" (Ok, he didn't call them little bitches,he said "people," but the meaning was clear.)


I went on in that post to discuss this slut shaming concept in some depth which you can read if you are interested in that topic. But I have found the actual transcript and I think Matthews' comments are worth publishing in order to understand why a sexist like Matthews simply cannot understand and shouldn't be commenting on this issue:

MATTHEWS: Well, look, I respect both sides in terms of your right to have these positions. This is an American debate that goes on. Right now, we have a law. The Supreme Court recognized the right to choose an abortion, to have an abortion in very late term. And, depending on the circumstances and the amount of regulation that goes on, it becomes it is easier to have an abortion early in term.

But the problem we have is that we have a lot of abortions, a lot of them, in cases where...

BLACKWELL: Absolutely.

MATTHEWS: ... it‘s simply a matter of the person having sex, and not doing anything to prevent getting a pregnancy that they have no intention of taking to term.

What do we do about those people who have sex and have no intention of taking the baby to term?

BLACKWELL: Well...

MATTHEWS: I‘m just asking you, do you see a middle ground here? And, if you don‘t, just tell me, because then I will find somebody else who does, because I think there‘s got to be some way to begin this discussion.

[...]

MATTHEWS: All right. Fair enough, Ken. The reason I liked your [Saletan's] article is it pointed out something I had never thought through. Something like 90 percent of the situations that lead to abortions—and you made it it‘s the person‘s choice under the law. An abortion because somebody chooses they figure that‘s what they‘re going to do, and that‘s their decision. And in every one of those case, 90 percent, it‘s the person who just didn‘t both to take any precautions. They just didn‘t both to think about it, do anything about it, do anything to protect themselves. They got pregnant and then they decide to have an abortion.

I want that decision to be made in the first instance, before conception. I want people to think. I want people to be grown up, even if they‘re young.


Notice "the people" involved didn't protect "themselves" from "getting pregnant." Evidently "they" were all doing it with a turkey baster not a man.

Matthews pretends to be pro-choice and goes on about how abortions will happen no matter how distasteful "everyone" finds it, although if you read the full transcript it's quite clear by his use of personal pronouns he doesn't personally believe in abortion. That would be fine if he could articulate the position that the many pro-choice people who are also personally anti-abortion hold. But he can't because he's not really pro-choice and he's a sexist idiot to boot.

His performance this week has been a train wreck on this topic and he's allowed more misinformation to enter the village ether than all but the most zealous anti-choice advocates. It's a real low point, even for him.

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