Redstate

Nope, not something about to happen. Something that *did* happen.

By Moe Lane Posted in Chris Matthews | Liberals | MSNBC | Suckers! — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

First, watch this clip from Hot Air.

(Relevant bits from the transcript after the fold)

Three observations:

1). As Allahpundit noted, Chris Matthews totally insulted Markos Moulitsas with that last comment. Not that Markos cares: it is, after all, good for business.

2). If you're wondering why Ms. Bernard is endorsing Rush Limbaugh's comments about the Democratic Party's historically shabby treatment of the African-American community (another example of Rush's argument here), it's probably because she's a member of the Independent Women's Forum, which is in fact a conservative group (an angry, Leftist take on the IWF may be found here). The Daily Howler noted this several months ago, which means that Chris Matthews has been helping a conservative spokeswoman get to a place where she can whack on the monolithic lock that the Democratic Party has on African-American voters - and from a ostensibly pro-Obama stance, to boot.

3). None of the players involved have a very high opinion of the ability of progressives - particularly online ones - to work this all out for themselves. Which is... fair, because it's not immediately obvious that many of them have actually noticed what's going on inside what is apparently one heck of a blind spot for them. Shoot, I wouldn't even mention it myself if it wasn't too late to do anything about it Presuming that they actually could have, of course, which is always an open question with the netroots. All in all, the casual and largely justified contempt shown to them by their betters would be pathos-inducing if it weren't quite so funny.

Ha! I guess that I had four observations, then.

Moe Lane

From Newsbusters:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about this Limbaugh factor. If Hillary Clinton wins this squeaker in Indiana, which is probably the best bet right now before we get the results in from Lake County, many could say that the margin of error -- the couple of votes that she won by, the percentage or two -- was generated by a mischief-making by a radio talk show host, a talk jock. That certainly does take some of the thrill out of it, doesn't it?

MICHELLE BERNARD: It takes a little bit of the thrill out of it, but, you know, here's some of the other things Rush Limbaugh has said, you know, during “Operation Chaos” that I think actually might have helped Barack Obama also. He -- last week I think on May 1st on one of his radio shows -- he came out and he talked about this history of the Democratic Party and basically has given sort of this impression to black Americans to really sit there and say to yourself: “What has the Democratic Party done for you?” He talked about the Democratic Party being the party of Bull Connor and coming out and saying it is not unlike -- you know, don't put it past the Democratic Party to take this nomination from Barack Obama and give it to Hillary Clinton. And he reminded black Americans about -- oh, God, Maynard Jackson wanting to be head of the DNC and the Democratic Party didn't give it to him and he goes through these types of things. And I think for any African-Americans who listen to that on the radio show, it might have even helped galvanize support for Obama in North Carolina and Indiana.

MATTHEWS: This was a two-step: He was going to manipulate the Democratic Party out of nominating Barack Obama and then blame the Democratic Party for that?

BERNARD: Well, that's one way to look at it. The way I choose to look at it is he's done something positive because he's said to African-Americans, ask the Democratic Party “what have they done for you lately?” And maybe as African-Americans, we need to sit down and think, do we really do ourselves justice whatsoever by all just being Democrats rather than forcing Republicans and Democrats to compete for the black vote? And for that I say to Rush Limbaugh: good job.

MATTHEWS: You know, I have to offer a Keith-style special comment on that. Anyone who voted to screw up the political system of this country with the purpose of mischief should carry that with them the rest their lives. What a ridiculous way to use the vote for which people fought and died, to use that vote to make mischief. I hope you're proud of yourself. Michelle, thank you for joining us.