Chris Matthews is alternatively inspiring and infuriating, one day displaying excellent reporting and interviewing skills, the next day descending into the most unbelieveable idiocy, usually while blabbering over his guests....
Last night on Hardball he failed as miserably as I've ever seen him fail, "White-Splaining" in the worst fashion possible....
Last night his editorial end-of-show bit, "Let Me Finish" was a discussion of the current motion picture "Selma"....
Chris has been complaining that President Johnson has been unfairly and inaccurately presented in the film, that he was not completely supportive of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Last night's "Let Me Finish" was purportedly a review of the film, which he and his wife watched over the weekend, and he was favorably impressed by it, except for the previously-described inaccuracy about LBJ's position on the law.
My problem with Chris' presentation is that he clearly missed the journalistic duty to present the story accurately, and with the emphasis placed where it belongs.
He opened his presentation with a lengthy discussion of LBJ and the film's mischaracterization of his position, as if LBJ was the focus of the story, NOT the civil rights leaders and citizens who participated in the march, and who were the victims of State-sponsored terror attack on the Pettus Bridge.
It seems go me, in reporting on and discussing the film, the journalistic task is to START with the IMPORTANT STORY, that there's a dramatic presentation about the events in Selma AL, including the attempted murder of law-abiding American citizens demonstrating for their civil rights.
Unfortunately, Chris Matthews seems to be unclear on the concept of which part of a report about this dramatic presentation should be emphasized, and he spent at least half of his editorial, the very beginning of it, discussing LBJ, not Martin Luther King, not John Lewis, not the multiple victims of State violence.
I don't know whether it's unconcious white-privilege clueless White-Splainin' or if its just Chris Matthews being an Annoying Dumbass.
Feel free to opine....