His overseers at MSNBC had no problem when he famously declared that Barack Obama gave him tingles up his leg. But the voluble host of “Hardball” for twenty years, Chris Matthews, touched a nerve last week when he dared to suggest that maybe the Democrats would be better off with four more years of Donald Trump than with Bernie Sanders. (RELATED: As Left enters desperation mode, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews floats Adam Schiff for president)
Almost instantly, a furor went up liberals everywhere calling for Matthews’s head. Not that the 74-year-old host helped himself that much by comparing Sanders’s victory in Nevada to France falling to the Nazis in 1940:
Chris Matthews compares Bernie winning Nevada to France falling to the Nazis in 1940
pic.twitter.com/qTGajdnr2L— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 22, 2020
When Matthews announced his “retirement” at the beginning of the show, the powers that be at the network decided it should be about something other than the Sanders kerfuffle. They had him pretend that he was too old and feeble to host the show. From his farewell address:
The younger generations out there are ready to take the reins. We see them in politics, the media, they have proven in the workplace. They grew up with better standards, fair standards. Compliments on a woman’s appearance some men, including me, might have once incorrectly thought were okay were never okay. Certainly not today. For making such comments in the past, I’m sorry.
Interestingly, MSNBC decided that Matthews’s ouster would begin immediately, after the first commercial break. When the show returned, Matthews was no longer seated behind the anchor desk. Instead, Steve Kornacki, a political reporter for the network, took over the reins for the remainder of the show but seemed shocked by the news.
