As fate would have it, I happened to have sent my message just prior to the public announcement of the shake-up, so my sentiments are unrelated to all that. I present it to you all now, for whatever cathartic and/or amusement value it might provide. Writing it and sending it was certainly a therapeutic experience for yours truly. I consider it a modest, symbolic gesture of pushback for the many wasted hours I've spent watching Hardball, waiting and hoping in vain for it to get "better".
From: MM
To: Phil.Griffin@nbcuni.com
Date: 2015-07-22 11:57 AM
Subject: The obtuse, narcissistic and deeply insufferable Chris MatthewsDear Mr. Griffin:
As a seasoned viewer of MSNBC's prime time weeknight programs, I have intended for the longest time to convey to you something of my perpetual consternation concerning one Mr. Christopher Matthews, host of Hardball. The pot has finally boiled over. I can withhold no longer.
For me, the main attraction of Hardball has typically been a) the quality of guest commentators it presents - especially Howard Fineman, David Corn, and Eugene Robinson, and b) the timeliness and relevance of its topics (though topic selection can be hit or miss). To an extent, I've even been willing to overlook the excesses of Mr. Matthews' aggressive, badgering, domineering interviewing style, as upon occasion it actually serves a useful purpose - such as when Matthews is breaking down a hardcore, right-wing Republican weasel.
No mas.
What has become absolutely intolerable is the extent to which Matthews has willingly, even desperately, become a lap dog for the Establishment. Night after night, I have groaned at his obsequious name-dropping, his sycophantic compulsion to impress us all by referring to well-known Washington political figures by their first names, even by their nicknames.
I have cringed openly every time he has managed to mangle the pronunciation of a well-known celebrity's name - clearly too self-absorbed to spare the attention span necessary to learn it and say it correctly. I have gritted my teeth repeatedly as Matthews has once again "treated" us all to his brilliant and insightful running commentary on all things...related to Chris Matthews, i.e. his recent travels, his latest book, opinions generated from his last round of narcissistic navel gazing, etc. Truly he is a legend in his own mind.
Perhaps most galling of all have been his profoundly clueless pronouncements on the nature of various political trends and developments, about which he obviously comprehends nothing, i.e. mischaracterizing Senator Elizabeth Warren's campaign for Wall Street reform as "...let's screw the big people", and of course his embarrassingly fawning, DC groupie response to George W. Bush's ridiculous "Mission Accomplished" charade aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Now he's doing it all over again with his confused babbling about the Bernie Sanders surge. It seems that Chris Matthews is chronically among the last to "get it" - which is peculiar, as journalists - real journalists - are typically at the vanguard of breaking trends, not bringing up the rear in a haze of obtuseness.
Matthews routinely gets it wrong because he's allowed himself to become such a creature of the Beltway bubble that he literally cannot conceive of any narrative or sequence of events that doesn't happen to fit his preconceived notions of "the way things work". Instead of opening his mind to alternative viewpoints and explanations, he arrogantly tries to strong-arm such events into his all-encompassing frame of Washington orthodoxy and conventional groupthink wisdom - then can't figure out what went wrong when it eventually blows up in his face.
One would think he might have learned by now from his errors of judgement. Yet he does not. He just keeps right on...being Chris Matthews. And you keep right on broadcasting Hardball.
Perhaps this is what you would call journalism. I would not. I regard it as televised buffoonery - and I will never again dignify it with my attention.
Good luck with the future of Hardball, Mr. Griffin. But I think you're going to need a whole lot more than luck.
Sincerely,
Michael V. Kniat
New York, NY