This will be short, but I had to get it off of my chest. Being retired, I am an avid and some would say almost religious viewer of MSNBC. It’s normally on in my living room from about 10:30-11:15 a.m. PST until 8:00 p.m. PST when Lawrence O’Donnell ends. And, at least for me, the last two days have been disturbing.
First of all, I’ll be the first to say that I have not been a big fan of MSNBC’s programming the last couple of days. They continue to obsess over the Paris attacks, even though they are long over and done with, and the process has moved into the investigative and suspect search phase. This means you end up with the same damn information being regurgitated over and over again, the only difference being multiple talking heads bloviating about their specific take on the events. This makes for boring and repetitive television.
But poor Chris Matthews on “Hardball” has really hit the wall. Over the last two days he has hosted multiple segments regarding the Syrian refugee crisis, and he is fixated. He stubbornly avers that the Syrian refugees are the problem. He has gone to the lengths of berating and belittling his guests for taking an opposite opinion of his.
His opinion is that there are millions of Syrian refugees, many of them young, single men, apparently with no families fleeing Syria. He rails about the U.S led liberation of Paris, highlighting the participation of Charles De’Gaules’ Free French resistance in the march. He ignores the huge number of French refugees who fled to the south. He ignores that there was a “Free French Zone” for them to maintain some measure of autonomy and safety. He ignores the fact that there are thousands of Syrian citizens who are still dug in in Syria, fighting for their country and a representative government. He ignores and berates guests who tell him that the first question U.S. authorities ask incoming refugee males is if they would be willing to be trained, armed and sent home to fight ISIS, and they don’t want to, their beef is with Assad, not ISIS.
How or why I don’t know, but Chris Matthews has clearly lost his center of gravity and his journalistic neutrality on this issue. He is leaving the current world we live in, with innovations, weapons and technology that rule the landscape and comparing it to the landscape of a war 60+ years ago. He is taking his own personal feelings and opinions and is overriding the fears and feelings of people who are living through an experience he will never know., under conditions his privileged self will never know. He should know better.
Thanks as always for reading!