I’m Going to Miss Chris Matthews
I’m going to miss Chris Matthews.
Yes, he can be belligerent, disingenuous, and inappropriate, and it was only a matter of time. Recently, within the space of ten days, he made an unfortunate Nazi reference (though he truly did not compare Sanders to Hitler); appeared astonished at the suggestion that Mike Bloomberg, and not his accuser, could be lying; and mistook one African-American politician for another. There are also sexual harassment allegations (inappropriate comments in praise of female colleagues’ physical appearances). He was already expected to retire after this year’s election.
I think he’s a great broadcaster. As with most iconic personalities, his apparent unlikeliness is what made him special: that braying voice, whooping laugh, questionable listening skills, wild reaches for obscure film and history references, awkward rhetorical cul-de-sacs, and remembered glimpses of Edmund Muskie and Tip O’Neill. He could be a tough and meaningful interviewer, but mostly, Hardball was about observing the behavior of political animals. It wasn’t the propulsive activist-journalism that now dominates evening cable news. It had more in common with The McLaughlin Group (though it was less about confrontation), as well as Meet the Press, whose current incarnation looks a lot more like Hardball.
It was good to have his voice in the mix, through the Bush and Obama years, and not just because no other voice has ever sounded quite like it. It was good to have our political conversation colored by the perspective of an insider who managed to remain passionate and optimistic about politics.
I’ve wondered if my affection for Chris Matthews has something to do with sports. I don’t like sports. But when someone else is watching a game in my presence, I realize that I do like sportscasters, and if they were talking about a subject I found interesting, I’d like listening to them. Chris Matthews, compared to his peers in political talk, seems somewhat closer to sports commentators in tone and style.
If Matthews has a touch of the sportscaster, he may also have played some role in making our politics more like sports. The show, after all, was called Hardball. It would be wrong to lump Matthews in with the cheap slugfests decried by Jon Stewart on Crossfire in 2004. But the higher purpose of politics — making people’s lives better — didn’t generally seem to be on Matthews’ mind. He loved the competition, like a sportscaster, hooked on the game. As a town crier for 21st century liberalism, he was often outclassed by broadcasters whose political talk is gravely serious, for whom it’s not a game.
In Life After Bush, I played a character named Dick Memmons, the host of Suckerpunch. I was very happy to be on stage as Dick Memmons when a technical problem enabled me to ad lib puns about birds for two and a half minutes (video below, because of course this is about me). He was one of my favorite characters, but I had to give up on actually capturing the Matthews vocal style, which simply cannot be replicated.
He was one of my favorite characters.
