For Chris Matthews, Misogyny Pays Handsomely

Tongues are still wagging over The New York Times Magazine's cringe-inducing cover story about MSNBC talker Chris Matthews. The cringes came courtesy of the name-dropping Matthews, whose raging insecurities danced across nearly every page of the piece. As Digby noted after reading the opus, "He fulfills every single Village media cliche: obsessive social climbing, deep personal insecurity, primitively sexist and racist and just plain dumb."

Question: Is Chris Matthews the Michael Scott of political talk show hosts? And if so, does that make MSNBC the Dunder Mifflin of cable news?

Matthews has harvested a bumper crop of outrageous remarks during this extended primary season. Specifically, fueled by his obsession with the Clintons (he can't recall attending a single Beltway party where the couple has not been discussed), Matthews has unleashed a flood of sexist commentary.

On that front, of course, the Hardball host has not been alone. This election season, we've seen a cavalcade of white, middle-age men express their deep, personal contempt for the first serious female contender for the White House. Contempt, of course, that has nothing to do with Sen. Hillary Clinton's policies or her beliefs. Instead, it's been an oddly personal disdain dressed up as political analysis.

The way Mike Barnicle on MSNBC said Clinton "look[ed] like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court." The way Bill Kristol on Fox News said that among the only people supporting Hillary Clinton were white women, and "[w]hite women are a problem, that's, you know -- we all live with that." The way CNN's Jack Cafferty likened Clinton to "a scolding mother, talking down to a child." The way Fox News' Neil Cavuto suggested Clinton was "trying to run away from this tough, kind of bitchy image." The way MSNBC's Tucker Carlson announced that "when [Clinton] comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs." The way Christopher Hitchens on CNBC described Clinton as being "sort of alternately soppy and bitchy.'"

That's all taken place in open view. And while a blog swarm did engulf Matthews in January, followed by a forced, pseudo-apology by the host -- and his attacks did prompt some women activists to carry picket signs outside the MSNBC studios -- the openly sexist comments have produced very few condemnations from within the industry and even less soul-searching from the (mostly male) press corps. In fact, in Matthews' case, the sexist outbursts have helped propel his career. That's how he landed on the cover of the Times magazine.

Why? Because misogyny pays.

Question: If Chris Matthews had been forced to apologize to Sen. Barack Obama for divisive, personal comments the host had made about the candidate, and if the comments had prompted civil rights groups to protest outside the MSNBC studios, do you think Chris Matthews, three months after the fact, would be photographed on the cover of The New York Times Magazine with an uproarious grin on his face?

For me, there were two key takeaways from the Times opus. The first was that Clinton-bashing -- and specifically, misogynistic Hillary-bashing -- pays off in the form of magazine cover stories. And second was that political journalism is a farce.

It's a farce because Matthews has clearly been crowned the Hot Journalist of this election cycle. He's already received loving, Page 1 treatment from the media-centric New York Observer, as well as a February "valentine" from The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz. And now the Times piece, which clocked in at 8,000 words, the type of space the prestigious magazine usually sets aside to profile presidential candidates and heads of state. Keep in mind that within the Beltway's ego-driven media culture, with its all-publicity-is-good-publicity view of the world, there's no question that kind of cover treatment by the Times is seen as a coveted status symbol, no matter how many cringes the actual article may have induced. The cover story conferred a very simple message: Chris Matthews has been anointed a media star.