276 RUN, TRUMP, RUN (permalink): Did you think you lived in “rational,” post-Enlightenment world?

Last night, Chris Matthews gave you a chance to rethink that idea. At the end of Hardball, he urged Donald Trump to stage a full run for the White House. He did this despite the weeks of ridicule he has dumped on Trump’s head.

Why in the world would Matthews do that? Late in the hour, he teased his closing segment:

MATTHEWS (4/19/11): When we return, "Let Me Finish" with a challenge for Donald Trump. I think he set his own challenge. It`s fascinating the future he now faces politically. You are watching Hardball, only on MSNBC.

The Christopher was going to challenge The Donald! And sure enough! As he closed his program, the challenge was clear. Run, Trump, Run, he said:

MATTHEWS: So, what’s it going to be? Will Trump risk the rough stuff or pull out before it gets serious? What’s he got in mind here?

Well, I don’t know the answer. I don’t know if Trump does.

What I know is he’s taken this campaign of his to a new level. I don’t like what he said about the president. I’ve made that clear enough here and will keep on doing it. Our best investigative reporter has checked out the birth information. It’s there—the original certificate, right where it’s supposed to be, in the state files in Honolulu.

But Trump’s obviously taking this to a higher level. He’s proven the established Republican Party is no match for him—at least in the short run.

So, what’s he going to do with his early win? Is he going to invest what he’s won and go for it, or walk away from the table?

Obviously, I’m challenging him here. I think he would shake up an otherwise desultory Republican fight. I think there’s something missing in the Republican field right now. Trump may have the historic role of simply proving it.

I think the Republicans may be on the verge of reliving that exciting convention they had in Philadelphia in the months right before World War II. They may well be on the verge of ignoring the usual set of candidates and picking someone they think actually could win. Then it was Wendell Willkie in 1940. He won the Republican nomination and ended up giving Franklin Roosevelt a great fight.

Next summer, it could be—let’s be honest—at this point, just about anyone. So, who is going to be the surprise presidential nominee of the Republican Party in 2012? Ask yourself: Is this a show Donald Trump would want to miss?

That’s Hardball for now. Thanks for being with us.

“Let’s be honest,” Matthews said at one point—and it’s one of his rarest suggestions. But rather plainly, Matthews has now urged Donald Trump to stage a full run for the White House.

Astonishing, isn’t it? Trump is a full-blown, balls-out buffoon—the rather obvious heir to Mark Twain’s touring tragedians. In just the past month, he has spread the ugliest kinds of garbage around the political world. Presumably, he has lied through his teeth in the process. He has made an utter fool of himself when asked to discuss real issues. (New example below.)

But so what? Yesterday morning, David Brooks gazed to the ledge. He said he wouldn’t want to live in a country which didn’t have people like Trump around. And twelve hours later, our biggest cable news buffoon took a similar route:

Run, Donald, Run, Matthews said.

In a rational world, last night’s challenge couldn’t have happened. Let’s get clear why not:

First, you have Trump’s massive buffoonism concerning public policy matters. Last night, Matthews devoted his lengthy opening segment to Trump’s latest attempt to answer policy questions. Chris asked his long-time enabler, Joan Walsh, to help him batter The Donald.

Given videotape like this, the assignment wasn’t real hard. Trump had spoken with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie that morning. Gaze on the latest work of a flat balls-out buffoon:

GUTHRIE (4/19/11): Is there a right to privacy in the Constitution?

TRUMP: I guess there is. I guess there is.

GUTHRIE: So how does that—

TRUMP: I mean, my— Just out of curiosity, why do you ask that question?

GUTHRIE: Well, I’m just wondering how that squares with your pro-life views.

TRUMP: Well, it’s a pretty strange way of getting to pro-life. I mean, it’s a very unique way of asking about pro-life. Why are you— What does that have to do with privacy? How are you, how are you equating pro-life with privacy?

GUTHRIE: Well, you know about the Roe v. Wade decision.

TRUMP: Yes. Right. Sure.

To Trump, this was “a very unique way” of asking about abortion rights. Does Donald Trump know about Roe. v. Wade? As the great man put it himself: Yeah. Right. Sure.

Just a guess: Most Americans wouldn’t know how the “right to privacy” connects to questions about abortion. But most Americans aren’t running for president. This big circus clown is.

At any rate, Matthews spent his entire first segment ridiculing Trump’s policy ignorance and his ridiculous flip-flops. Then too, Matthews has spent the past many nights battering Trump for his birther campaign; just last night, he spent parts of three separate segments on this topic. Chris has never done a good enough job with this topic. But in recent weeks, he has been building his program around the foolishness of Trump’s birtherism.

But so what? At the end of last night’s show, Matthews urged Trump to stage a full run for the White House! The best he could manage about Trump’s ugly lying was this (see above): “I don’t like what he said about the president. I’ve made that clear enough here and will keep on doing it.”

Why would Matthews urge The Donald to run? Hints of the answer ran all through last night’s Hardball. But in the next hour, on the Cenk Uygur show, the answer came through loud and clear.

Uygur, who isn’t like Matthews, opened his show with Trump’s birtherism, just as Matthews had done. Eventually, Pat Buchanan drew the curtain back:

UYGUR (4/19/11): Pat, you are falling into the same trap. I mean, you are talking about, “Is it a birth certificate, or a certificate of birth,” when you know he was born in Honolulu. Everybody sane knows he was born in Honolulu. So why are you wasting your time on it and possibly costing yourself a general election?

BUCHANAN: … I’m wasting my time because you invited me on here to talk about the birther issue.

(Laughter)

UYGUR: That’s what I’m asking you, Pat! Is it a terrible idea for the Republicans to go down this road?

BUCHANAN: Hold it! Well, for heaven’s sakes, Republicans can take care of themselves.

[…]

But look, you know, let me just say— Look, Cenk, the issue of the birthers…I’ve never raised it, I have never written a column on it, but I have been invited here hundreds of times to talk about the issue.

Now look. First, you’ve got the birthers who love the issue. Then you’ve got MSNBC loves the issue. And The Donald loves the issue. And everybody seems to be having a nice time.

During the full discussion, Bill Press misstated the facts on the “long form” matter, then blamed the explosion of this topic on Trump and other Republicans. But Buchanan seemed to draw back the curtain a tad. “MSNBC loves the issue,” he said. “And everybody seems to be having a nice time.”

According to Buchanan, he has never raised the issue—but the corporate channel keeps asking him to discuss it. Meanwhile, is it true? Is everyone “having a nice time” discussing Trump’s birther bile? You’ll note the “Laughter” that broke out when Buchanan made his first observation. And to our ears, a lot of pickin’ and grinnin’ occurred on Monday night’s Hardball, when two of Matthews’ very best boys helped him discuss the topic.

There’s nothing “wrong” with discussing this topic; in fact, we think it’s important. But why on earth did Matthews challenge Trump to run for the White House? Just a guess, but it’s an obvious guess: Trumpism is good for business—and it’s easy to discuss. Because Trump is such a massive buffoon, he lets Matthews stage the brainless discussions he has always revered.

During Campaign 2000, Matthews invented a big buffoon, presumably at the direction of his owner, Jack Welch. That big buffoon was Candidate Gore, who “didn’t know who he is” and had “hired a woman to help him be a man.” That big buffoon didn’t “have his gender straight;” he was “this protean new person, this new today’s man-woman, whatever the hell he's trying to become.” For the alleged buffoon named Candidate Gore, Naomi Wolf was “the political equivalent of viagra;” Gore was wearing three-button suits as some sort of sexual signal to women. Gore was Bill Clinton’s “bathtub ring,” as Matthews said on at least fortyHardball programs. Candidate Gore “would lick the bathroom floor to be president.”

Matthews kept that up for two years. Joan Walsh, David Corn and Josh Marshall kept their traps shut tight as the jihad rolled on. During that two-year period, Matthews was also trashing Candidate Hillary Clinton in the vilest possible ways. At one point, he gave Gennifer Flowers a full half hour to discuss the Clintons’ murders.

Joan, Josh and David kept still.

In short, Matthews very much enjoys discussing buffoonish characters. They make his program stupid and easy; he can conduct the same discussions night after night after night. Starting in March 1999, he invented a major buffoon; now, he has one ready-made. And the other candidates are so boring! Here was this leading cultural criminal baring his soul last night:

MATTHEWS: Chris Cillizza, you’re a numbers guy as well. I’m just trying to figure here. Romney, I don’t—I think he is, like they said of Mondale years ago, they called him polenta, a boring Italian food.

I mean, I’m serious. I think the whole excitement about Mr. Trump, and I know it could be quicksilver, I don’t know, but it seems to be really a statement of these other guys bore them out of their trees. And they can’t stand the idea of what they’re facing running up against an exciting candidate like Obama who is quick on his feet, who’s very good in the news cycle, to put these stiffs up against him. And they’re saying we’ve got to at least try this guy, Trump, because maybe somebody else will come out of the woodwork if we talk Trump for three weeks.

[…]

Howard, we still live in a world where—can we have a Wendell Willkie? Can we—I’m going to talk about it in the end of the show tonight. Is the Republican Party still wide open enough, at least in its heart, and hoping they can run a really good candidate against the president, who they really want to run against? Will they possibly break loose and go for a Christie or if not for Trump, somebody out besides these boring guys that they know have been running all their lives?

The other hopefuls are just so boring! Matthews pretended that he was discussing the thinking of major Republicans. But if you’ve watched our cable “journalism” down through the years, it would be hard to avoid the thought that he was discussing his own preference.

Almost surely, Matthews wants to talk about Trump because the regular candidates are too boring! (Even Palin has fizzled.) Simply put, big buffoons love other big buffoons; they enjoy discussing such people, and Trump is probably quite good for ratings. And so, we reached that puzzling moment, when Chris Matthews bared his own soul:

Run, Donald, Run, Matthews implored—having spent the past several weeks calling Trump a buffoon.

Do you live in a rational world? In just one day, David Brooks said he couldn’t stand life itself if people like Trump weren’t around. Later, Matthews trashed Trump for the full hour, then implored him to run! In a rational world, these things couldn’t happen —but you live in a different place. Mark Twain drew a comical portrait of your world a great many years ago.

Tomorrow, we’ll speak a bit more about the way Matthews has been discussing Trumpism. But for today, let’s get clear on one point:

Over the past dozen years, no one has done more harm to progressive interests than Matthews has done. Joan Walsh, David Corn and Josh Marshall have enabled this buffoon every step of the way.

Here’s how he closed that segment: Why does Matthews want Trump to run? This is the way he closed his segment with the twins Fineman/Cillizza:

MATTHEWS: You and I, us three guys could talk all night about this. Next to the cracker barrel, I mean it.

Chris Cillizza, thank you. Howard Fineman, that’s why I like you both.

It’s easy to talk about Donald Trump! Chris could keep it up all night! Just as it was easy and fun to talk about “the bathtub ring”—to talk about “today’s man-woman,” the invented buffoon who would “lick the floor,” who “didn’t know who he was.”