MSNBC host Chris Matthews spoke into the camera during his Monday night "Hardball" show and told Hillary Clinton, "we'll get you in there," regarding her likely bid for the presidency in 2016.
Matthews was conducting an interview about Clinton's 2016 chances with Mother Jones' reporter David Corn and Salon.com editor-at-large Joan Walsh when he interrupted the discussion to make a personal appeal to the former secretary of state and first lady.
Speaking directly into the camera, Matthews said:
"If you're watching, Madam Secretary, all three of us have brilliant ideas. All of us have brilliant ideas. And I especially put myself in that group with Joan and David. We know how to do this, we’ll get you in there."
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Matthews' proposal was made after Walsh offered her own suggestion on what Clinton has to do to win the 2016 election, saying: "I think if she runs again, she really can't run as that front-runner. It cannot be that inevitability campaign that she ran in 2007, and she knows that. She's got to be about the future."
The exchange, reported by media watchdog organization
News Busters, apparently went unnoticed by other media, suggesting how insular MSNBC has become.
Matthews' comments come only a week after MSNBC hired former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and former White House senior advisor David Axelrod.
The cable news network's decision to hire the two former Obama aides have left some in the media, even liberal commentators such as David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun and Media Matters, puzzled.
In an interview on CNN, Zurawik said, "I saw Axelrod with [MSNBC host] Andrea Mitchell this week and it was really interesting how hard he was pushing the president’s line . . . That really troubled me about how these guys are working the White House line on a cable channel."
Matthews, famous for overt expressions of approval for Democrats, is no stranger when it comes to blurring the lines between journalism and political expression.
Most recently, Matthews remarked after Hurricane Sandy devastated the Northeast, killing more than 100 people, that he was "so glad we had that storm last week because I think the storm was one of those things. No, politically I should say. Not in terms of hurting people. The storm brought in possibilities for good politics."
In November 2008, Matthews appeared to redefine his role into presidential assistant when during an interview with MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough he said:
"I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work."
Scarborough asked, "Is that your job? You just talked about being a journalist!"
Matthews responded: "Yeah, it is my job. My job is to help this country."
But Matthews is best known for his March 2008 on-air chat with then MSNBC co-anchor Keith Olbermann while covering the campaign. Matthews said that when listening to Barack Obama speak, "I felt this thrill going up my leg."
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A former aide to Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neill, Matthews was also a presidential speechwriter during the administration of President Jimmy Carter before entering journalism.
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