slow news: hardball
slow news – May 8, 2008
By Mark Leibovich (New York Times)
This article came out almost a month ago and I have been talking about it constantly ever since. But since nobody else I know has read it, I thought I’d feature it here. This is an incredible profile of MSNBC enthusiastic political superfan and host of “Hardball,” Chris Matthews. Now, most people I know didn’t read this because they have no interest in pundits. However, this story not only blasts the hell out of Matthews and reveals that most of the NBC news staff can’t stand him, it also exposes the growing divide between those old-style politicians and pundits who embrace politics for its maneuvering, strategy, and give-and-take (think Matthews, the Clintons, Bushies, Machiavelli) and those who are cynical about politics and simply care about progress and social transformation (Keith Olbermann, Stewart/Colbert, Obama). This philosophical difference, which appears to break along generational lines, seems to be one of the great
political changes occurring in American society right now. We all been more cynical about politics than TV pundits for a while, but maybe people (especially young people) are becoming more interested in policy and progress than pundits, too.
