http://weaselzippers.us/2013/10/18/no-joke-tingles-pens-op-ed-lecturing-americans-on-need-for-civility-in-politics/No Joke: Tingles Pens Op-Ed Lecturing Americans On Need For Civility In Politics…
You have got to be kidding me.
Matthews Takes Break from Calling Opponents Racist to Lecture America on Civility — Noah Rothman
Okay, that headline is a little misleading. MSNBC host Chris Matthews never really took a break from calling his opponents racists and paranoids while engaging on a media blitz promoting his book about civility and amity in politics.
Matthews is presently touring the media universe and recalling the history which he was privileged to witness and record in his new book, Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked. The theory is that politics in the nation’s capital used to end at 6 o’clock when bitter partisan rivals would drop their disagreements and have a friendly scotch together.
That era of comity, Matthews submits, is gone. Exploring this theme in The Boston Globe on Friday, Matthews cites the wisdom of former House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s chief counsel, Kirk O’Donnell, to explain why Washington worked in the 1980s but fails so spectacularly today.
“It was Kirk who not only taught me the rules of politics, but, just as important, that there are rules,” Matthews writes. “I believe Speaker O’Neill and President [Ronald] Reagan honored that truism to a T.”
