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The Charming Chris Matthews

We all knew Chris Matthews was no Hillary-lover, but what he said on air this morning takes the cake: "The reason she's a U.S. Senator, the reason she's a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front-runner, is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be Senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win it on the merits. ... " Nice. As Greg Sargent points out, what's egregious about this statement is that Matthews went right back to offering a reductive narrative about what voters do or don't like about Hillary. No wonder the commentators at MSNBC were so surprised when Hillary took the lead yesterday; they assumed all the undecided voters would go heavily for Obama, because they wanted it to happen that way. And now they are suggesting the Bradley effect is responsible. I agree with Juliet: I don't buy it. Like Emily Y, I'm hoping the commentators figure out by the next primary that they need to start offering up some more sophisticated analysis of just what is taking place.

via TPM.