Sept 28, 2010
Hardball: Matthews, Fineman, Simon
This is straight up funny. Politico’s Roger Simon – once one of barry’s staunchest supporters – has himself found Jesus. He calls barry out for throwing his typical white person mother under the bus when he (barry) was asked why he chose Christianity. Howie Fineman – who is now working for Huffington Post – doesn’t agree and neither does Matthews who switches to his latest favorite topic: President Clinton.
RELEVANT TEXT FOLLOWS
MATTHEWS:: Well, speaking of President Obama, he has to deal with the problem of people out there still spreading the rumor that he’s not the religion he says he is. Here he is in Albuquerque today talking about his Christian faith.
[potus video snip - full text of answer (which includes abortion)]
POTUS: You know, I’m a Christian by choice. You know, my family didn’t, uh, you know, frankly, they weren’t folks that went to church every week. My mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn’t, uh, raise me in the church. So I came to my Christian faith later in life.
MATTHEWS: Howard, I — I completely understand that thinking, because I was raised in one religion, Roman Catholicism. I was lucky to have it handed to me, basically, by my parents. But he talks about being raised in an atheist family, basically, for all practical purposes, and trying to find his religious faith. And he did — I just would hate this to have this be called a headline, because we have known this about him for a long time. And now he’s forced to come out with it. And I think some adversarial media will now say he’s saying things he — that are new to us. There’s nothing new here.
ROGER SIMON: Well — I’m sorry.
HOWARD FINEMAN: No, I don’t think there’s anything new particularly, Chris. If you have read his autobiography or know anything about him, you basically knew that. But, sure, people will take potshots. They will say, well, this raises more questions than it answers. You know, who are his parents? What did his parents believe or not believe as a matter of fact?
You know, and when he says that he found — he accepted Christianity, became a Christian, he talks about it in a way that frankly is not the way that born-agains talk about it. Now, he doesn’t have to talk about it that way. Lord knows he doesn’t. But if he’s trying to reach or explain himself to the Bible Belt– and I don’t know that he is — that’s not going to do it, because that’s not the way they talk about it. And maybe it doesn’t matter. We will see.
SIMON: Let me take a pots — let me take a potshot about this.
I mean, did he really have to throw his family under the bus to make this point? I mean, you know, his family didn’t go to church, but he went to church.
To me, this is the worst thing he’s done since comparing his grandmother to Reverend Wright to make a point about how everybody –
MATTHEWS: Well, come on. You’re wrong.
SIMON: No. I mean, this disturbs me. How far do we go in politics to get a few extra votes? I mean, he’s a Christian. Fine. Say he’s a Christian.
FINEMAN: I don’t agree with that. I don’t agree with that.
MATTHEWS: I don’t agree with that at all, not at all.
FINEMAN: I don’t agree with that.
MATTHEWS: Because I know his background was — his mother was kind of a hippy. His mother wasn’t — she was a free thinker. She wasn’t a churchgoer. That’s all he’s saying. He wasn’t saying his mother wasn’t spiritual. He was building around — look, let’s go to Bill Clinton, a guy who knew how to handle the Bible Belt.
Matthews “knows” barry’s background through barry’s book which has never been corroborated.
