Why fire Chris Matthews? The Bernie Bolsheviks have made it clear that they hate CNN and MSNBC and other vehicles of the “corporate media.” They especially hate Chris Matthews, whose talk show “Hard Ball,” reeks of criticism for their candidate. Last week he said something that set their hair on fire and inspired the #FireChrisMatthews hashtag.

This is what he said after Bernie’s decisive victory in the Nevada caucuses : “I was reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940. And the general, Reynaud, calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over.’ And Churchill says, ‘How can that be? You’ve got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.’ So I had that suppressed feeling.”

Matthews’s memory of what he read was muddled. Paul Reynaud was France’s Prime Minister. There was no General Reynaud. Churchill’s belief that France had the greatest army in Europe had been commonly accepted, yet it was defeated beyond recovery between May 10 and June 22 1940. “How can that be?” Matthews had the same reaction as Churchill about the sudden, surprising defeat of Biden and the moderate Democrats. Matthews shared the British prime minister’s amazement at the suddenness and completeness of the German army’s victory. Matthews was reacting to the abrupt reversal of his expectations in the same way Churchill reacted to the defeat of “the greatest army in Europe.”

Reynaud’s actual words (found on page 42 of Churchill’s “Their Finest Hour.”) “We have been defeated. We are beaten, we have lost the battle.” The British prime minister tried to encourage the French prime minister, but to no avail. Churchill’s memoirs are the only source for this conversation. He was in bed when he got the call, there was no one in bed with him to overhear the conversation. There is no transcript.

A conservative pundit discussed the quote in an article entitled “Chris Matthews Thinks Bernie Sanders Is Hitler.” A Business Insider article: MSNBC: “Anchors Keep Comparing Sanders’ Campaign and its Supporters to Nazis, and They’re Being Called to Resign.” Sanders campaign’s communications director Mike Casca tweeted “Never thought part of my job would be pleading with a national news network to stop likening the campaign of a Jewish presidential candidate whose family was wiped out by the Nazis to the Third Reich. But here we are.”

Remember the original quote and all the reactions that grew out of and you will have a useful reminder of the quality and reliability of public discussions during hot election campaigns.

What about those piggy banks? According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index the combined accumulations of the world’s 500 richest people fell by $444 billion in reaction to news about the spread of the Corona Virus and its effect on China’s economy. These numbers are widely known and readily available yet no media titan has commented on the effect this will have on the Sanders and Warren plans for free health care, free college, free day care, free mass transit, free debt relief, and free whatever looks good to the voters. How are these fine things to be financed without the billions and billions they are planning to extract from America’s billionaires?

Her lips are moving again. NBC News’ Geoff Bennett tweets: “Pelosi tells reporters that she is comfortable with Bernie Sanders as a potential nominee and doesn’t think he would jeopardize the House majority.” Nancy is lying. Don’t ask me how I know. I just know.

A new committee to torpedo Trump. Dr. Vivek Palavali, MD, Board Member of the Committee to Protect Medicare (CPM), is offering an exciting opportunity to citizens anxious to avert a second presidential term for the Trump Tower Gargoyle. He’ll match any donation up to $5,000 to the CPM. The CPM wants to make sure voters are aware of Trump’s threats against Medicare. The doctor is aware that the Gargoyle has been making false promises at rallies, on cable TV, and on Twitter that he won’t touch Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security but she knows those are false. The CPM aims to hold the villain accountable for his broken healthcare promises before he actually breaks them. I’ve never met this Palavali and I don’t know his motives, but I do know that it’s standard practice to attack conservative candidates of secretly planning to “gut” Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We can expect to hear a lot more about these secret plans.

Tom has gone

In February we read that Tom Steyer, billionaire candidate for president, was shaking up the state’s Democratic primary by advocating slavery reparations for African Americans. He spent millions of dollars ahead of Saturday’s vote to publicize promises to compensate the descendants of slaves, and to invest in universities in historically marginalized black communities. “You’ve got to repair what’s done so that we can move on together,” Steyer told the voters, because the United States needs to confront a “subtext of race” underpinning nearly every issue it faces.

When the votes were counted his millions were found to have bought him11.3% of the vote. He dropped out.

Chris Matthews again

On February 28 Laura Bassett, a freelance journalist, exposed Chris Matthews for inflicting an inappropriate comment on her in 2016. She was getting ready to appear on his program. She was sitting in a makeup chair preparing to appear on “Hardball when he looked over at her and asked ‘Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?’ She survived but has lived in constant fear of some brutal male will lash her with some unwelcome compliment, like “heck of a caboose, babe,” or “are those original.”

John Frary of Farmington, the GOP candidate for U.S. Congress in 2008, is a retired history professor, an emeritus Board Member of Maine Taxpayers United, a Maine Citizen’s Coalition Board member, and publisher of FraryHomeCompanion.com. He can be reached at jfrary8070@aol.com

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