Liberals like to accuse Ronald Reagan of confusing facts with the movies. But Baby Boomer liberals constantly define situations by movies. Chris Matthews was recently warning about "Seven Days in May" coming true, spinning some wild conspiracy theory about the military and the Tea Party.
But as he got excited about the BP oil spill, Chris went so far off the reality track that he was lucky his guest was the Rev. Jim Wallis, a man too polite– or too stupid– to laugh in his face:
MATTHEWS: I don't know why all the submarines in our fleet aren't down there! It would seem to me that Captain Nemo back in the 19thcentury in fiction would have been able to get down there and fix it with soldering irons and blow torches and filling up that pipe…
Really, THIS is your plan?
Uhhh, maybe they aren't down there because the pressure at that depth would crush the hull of even our deepest diving Seawolf submarine like an egg, you ninny! Frogmen? Really? A mile down?
Hey, Chis, aren't you the guy who asked Mike Pence if he'd ever taken a biology class? (Click NewsRealBlog link above for video)
Yep, you are. So, the question must be asked– did your Catholic elementary school teach Physical Science? Did the high school teach Physics? You'd get a ruler to the knuckles for this one, son, if you were trying it on the religious leaders who tried to educate you.
Latter, Wallis tried to talk "science" with Chris, but it turns out his faith in politicized science is a bigger leap that the one he purports to have in the Gospel.
WALLIS: BP has to be held accountable to the common good. Any good Catholic would say that. And so what's happening here—that's why the Glenn Beck comments were so foolish…
MATTHEWS: Quote them.
WALLIS: Well, he's saying that Christians talking about climate change as a moral issue is implementing some kind of government socialist agenda. It's stewardship, not socialism. This is holding BP accountable to the…
MATTHEWS: He's always been wrong about climate change anyway.
WALLIS: Well—well…
MATTHEWS: He's been wrong about…(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I heard him in my car one day when he was on the radio. He's been wrong. He's been saying there's no issue of climate change.
WALLIS: Well…
MATTHEWS: He completely denies it. (CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: He's a flack for the industry.
Note that Wallis does not correct Matthews' absolute stupidity about water pressure at the bottom over the ocean, but they are both convinced about man-made Global Warming, even though climate is so complex that scientists can't be sure about TOMORROW'S weather.
Here's the full quote from Matthews Nemo outburst:
MATTHEWS: I don't know why all the submarines in our fleet aren't down there! It would seem to me that Captain Nemo back in the 19thcentury in fiction would have been able to get down there and fix it with soldering irons and blow torches and filling up that pipe, or with cement or gravel or whatever it takes to put on top of that, just start dumping it there with our big tankers. I don't know why we're not doing it. We're counting on one company, a British company, to solve a problem that's been created in our back yard, and I don't quite get it.
Right, dumping dirt off the side of a ship and having it fall a MILE through WATER wouldn't dilute and disperse it beyond all use… It's really getting hard to tell the real Chris Matthews from the Darrell Hammond Saturday Night Live caricature.
This all started Monday, as Chris interviewed environmental writers Abrahm Lustgarten of Propublica and Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones, who were practically members of the Club for Growth compared to Chris's rants, (which included the possibility of excecuting BP's CEO like the Chinese would) and when they tried to talk scientific reality to him, he let them have it.
MATTHEWS: You're very compliant here for environmental watch dogs, Kate. I don't understand you guys! You seem to understand their predicament. It's a mile down. Well, they went down a mile to get the oil.
And the next night to Salon's equally loopy Joan Walsh:
MATTHEWS: I'd like to take those CEOs and put them down there a mile and make them stay down there until the problem's fixed.
Either NBC News has no one in their crack research staff who can talk sense in to Chris Matthews, or are unaware of the problem, because they aren't watching– just like the rest of America.
Maybe now that Olbermann seems to be phoning it in, Chris figures there's an open niche at MSNBC for Resident Lunatic.