Add this to the list of things MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews doesn’t like about his conservative counterparts on the radio airwaves: They’re carrying the water on the issue of climate change.
On his Wednesday show, Matthews explained how the politics of climate change has been a loser for the Democratic Party.
“[T]he House Democrats who stuck their necks out on cap-and-trade have had their heads cut off,” Matthews said. “The Senate didn’t vote. The Senate never got to it. You can argue it’s the president’s fault, but the Democratic Party is giving up whole states in the interest of climate change. West Virginia used to be a Democratic state in the Bobby Kennedy, Jack Kennedy day. It voted for [Bill] Clinton. It’s gone. You can’t talk cap-and-trade in southwestern Pennsylvania. There’s a lot of places in coal country you dare not spend a nickel for climate change issues.”
But who did he blame? He went right after a couple of his favorite targets, conservative radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, who he described as “evil” and “corrupt.”
“[H]ave we ever had a time where one side is willing to say something — you can argue about wars and there’s all the issues of values and measuring facts,” Matthews said. “But here’s a fact on the table, global warming, climate change – Rush Limbaugh says stuff that is — just not true. I never use the word ‘lie,’ but it’s appropriate here. People like Glenn Beck, I hear him years ago on the radio before he was on TV saying there’s no climate change playing, pandering to these business types, pandering to people that don’t want to deal with reality. These people are evil in what they’re doing. I’m not saying their souls are evil, but what they’re doing is really, really wrong. It’s not the president. It’s this corrupt media on the right – it’s corrupt media. They’re making good salaries telling people what they know is not true. Rush Limbaugh is not a stupid person. Glenn Beck is not a stupid person.”
And for people like former Vice President Al Gore to blame President Barack Obama for not being more aggressive on combating so-called anthropogenic global warming according to Matthews is unfair.
“[I] would say about the president, he is our president and on my issues he’s always my president on some of the big ones like climate change and race – things like that, wars,” Matthews said. “My belief is this – Churchill, my hero, said this once: I refuse to be impartial between the fire brigade and the fire. The president is the fire brigade on this. He may not be the greatest fire brigade, but damn it, he’s not the fire. Glenn Beck is. Rush Limbaugh is the fire, the Chamber of Commerce, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, they are the fire. Let’s not forget it.”