On MSNBC’s post-debate wrap-up from Hempstead, N.Y., anchor and “Hardball” host Chris Matthews praised CNN’s Candy Crowley for making a charge that Republican nominee Mitt Romney was wrong in challenging the president’s “terror” description in his response to last month’s Benghazi, Libya attack.
And even thought Crowley later admitted Romney was “right in the main,” Matthews and his panel praised Crowley for her courage.
“Do you realize, Joy — you’re a woman here, let me tell you, do you realize the guts it took for Candy, even crystal in memory, knowing he had said ‘an act of terror,” Matthews said. “Knowing it was on her mind, that it had been in her notebook and that she had been there. If she had been wrong on that, the hell she would have taken from all of these media watchers from the right. I mean, unbelievable.”
Matthews’ panel, which included The Grio’s Joy Reid and the Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman, elaborated on why they thought the “Hardball” host was right on target with his observation.
REID: She is anyway.
MATTHEWS: What’s their case now? She was right.
REID: In the spin room afterwards, a lot of the complaining was about her.
MATTHEWS: Why?
REID: And people insisting she was wrong, but you know what she wasn’t wrong. She’s a reporter. That’s why it’s important to have a journalist in that situation. And it provided Romney’s I think most embarrassing moment of the night because he sat there. He leaned his chin out, he literally put his eyebrows up. And he was wrong.
FINEMAN: He thought he was moving in for the kill at that point.
MATTHEWS: And I think the president lured him in, so he said let’s move on. Let’s move on, like I really don’t want to test this moment.