Chris Matthews and the Grand Kleagle
Late on Friday night’s edition of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” former Bush administration aide Ron Christie, author of “Black in the White House,” pressed host Chris Matthews on the suggestion that if Republican Sen. George Allen’s alleged racial slurs in the 1970s are a character flaw, what about the Democrats re-electing Senator Robert Byrd, a former Klansman, this fall? Matthews protested in a lecturing tone that “everyone knows about it….It’s been raised a thousand times on his record.” After claiming he was not defending Byrd, he told Christie: “The guy’s 90 years old. Give him a break.” Emphasis mine.
