MSNBC: TEA PARTY USING WORD "WE" IS RACIST

How dare they! How dare those rascally Tea Party people use obvious dog whistle words like "we" and "American people" to refer to themselves!  Clearly it's because they think that blacks are only three-fifths of a vote...or something.  What right do these slave-owning wingnuts have to refer to themselves as "American" while showing such disrespect to the Dear Leader by, you know, opposing his political agenda?

Well, it's a good thing that Chris Matthews is here to teach us about the lost art of "civility."  Noah Rothman at Mediaite digs into the latest lesson from Mr. "Thrill Up My Leg":

Matthews is presently touring the media universe and recalling the history which he was privileged to witness and record in his new book, Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked. The theory is that politics in the nation's capital used to end at 6 o'clock when bitter partisan rivals would drop their disagreements and have a friendly scotch together.

That era of comity, Matthews submits, is gone. Exploring this theme in The Boston Globe on Friday, Matthews cites the wisdom of former House Speaker Tip O'Neill's chief counsel, Kirk O'Donnell, to explain why Washington worked in the 1980s but fails so spectacularly today.

"It was Kirk who not only taught me the rules of politics, but, just as important, that there are rules," Matthews writes. "I believe Speaker O'Neill and President [Ronald] Reagan honored that truism to a T."

Yes, yes...it's all so heartwarming, is it not?  And no, I don't doubt that there was plenty of comity back in the day.  However, I think that the comity between Reagan and O'Neill was based more on Reagan's people skills than those of Kirk O'Donnell (whoever he was).

But, more importantly, Chris Matthews beclowns himself even more than usual by presuming to lecture anybody on civility.  Again, Rothman:

"Maybe 10%," or "maybe 20%, on a bad day," Matthews said in May when asked by MSNBC host Al Sharpton how much conservative opposition to President Barack Obama is rooted in racism. "It's the sense that the white race must rule, that's what racism is, and they can't stand the idea that a man who's not white is president," he clarified.

They're "almost traitors," Matthews said of conservatives who believe that the Internal Revenue Service, an agency created in 1913 and which recently admitted to targeting conservative groups in order to limit their political efficacy, should be abolished. "First of all, the right-wing are crazy," he said in June. "What they're saying about getting rid of the IRS is insane."

"It seems there's a very interesting compelling continuing effort to delegitimize this president," the MSNBC host added in August. His evidence: conservatives who refer to Obama as "Obama."