Last Night Chris Matthews Was Playing Hardball

And threw a hard slider across the heart of the plate:

Let me finish tonight with this emerging embarrassment on the right.

Joe Barton reminds us that sometimes, politicians get what they deserve. In other words, they get caught saying exactly what they wanted to say. Someone once said that the late Spiro Agnew had about the same depth of political belief as the tired guy on the 5:00 commuter train after his third drink. Well, maybe they don‘t have bars on the trains any more, but you get the point, and you also know the mentality.

This guy picks up the newspaper but all he ends up talking about is he doesn‘t like taxes, he doesn‘t like government regulations because his boss says they‘re bad for profits. He doesn‘t like government at all because that‘s the way the guys talk in the executive dining room—guys who get their talking points, by the way, from the editorial pages of “The Wall Street Journal.” And, oh, yes, he thinks jokes about climate change and environmental concerns are really a hoot.

And here comes the embarrassing part: Joe Barton and Michelle Bachmann elected members of Congress—they‘re out there talking BP‘s side of this public debate. Why? Because they have been kennel trained to do it, bark at regulation, bark at government and if you can reach it, lick the hand of big corporations.

Rand Paul has called the president‘s pressuring of BP “un-American.” Barton, the top congressional Republican on energy policy, said the president was shaking down BP for getting it to set aside $20 billion for the people they‘ve hurt. Bachmann called the $20 billion a redistribution of wealth, a slush fund.

Pay no attention to Mr. Barton‘s apologies and Ms. Bachmann‘s endless regurgitations. They got—well, they got it right the first time the way they really think.

I'm calling this for what it was. A strike.