Chris Matthews used to be a good sport and a fun guy to watch on TV. Something happened to MSNBC, and I don't just mean Olbermann. First, there was David Schuster, reportedly egged on by "producers" to attack Hillary in the vilest terms. Next, there was Olbermann. No description needed. And finally, we have seen Chris morph into the most shrill, hysterical Obama partisan anywhere in the MSM.

I think Olbermann is running the show and poor Chris' anatomy is now residing in Keith's pocket.

If you want to see people in crisp brown suits spouting anti-semitism, you don't have to imagine a McCain-ish future. Just drive to Chicago and stop by the Nation of Islam the next time they are having a prize ceremony hosted by Brother Jeremiah. The 20K Barack and Michelle gave him last year could help buy plenty of bow ties and copies of the Protocols of Zion for Farrakhan's following.

Hey, good to talk with you as always.

I have read that the Secret Service could not corroborate either of the "kill him" statements - from the Palin rally, or the one Milbank wrote about. I don't want to defame Milbank and say he made it up. After all, he doesn't work for CBS. :) But, I don't think he can back it up, either.

As far as the conversation I related earlier, let me be clear. This McCain/Palin supporter wasn't peddling lies. He was asking me my opinion on very discrete things, like: "Was his father a Muslim?" "Should that give us any concern?" It wasn't hateful or hysterical. You could say, yeah right, the guy's probably a nut. But honestly, remember the Mark Penn memo for Hillary: it said people (Democrats) will have a lot of trouble with this background. You can't have somebody whose middle name is Hussein running for president in the midst of a Mideast war, and not at least have people ask the question - what exactly is his background, and does it matter? There's a lot of that going on, together with probably some genuine fruitcakes like the guy with the plush monkey.

Ok, I watched the tape at your suggestion. I take back my prior bashing of Matthews, on this one. He gave the congresswoman a fair hearing.

First, a semantic point. It is rare that a Republican will use a word like anti-patriotic or un-American. More typically, they will make a statement, and journalists or liberals will say, ah, this is an attack on patriotism. So it was with Matthews. He is the one that used the term anti-American, and asked the congresswoman to defend it.

Surprisingly, she took the bait and adopted the term. I understood her to be referring to some writings of Ayres. Let's assume for the sake of argument you could find an article by Ayres which says, paraphrasing, "I condemn America and all that it stands for - its colonial history, its foreign policy in all its forms today, its oppressive culture today. I am anti-all of it, as anti as a person can be." Now, would this be UN-American in the McCarthyistic sense? No, because that was referring to Bolshevik revolutionary beliefs; overthrowing the government. But would it be ANTI-American? I would offer Bill Ayres as my first witness. I bet he would be proud to call himself an anti-American. And don't forget, he was part of a group that bombed and killed Americans - and he wishes he did more!

It's a similar deal with Wright. He says we got what we deserved on 9/11. We're the KKK of A, even today. Is this pro- or anti? Now, of course, you could say, is every critic of the Iraq War an anti-American? No. But if you condemn the country across the board, every day in every way, at some point you're not just anti-Iraq War, you are anti-America (as the critic himself defines it).

Now Barack hung out with Ayres and Wright, pursued Ayres' educational "America is Evil" agenda, and gave 20K as recently as last year to Wright's church. So clearly, he bought into this "Anti-99.99% of All that America Stands For" position. You can't change that, just to make yourself feel better. You're a Democrat, I assume, and you might just have a flaky nominee.

As far as Palin is concerned, put aside the semantics of whether Ayres was a "pal" or a "terrorist" (I would say yes to both). She also made the point that Barack associated with him, and his educational agenda -- which was entirely premised upon the (dare one say it) "imperfections" of the country. Now again, there is a line to be crossed between loving but criticizing your country's shortcomings, and despising it and wanting to bomb and kill your fellow citizens, then teach youngsters how terrible it all is. Ayres crossed that line, and never looked back. It's hard to tell where Obama fits into this picture, in part because he doesn't want to talk about it. Nor should he, politically. Ergo, we really don't know enough about him, and we will be voting in the absence of complete information.