what? you can shake your fist in excitement, give a thumbs up, but not clap? once again an attack on Hillary Clinton simply because she is Hillary Clinton. I am so tired of it.

I thought the same thing as you about how she should have a crowd right behind her. I assume Bill looked so large because of the zoom on the cameras --- the same reason the VP & Speaker always look so large at state of the union addresses. She / her stage managers should know better than that.

And yeah, her speech was terrible. I hope she stays in the Senate & becomes the next Ted Kennedy. She could probably do more good putting in 50 years there than anyone could do being president.

... what Matthews was talking about. It wasn't an insult to the Chinese at all -- Matthews was obviously talking about how "Communist" Chinese leaders who are always clapping on the podium in unison with the crowd beneath them (as do the North Koreans). Now, did he wish to equate Hiliary with a communist leader? I doubt it; it was an observation simply about the clapping. Enough already!

Clapping back when you get applause: That is a Chinese custom. Americans learned about it when Richard Nixon went to China, way back in the 1960's. Since then, American celebrities do it sometimes.

Political wives have been standing behind their man on stage looking like Stepford wives since forever. Now that Hillary is the candidate, people are finding it strange that the man has to look as useless as the wives always have. I know it's Bill Clinton, but still. Hillary's problem is that she really gets to people's reluctance and even fear of having a woman compete equally. She freaks them out no matter what she does.

If she runs for president I am looking forward to learning Bill's chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Is pathologically insane when it comes to the Clintons. He tries to keep it in the bounds of semi normal retarded punditry but often he slips and shows his unhinged hatred for them. Back in the day when no one knew who Chris Matthews was and he stood up on his desk and shouted "Clinton Lewinsky" about 11 million times and thereby made his career I used to think it was a cynical ploy to say whatever it took to get airtime. But as the years went by he would appear outwardly normal until anything Clinton was in the news. Then he drops everything to focus on it. It's quite an amazing sickness and transformation. No - in the final analysis Chris Matthews is the Aileen Wuornos of television 'journalism' when it comes to the Clintons. If Hillary does decide to run in 2008 he will be the Conservotards waterboy. He will be leading the charge against her. Bank on it.

Also for all his self annointed "I'm a JFK Peace Corps Liberal" street cred, he's a bit of a racist and mysogynist too.

I didn't see Matthews' comment but reading it reminded me images of Mao or Stalin reviewing a parade, clapping as he accepted the accolades of the crowd.

Even weirder was his comment last night about Nancy Pelosi - don't have the exact quote, but he was talking about how "hot" she is. Seemed somewhat inappropriate to me...

He's just weird period - remember his Commander Codpiece moment? Truly squirmy. Sometimes I think his mouth and his brain operate completely independently from one another.

I assumed that Chris was thinking of the Chinese communist party, and the tendency of communists the world over to clap together in a rhythmic yet un-cool expression of enthusiasm.

Don't waste time diagnosing after midnight election night musings. What often happens then is called "thinking with the mouth open," and the words that escape into the ozone can be ignored as the product of a too-weary mind.

"Chris Matthews is the Aileen Wuornos of television 'journalism'"

Wicked good!

You wanna talk about candidate speeches to their supporters and how they appear to the TV viewers? Did you see Santorum's concession speech? Yikes! The speech may have been okay but I was too busy being appalled at the family dynamics. His wife stood slightly behind him with that pasted on grin that political wives have to learn to use in all situations. Their children surrounded them, but some of them were clearly too young to have learned the stepford look yet. It was 11pm ish & there stood his little girl (about 8 years old by my accounting) clutching her doll and sobbing her eyes out. Neither parent payed any attention to her. To the other side of Rick stood two sons, one so young you couldn't really see him. Another trying very hard to be the good polictical son but he clearly was very upset, on the verge of sobbing himself. I think that at that hour and under those circumstances it might have been very appropriate for the little ones to be home in bed, or at least not on display.

There is some sort of crazy man button that seems to go off in Matthews when confronted by the Clintons (like many of us feel with confronted with Bush/Rumsfield/Cheney). I voted for the Green candidate and will never vote for her again until she admits that the October 11, 2002 vote giving this idiot president the right to go to war whenever he wants was a wrong vote. And yes, Senator Clinton would probably serve this country best by remaining a strong New York senator rather than by running for President. She is a good hard worker but just not charismatic enough. The Democrats should chose John Edwards or Obama as the next candidate with Russ Feingold or BILL Clinton as the vice presidential candidate.

Are we so concerned with how things are staged that we forget about substance? Should Chris Matthews be the least bit concerned about the way Hillary claps? Should we be concerned that Chris Matthews is concerned? Should I keep up my subscription to Salon if this level of discourse continues?