Easily Impressed

On the evening of Monday, September 23, one of our senior editors—let’s just call him “Chip”—made a rather big mistake. What was this gaffe, you ask?

Tasering the garbage out of a college student? Nope. Agreeing to manufacture Dennis Kucinich plush dolls for the holidays? No, sir.

Rather, “Chip” found himself watching “Hardball,” a feculent television program hosted by the uproariously irksome Chris Matthews. Ah, yes: “Chip” committed quite a faux pas indeed.

Now, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have blathered on about the odious Mr. Matthews in the past. Simply put, the guy’s a blowhard. His staccato voice rankles and he incessantly interrupts his guests. He is, we suppose, a sort of blue-collar Charlie Rose.

But on the particular installment of “Hardball” “Chip” watched, Mr. Matthews seemed particularly irritating. And his program was dedicated to discussing the recent appearance at Columbia University of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s Nutter-in-Chief.

This is not, we dare say, a particularly contentious matter. After all, only a complete buffoon would submit anything resembling support for the genocidal terrorist-supporter from Iran.

Even so, Mr. Matthews managed to offend even in the course of a discussion on this tepid controversy. If “Chip” remembers correctly, his guests for this particular segment were two Columbia students, both of whom found themselves markedly unimpressed with the Iranian despot.

Mr. Matthews, in one of his usual bursts of interruption, asked one of the students if he was “impressed” by Ahmadinejad’s purported disinclination to deny the Holocaust. When said student said he was not, Mr. Matthews was surprised. Obviously, he thought that the Iranian nutter’s hemming and hawing about the possibility of the Holocaust being an actual historical event was a revelation. As such, he said he was impressed.

Well, gee, Mr. Matthews: You sure do impress easily. If this sort of thing serves to impress you, you ought to wonder about the character of the man you’re discussing. After all, belief in the existence of the Holocaust shouldn’t exactly put you up for the Nobel Prize, now should it?