All the Things You Are

“He is sort of the model figure for who we are,” Griffin said. “He doesn’t stick out loving politics and being passionate about politics. It comes across in everything we do … And that’s Chris.”

— MSNBC president Phil Griffin, on Chris Matthews, in an interview with AP, today. Griffin adds that Matthews is “at a place in his life where he’s really comfortable in his own skin. He’s a statesman.”

Well, that’s one way to describe Chris.

The scary thing is that given how far the left and the MSM have fallen in recent years, what if Griffin is correct? But perhaps Chris shouldn’t apply for the Nobel Prize just yet, as he has serious competition for that coveted role as network elder statesman:

“I’m a big fan of the Reverend Sharpton. I’ve known him quite a bit. he’s smart. He’s entertaining. He’s experienced. He’s thoughtful. He’s provocative, all the things I think that MSNBC is.”

— MSNBC president Phil Griffin on Al Sharpton, in an interview with NPR, September, 2011.

But if anyone at MSNBC feels left out, Griffin has them covered as well: “We are nothing without Rachel Maddow, we are nothing without Ed [Schultz] and Lawrence [O’Donnell] and Chris Matthews. They have created this platform that’s really strong. I can’t say enough about Rachel. She soared over the last six months, and I think that she’s on a total upward traction. The sum is greater than the parts.”

But what a sum — and what parts.

By the way, speaking of sums, regarding the infamous hoax that first made Sharpton’s bones, the New York Post reports:

Twenty-five years after a teenage Tawana Brawley falsely dragged his name through the mud as a gang-raping, kidnapping racist, it’s payback time for Steven Pagones, a former Dutchess County prosecutor whom she still owes $429,000, including interest, on a 1998 defamation judgment.

The Post goes on to add that as part of that ruling, “Sharpton paid his $66,000 judgment to Pagones, with help from OJ Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochran and others.” From Sharpton’s perspective, it’s probably not a bad investment to parlay $66K into a presidential bid, transformation into a Democrat Godfather figure, and now NBC television host, who, according to his boss — and apparently said with a straight face — defines the very channel he’s on. (And how.)