Conservatives call him liberal, and liberals are calling him a republican — MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is igniting conversation all over the internet with comments he made in an interview with L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. It seems Chris has gotten inside the minds of Latino immigrants, and was schooling Villaraigosa — a Mexican American — on Mexicans. Neat.

Media Matters’ Summary:

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asserted that Spanish-speaking immigrants “sound like … natural Republicans to me.” Matthews also claimed that “everybody knows” that Puerto Rican, Cuban and Mexican immigrants “don’t want a big social democracy” and that “[t]hey want free enterprise and entrepreneurialism,” citing examples of opening a flower shop or “a bodega.”

When I first read the transcript, I thought critics of the exchange were being too sensitive. I mean it seems that what he was saying was that Latino immigrants are often entrepreneurs and not about “social handouts”, two traits which fit the textbook definition of a Republican. But watching the tape you see him fervently blabbering as if he were inside the mind of every Latino in this country — and in the process grouping Cubans and Mexicans together — as if the immigration history or the politics of these two peoples had anything in common.

Whatever, maybe we are being too hard, but I enjoyed Chris Matthews up until recently when he chuckled about homophobic jokes with that idiot Imus, also on MSNBC. I was also partial to him because Satan incarnate hates him.

Watching the tape of the exchange with Villaraigosa is pretty entertaining, because the Mayor’s expression when Matthews breaks it down about Latino immigration and politics is similar to that of a rap artist who’s been made to stomach comments from a suburban mama’s boy who says he’s “from the hood and can flow”. Respectful but knowing.

See the Chris Matthews interview at Media Matters.

Via / MediaMatters.org