MSNBC tries to play nice

NY Times:

At its best, which is usually on election nights or after a debate, MSNBC makes viewers feel that they are in a neighborhood bar with political insiders, listening in on the banter and smart assessments. At its worst, the cable news channel makes viewers feel they are in a neighborhood bar waiting on political insiders, the butt of their banter and smart-aleck assessments.

And Tuesday night, MSNBC tried very hard to be on its best behavior. Chris Matthews, who on “Hardball” often refers to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton by her first name, switched to “Hillary Clinton, Senator Clinton.” Mr. Matthews was so intent on not causing offense he introduced a senior Clinton adviser, Lisa Caputo, by saying: “What a nice person she is. And I mean this, she’s a friend of mine, they are all nice friends.”

MSNBC was the only one of the three cable news networks that showed Mrs. Clinton’s speech at a Texas rally almost in its entirety; Fox News and CNN cut away much sooner to the primary results. Tuesday night’s coverage of the so-called Potomac primaries on MSNBC was so polite it was almost comical: the channel’s usually brash, voluble anchors were like schoolboys sent to the principal’s office, straining to look penitent and extra attentive.

MSNBC calls its stars “the best political team” on television, but at the moment some players are in disgrace. A reporter, David Shuster, was suspended by the network for saying that Chelsea Clinton had been “pimped out” by her mother’s campaign. Last month, Mr. Matthews was forced to apologize for saying that Mrs. Clinton had won her Senate seat and become a presidential front-runner because of a husband who, as he put it, “messed around.”

Mrs. Clinton, who threatened to pull out of an MSNBC-sponsored debate later this month, said that over all, Fox News had treated her more fairly than MSNBC — which was a little like Ann Coulter saying that if Senator John McCain wins the Republican nomination, she will support Mrs. Clinton. (Theirs could be the beginning of a “Casablanca”-style “beautiful friendship.”)

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This is a remarkable transformation for the Clinton campaign. Major Garrett has been covering the campaign for Fox and you can tell from his interviews that there is a good bit of respect for his fairness in coverage and that of the network.

I quit watching MSNBC months ago because it had thrown in with the anti war pukes and was doing its best to push the agenda of those who want to lose the war in Iraq. It has always been fairly unbalanced in its coverage of Republicans, but that has never netted a story in the NY Times, but when it attacks the Clintons I guess that is news fit to print.

Clinton is now ready to debate on Fox. That is a transformative move in and of itself.