Just when people thought Chris Matthews couldn’t get any more in the tank for Barack Obama, he appears on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno to prove that nothing can limit his sycophancy for the Democratic candidate. In this clip, the supposed journalist tells Leno that he hopes people can “open up your heart” to that thrill up his leg — and that all of those geriatric racists don’t get in the way. No, I’m not kidding:

I hope for one thing when people go to vote: that they look at Barack’s background, that they look at the age of the two candidates, that they look at their abilities and really open up their hearts and say “what’s really good for my kids,” who don’t have any color awareness.

Kids don’t think about race.

Think like your kids for once.

Think the way they think.

It would be great if the older people in the country, the 70 year olds, the 80 year olds who are suspicious of change to say, “you know, why don’t I think the way my kids are thinking and think about the future.”

Whatever they decide, just open up your heart to this prospect of something different.

That’s what I hope we do.

Let’s deconstruct this. First, Matthews pretty clearly implies that anyone who doesn’t vote for Obama is doing so on the basis of race. However, the biggest reason Matthews can offer for an Obama vote is to open up our hearts to “something different”.  In other words, the most pressing reason Matthews supports Obama is not for his policies or his experience, but because he’s “different”.

At best, that’s an extremely shallow reason, and at worst, well …

But there’s another level of stupidity here.  “Think like your kids for once.  Think the way they think.”  So we should all think like eight-year-olds when we choose our leaders?  That certainly explains Matthews’ shallowness.  I’d prefer that people think like adults and inform themselves on the choices.  That would be the responsible path to voting, which is to say mature, which avoids such notions as picking (or opposing) candidates for their ethnicity or gender, or favoring Matthews’ favorite leg-thrill because it would be neato and super-cool to have Obama in the White House.

“That’s what I hope we do.”  Matthews is being dishonest here.  He hopes people vote for Barack Obama, but he doesn’t have the courage to say that on national TV.  Instead, he offers perhaps the most facile and vapid endorsement ever uttered by a media personality, and makes himself an even bigger joke than ever. (via Daily Kos)