Quotable: Chris Matthews Puts Michael Steele Down

Chris Matthews hosting Hardball on the road at Java Joe's in Des Moines, Iowa, today with tag-along pundits Michael Steele ("I'm just the suit"), Howard Fineman (detector of malevolent political patterns), and ('nuff said, Pulitzer Prize winner) Gene Robinson, referred to Steele as the "ersatz Republican leader." Ouch. Merriam-Webster defines ersatz as "being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation", and Wikipedia, "being an imitation or a substitute, usually an inferior one; artificial." Is Chris trying to drum up audience sympathy for Steele? It may be working. Michael must read this blog, which agrees with his assessment that Ron Paul's poll numbers understate his support pretty substantially. An interesting observation; we'll see if it pans out.

American Götterdämmerung

Howard Fineman stole the show with his nimble political analyst's brain, detecting the pattern that all of Romney's candidate comparison takedowns have been notorious women: Lucy the clown in the chocolate factory, for Gingrich; Marie Antoinette the naïve spoiled elitist, for President Obama; and again President Obama compared to Kim Kardashian: "I think the gap between his promises and his performance is the largest I've seen, well, since the Kardashian wedding and the promise of til death do we part," referring to her 72-day marriage. Nice line, but not only is it untrue, Gene observed that Mittens couldn't tell the three Kardashian sisters apart if they lined up in front of him. It's a really, transparently, lame attempt to come across as a hip pop culture maven. As phony as the candidate who recites "America The Beautiful" while savaging Newt Gingrich with his SuperPac ads which he refused to acknowledge, as if, broken clock Newt observed, "people aren't that stupid."

Mitt Romney was projecting Marie Antoinette, to be sure. As Howard noted, he has a problem with women, and is pursuing a line of attack in which he seems to think marginalizing women and feminizing his opponents is the surest path to electoral victory. Mittens is an arrogant elitist neanderthal, accustomed to getting his way by throwing his wealth around to subvert the people's exercise of democracy, their vote, their choice. Newt the Ironic might end up being right, after all the votes are cast: The voters aren't that stupid. We shall see.