Hardball just keeps getting worse

MSNBC's hardball is on a downward spiral of booking cartoonish guests in ploys for ratings. Ann Coulter, Al Sharpton, and more recently Judith Miller. Nutcases with nothing of substance to say, no reliability, but a promise that they'll say something provocative.

Provocative has become the Hardball keyword, not informative.

Today (Friday) they had a couple of segments on Hillary. The first was a focus on the horrors of her showing a very trivial amount of cleavage in the Senate (See just how trivial). The second was an examination of the question of whether she's engaging in excessively masculine posturing in her position on Iraq.

Too much cleavage? Too much masculinity?

Which is it, boys? Did you have a guest who actually made a comment about the color of Hillary Clinton's pearls? Or was I dreaming.

It's really become a pathetic excuse for a TV show.

Update: Added a link to a photo of the cleavage. Hattip to Althouse for the photo link

Update. More comments on the Hillary cleavage nonsense. TigerHawk Firedoglake hat tip to Instapundit for these links

Chris Matthews and Ann Coulter

I lost every bit of respect I ever had for Chris Matthews when he gave Ann Coulter an hour of his show to promote the paperback edition of her latest book. There was just no reason for that, she has nothing to offer to political discourse. At least no reason that I could see.

Well, The Supreme Irony of Life thinks he's found a reason. It's a payola type reason, but it's a reason.

Hardball is a joke

Chris Matthews has lost his way. He no longer hosts a political show. He hosts a TV show which is a blend Entertainment Tonight and Reno 911. He's become his own joke.

Ann Coulter and Al Sharpton. Those are the key guests this week. Neither have a single thing to contribute to public discourse in the United States. Not one thing.

They are both experts in spouting off outrageous nonsense. That's all they do. They do it well, but that has nothing to do with politics unless you really think that intentional misdirection serves to advance the level of political discourse.

Chris Matthews talks about Ann Coulter having no shame. Chris Matthews is the one that needs to develop a sense of shame. Even Fox News, as worthless as they are, does a better job of contributing to a public debate about reality than Chris Matthews is doing this week. Just worthless. I'm really disappointed.