RUSH: Last night on Hardball with Chris Matthews the guest is Roger Simon, Politico. They had a discussion about why Obama’s out there talking about his Christianity, and Matthews says, ‘He talks about his mother, being raised in an atheist family basically for all practical purposes trying to find his religious faith, and he did. I would just hate to have this be called a headline because we’ve known this about him for a long time. Now he’s forced to come out with it. I think an adversarial media will now say he’s saying things that are new to us. There’s nothing new here.’ I’ll tell you what Matthews is saying, ‘Why is he talking about this? His party’s about to get shellacked, his party’s about to get creamed in November because of his policies, and what’s he doing out there talking about this Christianity stuff?’ Matthews is covering up. (imitating Matthews) ‘Well, we know about this, there’s nothing new, we know he’s a Christian, we know his mother was an atheist, we know his mother was a hippie, why is he bringing all this up?’ He asked Roger Simon. Roger Simon said this in response.
SIMON: Did he really have to throw his family under the bus to make this point? I mean, you know, his family didn’t go to church, but he went to church. To me this is the worst thing he’s —
MATTHEWS: Well, come on.
SIMON: — since comparing his grandmother to Reverend Wright to make a point about everybody — no, I mean this disturbs me. How far do we go in politics to get a few extra votes? I mean, he’s a Christian. Fine, say he’s a Christian.
RUSH: Yeah. They’re fraying away out there on the edges. So Roger Simon: he’s thrown his family under the bus here. Family didn’t go to church but he did, it’s the worst thing he’s done, and Matthews, ‘Ah, come on, come on.’ Matthews and Fineman later on in the program have this discussion about Obama and Simon and Christianity.
FINEMAN: I don’t agree with that.
MATTHEWS: That’s not how — (unintelligible) I don’t agree with that at all. Not at all.
FINEMAN: I don’t agree — I think — (crosstalk)
MATTHEWS: Because I know his background was his mother was kind of a hippie, mother was — she was a free thinker, she wasn’t a churchgoer, that’s all he’s saying. He wasn’t saying his mother wasn’t spiritual, he was —
RUSH: Man, oh, man everybody is discombobulated out there. Howard Fineman says, ‘Oh, no, I don’t agree with that.’ Matthews, ‘I don’t agree with that.’ Roger, you’re full of crap, why you bringing this up, Roger? Can you imagine what happened after this show was over, Fineman and Matthews ganging up on Roger and saying, ‘What the hell, don’t you know you’re just feeding the Limbaughs of the world out there, throwing his mother under the bus, worst thing he’s ever done since comparing his grandmother to Reverend Wright to make a point?’ Which he did. You remember that, Dawn, you remember when he did? That was in the famous race speech in Pennsylvania. He was outside Philadelphia, and he said his grandmother was a typical white person, grandma was a typical white person, saw a black guy and said, ‘Uh-oh,’ and crossed the street and ran the other way, typical white person. ‘Oh, my God, Obama’s throwing his grandmother who raised him under the bus here in order to save Reverend Wright.’ And Roger Simon says, ‘Yeah, now he’s thrown his mother under the bus, she’s an atheist. Why is he doing this?’ And it is a good question. His party is on the verge of getting shellacked, at least according to the polls, and what’s Obama out there doing here? What’s he doing? Well, he’s a narcissist. Something obviously bothers him about this, and party doesn’t matter to him. Remember, I think he’s actually looking forward to Republicans running the House so that when 2012 comes along he can run against them rather than his own party.
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RUSH: You know, P.J. O’Rourke is still around, and P.J. O’Rourke can still nail it now and then. He can still be funny, and he did last night. It was not a good night for Matthews last night on Hardball, it really wasn’t ’cause after all this Obama religion stuff got thrown back in Matthews’ face he started in on Christine O’Donnell and what he thinks are sophist statements on evolution, and P.J. O’Rourke just sent Matthews to the showers on this one. We’ll play you the audio when we get back. Won’t be long.
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RUSH: Here’s P. J. O’Rourke last night, PMSNBC Hardballed, Chris Matthews: ‘P.J., why aren’t monkeys still evolving in front of our face? I mean Christine O’Donnell says if you’re looking at a monkey and it’s not turning into your little brother, then there’s no evolution. I mean that’s her point. What do you say to this, P.J.?’
O’ROURKE: I got some problems with evolution myself. I mean because I look around at say Democrats, and I say that’s evolved? You know, I would say it’s kind of going in the other direction.
RUSH: So here’s Matthews, he thinks P.J. O’Rourke is going to join him in pummeling Christine O’Donnell, sets him up with a softball, a hanging softball, and P.J. says, ‘Yeah, I kind of agree with her. You look at the Democrats and say evolution? That’s kinda going in the other direction.’ We know what Christine O’Donnell says. Hey, look, if there’s evolution, how come there’s still monkeys? How come the monkey doesn’t evolve in front of our face? Why is it still a monkey? If we came from the apes, why are there still apes? How come the gorillas that are still there got left out of the deal? How did some of us become advanced humans and King Kong is still out there as King Kong? I know what she’s saying. It’s a matter of choice. Obviously some gorillas did not want to become humans because they didn’t want to get blamed for destroying their own habitat. And there’s nothing wrong with staying a gorilla. I mean if you want to stay a gorilla that’s absolutely fine. You want to be King Kong, I mean who knows, Naomi Watts, you might get to meet her someday. You probably got a better chance of meeting Naomi Watts as a gorilla than you do as a gas station attendant. I mean, if I was a gorilla that’s the way I’d be looking at it.
Now, evolution, I know that evolution is Darwin, and I think there are two guys who have probably done more to screw up the human race on balance. It’s probably a tough thing to signal out two guys out of all of the people that have been destructive to the human race, you gotta put Hitler up there and so forth, but I mean Hitler’s efforts were finite. There are two guys whose work goes on and on and on that continue to just have everything all screwed up. One was Darwin, the other is Freud. You ever stop to think what would happen if Freud had never been born, or Freud had become a barber. If Darwin had become a street sweeper rather than a scientist, how things would be different. We might not even have liberals were it not for those two guys.