From a New York Times story, by Michael M. Grynbaum, headlined “Chris Matthews Apologizes to Bernie Sanders for Remarks on Nevada Win”:
The MSNBC star Chris Matthews issued an unusual apology to Senator Bernie Sanders on Monday night, a moment of humility for the veteran “Hardball” anchor after days of mounting criticism from allies of Mr. Sanders, the front-runner in the Democratic presidential race.
Mr. Matthews, who has a reputation for pugnacious commentary, drew fire from Sanders aides—and at least one network colleague—after he compared his victory in the Nevada caucuses to the Nazi takeover of France in World War II.
“The general calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over,’” Mr. Matthews said during a Saturday broadcast, as he tried to describe Democrats’ surprise at Mr. Sanders’s command of the party primary. “Churchill says: ‘How can it be? You got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.’”. . .
MSNBC did not respond to the uproar until Monday, when Mr. Matthews began his “Hardball” program by telling viewers, “I want to say something quite important and personal.”
“Senator Sanders, I’m sorry for comparing anything from that tragic era in which so many suffered, especially the Jewish people, to an electoral result of which you were the well-deserved winner,” Mr. Matthews said soberly into the camera. . . .
Perhaps because of the channel’s popularity with Democrats, Mr. Sanders’s campaign has singled out MSNBC for criticism, complaining about Mr. Matthews and the political anchor Chuck Todd, who recently read on his program a column by a conservative writer that referred to Mr. Sanders’s aggressive online supporters as “brownshirts.” . . .
Mr. Matthews’s World War II comments drew condemnation beyond the Sanders inner circle, including from the MSNBC contributor Anand Giridharadas.
“Many in this establishment are behaving, in my view, as they face the prospect of a Bernie Sanders nomination, like out-of-touch aristocrats in a dying aristocracy,” Mr. Giridharadas said on MSNBC on Sunday morning. He added, “Why is Chris Matthews on this air talking about the victory of Bernie Sanders, who had kin murdered in the Holocaust, analogizing it to the Nazi conquest of France?”
I have a deep respect and admiration for Kathleen Mathews, Chis’s wife. He however, has struck me as a first class churl. Starting with his pathetic commentary during the misguided Iraq invasion. He ought to simply refrain from further comment.