Hillary Rodham Clinton: Chinese Politician

Whenever I think that CCTV is getting too weird, it’s refreshing to take a look back across the Pacific and watch American punditry in its own downward spiral of absurdity:

From Chris Matthews last November, via Media Matters:

“On the November 6 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball, discussing presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), host Chris Matthews said, “[W]ell, there she is clapping again,” and asked his panel of Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart, Houston Chronicle White House correspondent Julie Mason, and Weekly Standard staff writer Matthew Continetti, “[W]ould somebody please tell me why she claps every time she goes somewhere?” Capehart postulated that Clinton was “responding to the crowd,” and Mason speculated that “[i]t’s an affirmation,” to which Matthews replied: “No, I think it’s bizarre behavior. Anyway, I think it has something to do with — men don’t know what to do with their hands. I guess she’s like us. Anyway, we’ll be right back with more of the roundtable. I want an answer. Why is she clapping?”

Similarly, the next day on the November 7 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Willie Geist said to Matthews, “I gotta ask you about, I was watching yesterday, you had this thing about Hillary and the clapping, you were caught up with her.” Matthews replied that Clinton is “usually standing in front of the camera, and she’s clapping, like she’s Chinese. I know the Chinese clap at each other, but what is she clapping at?”

It’s true you often see footage of Chinese leaders past and present greeting a roomful of applause by politely clapping back. What the hell that has to do with Hillary Clinton, I have no idea. I think the larger point to be made here is that Chris Matthews is kind of an idiot.

From the archives

• October 27, 2010 -- ‘Ignorant Incurious Certitude’: The sordid and twisted connection between the American Right Wing and the nitwits who run Xinhua