Chris Matthews Explains Why Michelle Bachmann is a Bubblehead

Transcript of "Hardball with Chris Matthews", 1/31/11

Chris Matthews:  Tonight I want to take the time to give an explanation to my audience as to why Michelle Bachmann is a complete bubblehead, and why anyone who is part of the Tea-bagger party she represents is a complete ignoramus.  Specifically, I want to talk about the history of civil rights in this country.

First of all, it was the Democratic Party which invented civil rights.  When they realized just how badly the Republicans were botching things in writing the constitution, the Democrats quickly added some amendments, later called the "bill of rights" to try and fix the constitution.  Of course the Republicans managed to foul up even this noble effort when they insisted on inserting the second amendment into the "bill of rights".  But things only got worse from there.


Later on the Republicans, who were the party of racist slave-owners, tried to spread out of the South and take their slaves with them to other states.  Fortunately, the Democrats managed to elect Abraham Lincoln as president, and he immediately freed all the slaves.  When the Republicans living in Southern states found out that Lincoln had freed the slaves, they immediately staged a rebellion, which ended up being the Civil War, which lasted for eight years and cost twenty-million lives.  But this is of course typical behavior of the Republican party.

Later, after President Lincoln had been assassinated by the racist, Republican John Wilkes Booth, who was then a member of the early form of the Tea-bagger party, former general U.S. Grant became president.  Grant, who was a every bit as much a faithful Democrat as President Lincoln, had to face off with the Ku Klux Klan, a Republican, Tea-bagger, terrorist group trying to deny Civil Rights to African Americans.  As a result, Grant founded the Department of Justice to fight the Klansmen, a proud tradition carried on today by Attorney General Eric Holder as he fights against the Tea-bagger movement.

Although some progress was made after the Civil War, Republicans in the Southern states soon instituted "Jim Crow" laws to keep African Americans from voting.  These laws were a constant threat to the Democrats, as the Republicans had a lock on the white vote in the South.

Only when Democrat Woodrow Wilson took office did things begin to change.  It was President Wilson who de-segregated Washington, D.C., to set an example for the rest of the country.  Despite President Wilson's best efforts, however, segregation remained a fact of life in the Republican-controlled South.

Eventually the Supreme Court integrated the schools in the Brown v. Board of Education decision.  Fortunately there was a true-blue Democrat in office as President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who sent the army in to enforce de-segregation when the Republican governor of Arkansas tried to keep African American students from attending Little Rock Central High School.

Finally, it was the leadership of Democrats like Robert Byrd and Al Gore Sr. who helped push civil rights laws through the Senate.  As a result, African Americans enjoy a small measure of freedom today, due entirely to the efforts of the Democratic Party, and always over the opposition of Republicans.  I believe this also demonstrates why the Tea-bagger movement is so dangerous, and why Michelle Bachmann is a bubblehead.  So, in honor of my recent comrade in the struggle here on MSNBC, I will tonight designate Michelle Bachmann as The Worst Person in the World.