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The Spectacle Blog
Now that Keith “Lincoln only lost one election” Olbermann has departed MSNBC, the banner of historical ignorance has been picked up by Chris Matthews.
After playing a soundbite of Minnesota’s Congresswoman Michele Bachmann talking about the Founding Fathers and specifically discussing John Quincy Adams’ opposition to slavery, Matthews went on to disparage Bachmann as a “balloon head” because, according to Matthews, the Constitution deliberately counted slaves as only three-fifths of a person.
This is historical misstatement of a size that makes Matthews look like, well, a balloon head.
First, Bachmann was totally correct about John Quincy Adams. Second, as anyone who has spent, say, five minutes studying the U.S. Constitution and its history is fully aware the famous “three-fifths clause” was a compromise by the anti-slavery forces to keep slave-owners from being over-represented in the U.S. House of Representatives where population determined — then as now — the number of congressional seats per state. If slaves, specifically mentioned as “persons” in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 (“three fifths of all other Persons”) were counted, the Southern slave-owners would have an even greater numerical advantage in Congress than they already were destined to have. With slaves counted as a whole person, slave owners’ power would increase — while slaves would be unable to ever win their freedom in a system dominated by slaveowners. Hence the compromise, which was in fact pushed by anti-slavery forces.
The population in the North would grow — eventually destined to overwhelm the South in numbers. This was one of the reasons for the Dred Scott decision — a desperate attempt to write slavery into the Constitution forever, written by the slave-holding Roger Taney — the Democrat who was Chief Justice of the United States.
For Matthews to so grossly misstate the most rudimentary of historical fact in his zeal to go after Bachmann displays either an overdose of partisan zeal (and a considerable whiff of sexism, a Matthews problem in the past) — or just plain old fashioned historical ignorance by someone parading around as a smart guy.
Someone’s a balloon head here alright, and it isn’t Michele Bachmann.
View all comments (59) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Jeffrey Lord
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/01/28/chris-matthews-balloon-head-hi
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banner of historical ignorance| 1.28.11 @ 1:40PM
Picked me up? Jeffy baby Ol' Chrissy has been carrying me for a long long time.
Deborah D | 1.28.11 @ 2:04PM
They just carry on in their ignorance thinking they're the smart ones. Truly a liberal trait, and one of their most obnoxious.
Patriot| 1.28.11 @ 2:07PM
Matthews' ignorance is only dwarfed by his arrogance.
The Interface | 1.28.11 @ 2:36PM
You present your diagnosis of Matthews as "either...or" but may I suggest it be "both...and?"
beebop| 1.29.11 @ 6:01AM
Yes! Yes! My first reaction as well. He is both and all things odious resulting from some mistaken belief that he is superior! Remind you of anyone else?
I Survived Arlen Specter| 1.28.11 @ 2:51PM
Will someone please tell me why any conservative pays any attention to or even cares what this idiot says, thinks, or does. Ignore him! Attention is what the idiot craves & the best way to shut him up is deny him the attention he wants. He's not worth the anger or words to come back at him. Take care all & GOD bless!
PKane| 1.28.11 @ 3:10PM
Everyone seems to forget the other condition of the compromise: that the importation of slaves was to end twenty years after ratification. The anti-slavery folks insisted on this because 1) their first priority was to address the horrid slave ships, which they saw as the most inhuman aspect of slavery and 2) the end of the importation would be the first step in the death of the institution. Unfortunately the cotton gin came along.
bobmontgomery| 1.28.11 @ 3:25PM
And so, with 1773, sputnik and anti-slavery facts, can the momentum to revise historical revisionism be maintained?
Ballonhead2| 1.28.11 @ 3:32PM
I'm with Chris on this one. She is a Balloon Head.
Interested Conservative| 1.28.11 @ 3:49PM
She's a tax attorney, had a career with the IRS.
Doesn't fit the narrative though. Curious for a Tea Party favorite.
Wayne | 1.28.11 @ 4:59PM
But, see he is a balloon head too :-)
Patriot| 1.28.11 @ 6:56PM
What's a "Ballonhead2?" More spelling excellence on display from a public school graduate?
Charie| 1.29.11 @ 4:15PM
Are you saying you're with Chris in balloonheadville?
DRed| 1.28.11 @ 3:59PM
"How unique in all of the world, that one nation that was the resting point from people groups all across the world. It didn't matter the color of their skin, it didn't matter their language, it didn't matter their economic status.... Once you got here, we were all the same. Isn't that remarkable? It's absolutely remarkable." What's remarkable is how wrong that is. That's why Ms. Bachmann is a balloon head.
banner of historical ignorance| 1.28.11 @ 4:12PM
Thanks for your support.
Frisbee| 1.28.11 @ 8:34PM
Sarah and Michelle are unapologetically pro-life. That's mostly why the lefties hate them. Also, for some lefties, it's because they're pretty.
Charie| 1.29.11 @ 4:18PM
I'll be darned ballonhead (sic) #3 shows up.
Clint| 1.28.11 @ 4:09PM
We Tea Party Rebels don't allow Liberal Mainstream Media Agendists to "Define" Tea Party Congresswomen Bachmann.
Matthew was a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter & top aide for Tip o'Neil.
He's still hacked off because The Montgomery County GOP Censored his brother Jimmy.
Occam's Tool| 2.23.11 @ 7:12PM
We Zionists love Michelle as Well, Tim*.
Oldefarte| 1.28.11 @ 5:00PM
No, there's a definate reason why he bleaches his hair blond [and gets a tingle up his leg over Barry]!!!!!!!!!
Wayne | 1.28.11 @ 5:01PM
Chris Matthews is the guy that suggested someone kill Sarah Palin. He is also the guy who got punked by Bachmann on election night.
Patriot| 1.28.11 @ 6:58PM
Pissy Chrissy also pined for Rush Limbaugh's death. Typical violent Fascist Liberal.
June| 1.28.11 @ 6:15PM
Why doesn't someone put poor Chris Matthews out of his misery and find a place for him in a circus?
Patriot| 1.28.11 @ 6:58PM
He'd be perfect as the Bearded Lady.
Nick| 1.28.11 @ 7:01PM
Would someone please explain why Chris Matthews still has a show on MSDNC, and a syndicated show. Both of which no one watches?
Is his uncle on the board of NBC? Did he rent out his wife to the board of GE? Or, did he service them himself?
Mike| 1.28.11 @ 7:12PM
Jeffrey,
Your revisionist history is wrong.
Interested Conservative| 1.28.11 @ 7:41PM
I'll bite - what is the history of the 3/5 clause?
Frisbee| 1.28.11 @ 8:42PM
"which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."
The term "slaves" is not used. Knowing a little about history and law, it sounds to me like it is intended to refer to women and children, and could be construed to refer to other dependents such as slaves.
Mike | 1.29.11 @ 2:13PM
Bachmann cites John Quincy Adams as a founding father. He wasn't. Lord supports Bachmann's flawed history.
Charie| 1.29.11 @ 4:24PM
Founders' son works for me. Why is it that Obama gets a pass on "57 states" and medical "corpse man" but no liberal will give an inch on a slip of the tongue in relation to Republicans especially Republican women. It makes me think there's probably a bit more than a "whiff" of sexism in their makeup.
Patriot| 1.29.11 @ 5:22PM
How about Obama's Thursday YouTube interview when he twice screwed up the present situations of Iraq and Afghanistan? The clown will blame it on his teleprompter I'm sure.
Patriot| 1.29.11 @ 5:16PM
Bachmann's history was correct, troll. JQ Adams may have been the son of a Founder, but he was an ardent and vocal opponent of slavery.
Learn to discern.
Mike | 1.29.11 @ 11:13PM
May have been the son of a founder? No, he was the son of a founder. You missed the point.
And, I discern that you are a clown.
Patriot| 1.30.11 @ 3:55AM
Poor Mikey the whiner; nitpicky and fractious, he can't see the forest for the trees. You're just as pissy as Chrissy. Do you get tingles up your leg, too?
Michelle Bachman was right; JQ Adams was an ardent foe of slavery. No "flawed history" there, bozo boy.
Do a little research before you embarrass yourself again.
Occam's Tool| 2.23.11 @ 7:17PM
JQA---He was the 6th President, in 1824, I believe. Daddy was John Adams. JQA, in addition to swimming in the buff every morning as exercise, strongly supported the sciences and opposed slavery. After his Presidential career was over, he was voted to the House of Representatives. Known as "Old Man Eloquent."
Can we leave Michelle alone, now? Beauty and Brains, all in one chick. I like her.
JmsA| 1.28.11 @ 7:48PM
Yet, you offer no rebuttal to buttress your assertion, Mike.
michigander_sandusky| 1.28.11 @ 8:32PM
Since when did facts matter to progressive snots like Matthews?
guest| 1.28.11 @ 9:19PM
John Quincy Adams was not a founding father. Making a compromise to keep people bound in terrible conditions is not "working tirelessly" to end slavery, and you ignore that a portion of the founding fathers were slave owners. Look, just admit that it was a stupid ignorant statement and move on.
Patriot| 1.28.11 @ 10:21PM
It's disgusting that you bonehead Liberals won't stop whining about 200 year old American slavery practices yet you champion the horrific practice of abortion happening RIGHT NOW each and every day. Your outrage is selective.
It's also nauseating to see Obama and other Leftists kissing up to the barbaric ChiComs who use child and slave labor to puke out the garbage they export to us. Where is your outrage now, when it counts, not 200 years from now.
You stupid Democrats make me sick. Hypocrites.
Wayne | 1.29.11 @ 12:13AM
Tell us how you really feel :-) Liberals lose the moral high ground because they can not justify abortion. Right to Choose was originally just a sick joke, but somehow it stuck. I always ask, the right for who to choose? When they say the Mother, I say that it is not her life she is choosing to take. Then they say, well its her body. Again I say it is not even genetically the same as her. It certainly is not her body. But if you are so keen on us having the "right to choose what we want with our body", why must I have approval from the FDA to take a drug, or why can't a woman sell the use of her body. That is about the point they start calling me "teabagger'.
Patriot| 1.29.11 @ 3:38AM
Please forgive my "incivility." I'm just so damn sick and tired of lies and the liars who tell them without thought or remorse. Liberals reek with the stench of hypocrisy.
Slavery will always be a stain on our historical conscience, but we also stopped it many years ago--at great cost.
Why do Liberals fixate on 200 year old horrific policies and events, yet champion even worse today? I know compassion has got nothing to do with it--neither does the truth.
When Liberals call you "Teabagger" you know they've lost the argument; it's just smear without substance. Abortion stops a beating heart, and it's not the mother's.
Mike | 1.29.11 @ 11:18PM
Fuck you, Patriot.
Patriot| 1.30.11 @ 3:59AM
Truth hurts doesn't it you little POS? Choke on it, baby.
You're nothing more than the dog poo I scrape off my shoes.
Mimi| 1.29.11 @ 8:12AM
SARAH & JACK ...Please do not use this site for profit....pay honestly for advertising...your business will then thrive but never this way, you won't be trusted!!!
Mimi| 1.29.11 @ 8:30AM
I have felt for a long time , that the left is a little SICK attacking PRO-LIFE women. It is always crazy-like, way over-board and ridiculously out of line. They give their painful-guilt agony away!!
Deep in their gut they know our side has the high-ground, and they are more than furious.
In the case of CATHOLIC Chris Matthews the extreme guilt of his views on this...probably torments him. Pressed down , and attempts to bury....Brings out the extreme ANGER... the GIRLS are the brunt of this..in particular the most wonderful and beautiful person of Michele Bachman. Pity him and PRAY for his almighty soul.
CJohnson| 1.29.11 @ 1:25PM
Mathews: you are the reason for No Child Left Behind. From now on, just sit there and wave and say 'timmy'..
Occam's Tool| 2.23.11 @ 7:19PM
Matthews in it! Cripple Fight! Come on, Timmy!
"Timmmeee!"
Sapphire98| 2.10.11 @ 6:36PM
Mr. Matthews is quite uneducated. I don't believe his rhetoric, he's pulling his uneducated reports from the arse. He apparently is making good money, but in the end if he continues his path (God help us), the OB regime will castrate him. And he will be a low life peasant amongst the rest.