News/Campaigns/Administration

Chris Matthews: Clintons May Be Overlooked Here

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews again knocked his old friends, the Clintons, while trying to put President-elect Obama’s inauguration into historic context.

Matthews, just as Obama left the White House with President Bush, suggested that Obama’s inauguration could be remembered like those of President Franklin Roosevelt’s and John Kennedy’s. Matthews then noted that Ethel Kennedy, widow of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy, once told Obama that the civil rights “torch is being passed to you.”

Matthews then said: “But the Clintons — this isn’t a happy thought — they may be overlooked here.”

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) complained about Matthews’s punditry during the Democratic primaries. Matthews once said he felt a thrill going up his leg during Obama’s victory speech after his victories in key primaries. He also suggested Clinton could be called “the Rev. Al Sharpton of white people.”