Mr. Motormouth

Chris Matthews: You realize you’re running for president of the United States, which is a house.

Ralph Nader: Yes.

Matthews: It will be the first house you’ve ever lived in since you were a kid. You live in an apartment. You don’t have a car. You’re not married. You live a life that’s about as responsible as what’s on the movies tonight. I mean, that’s all you have to worry about. And you’re going to be president of the United States, and you’re knocking President Bush for not being mature enough?

Nader: Chris, no wonder they parody you on “Saturday Night Live.”

-- “Hardball,” Jan. 23

Chris MATTHEWS is evolving. “This last week I didn’t interrupt hardly the whole week,” he says earnestly. “I found that if I keep scaring them that I am going to interrupt, they talk faster.”

Matthews is the host of what is arguably the most entertaining political show on TV, “Hardball,” a favorite of insiders and political junkies and just about no one else. The MSNBC show drew an average of 470,000 viewers in prime time in June, according to Nielsen ratings, less than a quarter of the crowd Bill O’Reilly attracts. But those who tune in always get what they come for: a fast-talking, inside-baseball-loving information machine, a guy who thinks it’s interesting to compare the policy involvement of Nancy Reagan, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Laura Bush on a scale of 1 through 10, who spits questions like darts, who does not hesitate to badger or cut off guests in his quest for a plain-spoken answer. “Hardball” is so intense that his bulging-eye, cougar-like persona became fodder years ago for a “Saturday Night Live” impersonator, Darrell Hammond, whose out-of-control Matthews once warned his audience: “Stick around. I’m going to go outside to shout at cars.”

But give Matthews credit. At 58, still full of exuberance, he’s trying to refine himself. In moments when he might once have broken into a guest’s answer to keep up “Hardball’s” manic pace, he now utters an affirmative-sounding grunt or says “right” under his breath, hopeful the long-winded guest will take the hint.

Still....

It’s a weekday in mid-July. Matthews, whose show is based in Washington, is in L.A. for three days to speak at a TV critics gathering and tape a spot on Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” to promote MSNBC’s convention coverage, which starts today. But before that can happen, he has to tape his hourlong “Hardball” show (where the on-air countdown to the November election -- only 111 days! -- has already begun).

He has grown increasingly annoyed at the refusal or inability of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry to distance himself from President Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq. So today Matthews asks Kerry advisor Richard Holbrooke, the U.N. ambassador under President Clinton, to ponder this question: If Kerry had known then that Bush’s intelligence assumptions were so apparently flawed, would he have had the guts to vote against giving the president authorization?

Holbrooke won’t bite on a hypothetical question. Which drives Matthews nuts.

“Why is that a hard thing to answer?” he demands. “If the reason for the war was the threat to the United States and we find out there was no threat to the United States, then it’s simple. You say, ‘If I had known that, I wouldn’t have authorized going to war.’ ”

“One of the reasons I enjoy doing your program,” Holbrooke replies good-naturedly, echoing the sentiment of many of Matthews’ guests, “is that you answer your own questions so I don’t have to do it for you.” A few minutes later the taping ends, and the first words out of Holbrooke’s mouth to the host are: “You gotta say that was fun.”

‘Elvis is back’

In a political world turned bitter and humorless by a tightly divided electorate and a polarizing war, Matthews is the closest thing to Mort Sahl, who at his peak in the 1950s and ‘60s stood on nightclub stages with a newspaper, deconstructing and deflating politicians of all stripes. Sahl was a satirist by trade.

Matthews, by contrast, is a serious guy, a former congressional staffer, presidential speechwriter and newspaper columnist, a big (6-foot-3) white-haired man with a serious countenance and a grating voice whose one-syllable laugh -- “Ha!” -- explodes out of nowhere and quickly recedes.

Yet his love of history and argument and his impatience with robotic “talking points” make “Hardball” as much topical entertainment as a public-affairs show. It’s a sensibility that will be on display Monday when he begins anchoring five hours of nightly coverage during the four-day Democratic convention in Boston.

As was the case in 2000, the three long-standing broadcast networks -- which in 1976 devoted 100 hours to party presidential conventions -- will this year air fewer than 20 hours. Flying into the breach, as they did in 2000, will be the cable networks: Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC. While the broadcast networks refuse to waste prime time on staged events, Matthews approaches the conventions like a kid with a backstage pass -- scores of people he wants to interview, all in the same building! “You think I’m gonna get tired?” he asked a group of TV critics. “I won’t. And all day I’m gonna be popping in [with other reports] like Jack Nicholson [the Joker] in ‘Batman.’ ”

The convention coincides with Matthews’ increasing appearances on NBC’s “Today” and “Tonight” shows and his 2-year-old panel discussion show that airs mostly on NBC affiliates. Last week he flew to L.A. again to moderate the Hollywood Radio and Television Society’s annual “State of the Industry” luncheon. Tonight on MSNBC, he and NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw will host an hourlong special on television and political conventions.

To watch Matthews move through his paces in L.A. was to bathe in a stream of observations: The likable Edwards, he declared, is Kerry’s “fabric softener” -- when they’re together, Kerry seems less stilted. Don’t expect a close presidential election; margins in reelection campaigns like this one are historically broad. American voters turn against a president reluctantly, like a baseball manager deciding whether to pull a pitcher (“Is this guy getting ‘em out?”), but they know “how to go out to the mound and ask for the ball.” The vice presidential debate will be a fascinating lesson in “asymmetrical warfare” -- Edwards’ charisma versus Vice President Dick Cheney’s experience, heightened by the question of whether Cheney can be effective standing at a lectern for a full 90 minutes. The recent release of intelligence data that undercut Bush’s arguments for the war makes this “a time of questions, not a time of answers.” Kerry needs to project a real smile rather than biting his lower lip (“the way Clinton did!”) to simulate one. (“If you’re happy, senator, tell your face!”) The fact that Cheney’s wife, Lynne, opposed a Republican-backed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage illustrates how “people are crossing ideological lines to support their families” -- the Cheneys have a daughter who is a lesbian. “I think it’s fascinating to watch.”

This fascination was lost on some. When one of the gathered TV critics asked Matthews about the broadcast networks’ diminished coverage of conventions, he answered with such a whoooosh of jargon that Washington Post TV columnist Lisa de Moraes felt overwhelmed by the cadence, especially at 8:30 on a Sunday morning. So she reprinted his words the way she heard them:

Well-look-I-think-it’s-not-going-to-be-the-old-days-of-arguing-whe ther-the-guy-from-Cayuga-County-is-going-to-help-or-hurt-or-cut-the-t icket-that-year -- trim the guy. Those-days-of-Germond-type-coverage-was-great-I-think-today-it’s-abou t-people-want-to-see-these-people.-Let’s-face-it-there’s-a-third-of-t he-country-to-half-the-country-that-can’t-wait-to-hear-Bill-Clinton-c ome-back-and-put-on-one-of-his-rousers-Monday-night.-They-just-want-t o-see-him-on-the-tube -- Elvis is back. They-may-have-bought-the-book.-They’re-damn-well-not-going-to-read-it .-They-used-to-say-of-books -- once you put it down you can’t pick it up....

‘Where were you on Clinton?’

Matthews was raised a Republican but the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam and a stint in the Peace Corps made him a Democrat. He wound up writing speeches for Jimmy Carter and becoming the top aide to Democratic House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill during the Reagan administration. Yet no one has raised his hackles like Democrat Bill Clinton. As much as he anticipates Clinton’s address to the Democratic convention on Monday night, he can’t help deriding him. For years, Democrat after Democrat on “Hardball” has been forced to pass a Clinton litmus test, like this one administered to then-presidential candidate John Edwards early last year:

Matthews: Was Clinton a good president?

Edwards: Clinton did a good job of moving this country forward. He had issues about his personal behavior which we’re all aware of.

Matthews: But was he a good president?

Edwards: I think the things he did for the country were good.

Matthews: Was he a good president?

Edwards: I think the things he did for the country as president were very good, yes.

Matthews: Why do you hesitate to say he was a good president?

He says he is forever frosted that Clinton’s deceptive behavior after his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky led so many Clinton supporters to defend him -- leaving them betrayed when details of the affair emerged. He demands of the defenders now: Why did you support a man you knew was lying? “I felt for a year there were people -- people I know in Washington -- who were saying things they must have known were untrue.”

Clinton supporters were fond of saying that Matthews’ phobia was a disingenuous way of boosting his ratings. In August 1998, the month Clinton admitted to the affair, “Hardball” drew 740,000 viewers in prime time, up 52% from the previous month. As the scandal ebbed, “Hardball’s” audience fell 50%, with many viewers heading for the conservative viewpoint of Fox News Channel.

Matthews never stopped banging the Clinton drum. Last October, after the Los Angeles Times reported that gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger had groped and belittled women, attorney Gloria Allred was on “Hardball” saying Schwarzenegger’s apology was insufficient. Matthews pounced:

Matthews: Gloria, we hear you. By the way, where were you on Clinton?

Allred: I defended Clinton, but when I found out that he lied under oath despite the fact --

Matthews: You mean when he told you he lied. Only, you know, that you stuck with him through all the months of allegations against him.

Allred: No, no. And let me tell you....

Matthews: I’m just asking you --

Allred: When he lied under oath, I said he was wrong. I withdrew my support and I would not support him.

Matthews: I want to ask you a question. During the period he was attacked and during the period from February 1998 all the way through his infamous testimony in a deposition ... when he finally came forward finally, did you defend him all those months about -- through all those allegations? Yes or no

Allred: Well....

Matthews: Yes or no?

Matthews was impressed by Bush’s post-Sept. 11 leadership. “As long as George Bush is the voice and face of America and says, ‘We’re going to get the people that did this,’ he’s going to be popular,” he said six weeks after the attack. Believing that the war with Iraq diverted from that mission, Matthews soon soured on Bush as commander in chief. In retrospect, he says, “Two years before the war, we were hit with a blanket of lies -- no, I’ll be careful -- untruths.” He says he wishes he lived in a country where people argued about going to war as intensely as they argue over Shaq-versus-Kobe in bars, or the way they argue with their spouses. “There is something in the discussion [of whether to go to war with Iraq] that is incomplete. I don’t know when the president decided to go to war. I’ve read all the books and it’s not there.... A war is different than having an argument, than an embargo.... When you as a country declare an act of war, you have to meet a standard of fact and truth.”

‘He’s Richie Ashburn!’

Matthews’ mind seems to collect facts with the compassion Father Flanagan collected boys: There are no bad ones. When former President Reagan died, Matthews, anchoring MSNBC’s obsessive coverage, asked Reagan’s former executive assistant whether the president was a disciplined sleeper, whether he wore pajamas, whether he wore slippers. (Yes to all). “God, he’s like Robert Young in ‘Father Knows Best!’ ” Matthews exclaimed. The day before Kerry made Edwards his vice presidential choice, one of Matthews’ guests dismissed Rep. Richard Gephardt as “a solid hitter. There are no home runs, but he’s going to get on base every time.” “He’s Richie Ashburn!” piped up Matthews, confusing many viewers with an unexplained reference to a ‘50s major-league star in his native Philadelphia, who hit about two homers a year.

One of five brothers and the son of a court stenographer, Matthews was intrigued with politics -- Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley Jr. -- as a teenager. He attended Holy Cross, a Jesuit college in Massachusetts, then joined the Peace Corps and went to Africa as a way out of being drafted and sent to Vietnam. The Peace Corps experience started a love affair with that continent that has brought him back 10 times, most recently this summer with his wife, Kathleen Matthews, who anchors the ABC affiliate in Washington, and their three children. He headed for Washington in his early 20s, getting his first patronage job as a Capitol policeman. After a few months he began a series of congressional staff jobs, punctuated by an unsuccessful run for the House as a Democrat in Philadelphia in 1974. He lost his White House speechwriting job when Reagan beat Carter in 1980 but moved onto O’Neill’s staff. After six years there he was hired as a columnist by the San Francisco Examiner, which was trying to create a presence in the capital. In the late ‘80s he published a book on power in government, called “Hardball” (the first of four), and began appearing on political discussion shows.

Eventually he was hired by former Republican media consultant Roger Ailes in 1994 for an NBC cable channel discussion show. Ailes, now chief executive of the Fox News Channel, moved Matthews to CNBC and created “Hardball” in 1997. (Ailes would not comment for this story; however, he told a reporter three years ago that Matthews is “an original” but “needs someone to tell him to shut up once in a while.”) Two years later the show shifted to MSNBC. As Matthews’ TV profile grew, he dropped the newspaper column. He also stopped drinking, a decision he said he made 10 years ago because he could not control the amount he drank.

His syndicated weekend round-table with a rotating group of journalists is more sedate than “Hardball” (he compares his role to that of moderator John Daly on the ‘50s and ‘60s TV game show “What’s My Line?”) but gives him a chance to do terse commentaries in the style of one of his heroes, the late CBS newsman Eric Sevareid.

Ask him why he talks so fast and he’ll tell you you’re asking the wrong question. To Matthews, everybody else in TV is talking too slow -- and he’s convinced the audience agrees. “People can pick up on something so fast in this culture and get bored with it so fast.... In TV you have to be able to make your point like you would to a passing slow-moving train. Something has a beginning and an end in 15 seconds or so.”

Steven Scully, C-SPAN’s political editor, says Matthews is “what television was made for in this day and age. People watch it because Chris is a personality. As I’ve often told him, sometimes his mouth is moving faster than his brain. But he provides a lot of information and gives insiders a chance to find out what’s going on.”

“He may be argumentative,” says Merrill Brown, a former MSNBC executive, “but he’s also incredibly thoughtful. He is a terrific talker, a devourer of information.”

Shortly before catching a plane home, Matthews was standing inside his small “Tonight Show” dressing room, waiting for his turn with Leno. He headed into the hallway for a secluded area. He knew what he wanted to talk about -- the candidates, the vice presidential debate, historical patterns -- but he also knew studio audiences tended to be less interested in politics than Leno’s at-home TV viewers.

He returned to the dressing room, still struggling to figure out a hip comeback if Leno asked him about a Newsweek report suggesting the election might be moved back in response to a terrorist attack.

Suddenly a stunning blond in a revealing brown dress appeared at his door and cooed at him, Marilyn-Monroe-sings-to-Jack-Kennedy-on-his-birthday style: “ ‘Haaardball’ ... it’s so smaaart.” It was Sharon Stone, Leno’s first guest, once married to one of Matthews’ San Francisco editors. Roger Ailes would have enjoyed this moment because, for once, if only for a moment, somebody had made Chris Matthews shut up.

Please send comments to calendar@latimes.com.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

More faces in the cable crowd

For all the attention “Hardball” gets, it runs in the middle of the cable commentator pack for drawing viewers, scoring an average prime-time audience of 470,000 in June. Some of the competition:

BILL O’REILLY

Show: “The O’Reilly Factor”

Channel: Fox News

Prime-time audience: 2.1 million

M.O.: Loves to bash “media elite” and corporations that hire gangsta rappers.

Quote: “The spin stops right here, because we are definitely looking out for you.”

LARRY KING

Show: “Larry King Live”

Channel: CNN

Audience: 1.3 million

M.O.: Talk-show legend loves politics but seems to love aging celebrities more.

Quote: “Tonight: She steamed up the screen as an international sex symbol, but what gets Raquel Welch hot and bothered in real life?”

BRIT HUME

Show: “Special Report With Brit Hume”

Channel: Fox News

Audience: 1.2 million

M.O.: Hume’s daily hourlong political discussion draws nearly three times the audience of “Hardball.”

Quote: “Bias is not something that’s attempted. Bias is insidious. It’s what creeps into coverage.”

JUDY WOODRUFF

Show: “Inside Politics”

Channel: CNN

Audience: 454,000

M.O.: CNN’s daily political report trails Hume’s show badly.

Quote: “Economically, politically, militarily and socially, America is the trendsetter of the world,” she told college grads. “But we are also seen as the greatest threat to world peace.”

Ratings data: Nielsen Media Research, June 2004