Matthews Compares Tea Party to Muslim Brotherhood & Attacks Bachmann, Palin, Beck

Another day on Chris Matthews's show, another shot at Michele Bachmann (and Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck). It's starting to become a pattern.

To be fair, there are a couple sentences in this clip by Matthews that could be considered a psuedo-back-handed compliment of the Tea Party (if you work at it). But any redeeming value is quickly erased when he compares said Tea Party to the Muslim Brotherhood, those who are "out for scalps," and those "dancing while they shoot at their feet," and then comments on the "strange behavior" of Michele Bachmann while lumping her into the category of "war-hooping nut bags." (Glenn Beck is in that category, too, it seems.)

And don't worry, he also offends Sarah Palin supporters by congratulating a conservative guest who said he wouldn't support her for president, saying he liked the guest because "I know you don't really think Palin is worth anything."

According to NewsBusters, this is how Matthews set up the segment before the commercial break:

Up next the Tea Party has all the excitement on the Right and mainstream Republicans are getting scared because the Tea Party is out for scalps. They are going around, well I'm making a reference to the Boston Tea Party, but they were just pretending. They're going out apparently to unseat three long time Republican senators. Catch these names. Snowe of Maine, Lugar of Indiana, Hatch of Utah. Look out, they're coming to get you. You're watching Hardball, only on MSNBC.

NewsBusters has a partial transcript.

A final thought: Is it possible that Matthews was watching some old John Wayne movies in the green room? There were an odd number of "cowboys and Indians" references on the show. Either way, you can be sure that if anyone on the right were to use an "out for scalps" comparison they would be castigated.