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September 1999
Chris Matthews Won't Shut Up
Chris Matthews talks with the force of a hurricane. He's loud, tireless, and passionately opinionated. Critics attack his show, Hardball, as an emblem of scream TV, in which argument often trumps journalism. Defenders say his on-air-bluster conceals a considerable intellect.
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By Gay Jervey
 "The people in this town get crazy in the summer, and they get even crazier when it is hot, so they are going to be talking about this," Matthews had announced earlier that day as he galloped into the Hardball studios. He was referring to the bombshell du jour, an anonymously sourced New Yorker report -- since denied by the White House -- that President Bill Clinton was considering a 2002 run for the U.S. Senate in Arkansas. Now, as he stabs a finger though the air and pounds on a mound of photocopied news reports, Matthews shakes his head and instructs his team to get to the bottom of the latest presidential zigzag: What is going on?
At this particular second, though -- and seconds are the recommended units of measure for Matthews time -- Matthews is also concentrating on his upcoming interview with former vice-president and current presidential hopeful Dan Quayle, who is due to arrive any minute now. Matthews and Levine are trying to read between the lines of a speech on "family values" that Quayle gave earlier that day to The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. They are also rehashing Quayle's last Hardball appearance, on June 9. At that time, Matthews grilled Quayle -- who, God knows, is given to gaffes -- on his opposition to the minimum wage, and dismissed him as a "wealthy kid" who could not begin to know what it's like to support a family on $6.15 an hour.
"I am sure that Quayle has done some research on this issue since we had him on," Matthews shrugs. "And I'm sure his people have warned him. Because that day I caught him on a particular vulnerability, which is his own lack of hard knocks.
"By the way," Matthews then offers, tossing a handful of M&Ms into his famously open mouth, "This is our secret weapon around here. This is where our energy comes from. M&Ms!"
Maybe so. No one would dispute the jolt of a sugar boost. But when it comes to Chris Matthews, there is far more than chocolate at work. Matthews -- whose show is known for its raucous, roaring velocity -- is invariably described as something between a Gatling gun and a whirling dervish. He resembles an off-duty Irish cop -- slouching shirttails, penchant for high-octane caffeine, blunt asides and all. (For example, on the July 1 show, when his studio panel was discussing how both New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton seem oblivious to pleasure, Matthews shrugged, "Maybe that explains the quality of their marriages.")
Matthews seems all shoulders as he barrels through the halls of the Hardball offices, carrying himself with the gait and charge of a linebacker. When he hears that Quayle has arrived, Matthews rumbles into the makeup room, and immediately engages his guest in a conversation about today's news of a possible Bill Clinton Senate run, the supposedly blooming rift between the president and Vice-President Al Gore, and the sometimes complex relationship between presidents and their seconds-in-command.
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