"The reason [Hillary Clinton's] a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win there on her merit."
Critics of those remarks have pointed out that Matthews has had a long history of displaying a sexist attitude toward female politicians, pointing to other examples in which the combative commentator referred to Clinton as a "stripteaser" and called her "witchy." When Nancy Pelosi was in line to become House speaker, Matthews once asked a guest if Pelosi was "going to castrate Steny Hoyer" if the Maryland congressman was elected majority leader.
On last night's broadcast, Matthews issued an apology, saying that it wasn't fair for him to imply that Hillary's whole career depended on being a victim of an unfaithful husband. Noting that it would be just as unfair to attribute John McCain's political success to having been shot down in the Vietnam War, Matthews said: "Saying Senator Clinton got where she's got simply because her husband did what he did to her is just as callous, and I can see now, came across just as nasty -- worse yet, just as dismissive."
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