Matthews  revisited Yankees comments to claim Clinton "tried hard to
 
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 20:08:06 -0400

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<p><b>Matthews  revisited Yankees comments to claim Clinton "tried hard to prove
she was a Noo  Yawker" </b></p>
<p><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200709250013?src=item200709250013">http://mediamatters.org/items/200709250013</a></p>

<p>On the September 23 
broadcast of the NBC-syndicated <i>Chris 
Matthews Show</i>, host Chris Matthews claimed that when Sen. Hillary 
Rodham Clinton (D-NY) first ran for the Senate "she tried hard to prove she was 
a Noo Yawker," and aired footage of a June 10, 1999, interview with Katie 
Couric, then co-anchor of NBC&#39;s <i>Today,</i> 
in which Clinton said that she has "always been" a fan of the New 
York Yankees. Following the clip, Matthews said: "I just love the way Katie 
Couric went at her there. 
&#39;Come on, how many hats you wearing, babe?&#39; I just think that was great." As 
<i>Media Matters for America</i> <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200703140001?src=item200709250013" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200703140001">noted</a>, however, Clinton&#39;s 2003 
autobiography <i><a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?src=item200709250013&http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&amp;pid=414621" title="http://mediamatters.org/rd?src=item200709250013&http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&amp;pid=414621">Living History</a></i> (Simon &amp; 
Schuster) contains a photograph of Clinton wearing a Yankees cap in 1992 -- 
eight years before she ran for the Senate. Also, <i>The Washington Post</i> reported on September 12, 
1994, that "Mrs. Clinton ... as a kid was a &#39;big-time&#39; fan of the Chicago Cubs 
and New York Yankees and &#39;understudied&#39; Ernie Banks and Mickey 
Mantle."</p>

<p>As Bob Somerby of The 
Daily Howler <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?src=item200709250013&http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh092407.shtml" title="http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh092407.shtml">noted</a> on September 24, neither Matthews 
nor any of his guests -- blogger Andrew Sullivan, columnist Kathleen Parker, 
MSNBC chief Washington correspondent Norah 
O&#39;Donnell, and <i>New York</i> magazine columnist John Heilemann -- 
noted that the Clinton/Yankees story is bogus. Following the clip, Sullivan 
said: "She&#39;s a Midwesterner, she&#39;s a New Yorker, she&#39;s from Arkansas, she has California -- she&#39;s anything she needs to be," 
to which Heilemann added: "She contains 
multitudes."</p>

<p>As <i>Media Matters</i> has noted (<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200405040006#20050607?src=item200709250013" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200405040006#20050607">here</a> and <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200604170009?src=item200709250013" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200604170009">here</a>), several conservatives and media 
figures have falsely claimed that Clinton proclaimed herself a Yankee fan only 
after she decided to run for the Senate in New York, and have used Clinton&#39;s 
statements regarding the Yankees to question her "authenticity." Indeed, 
conservative activist Thomas D. Kuiper based an <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?src=item200709250013&http://www.worldaheadpublishing.com/titles/yankeeFan.php" title="http://www.worldaheadpublishing.com/titles/yankeeFan.php">entire book</a> -- which he admitted was 
"culled from disputed sources or unverifiable private conversations" -- around 
the false premise that Clinton had lied about being a Yankee 
fan.</p>

<p>From the September 23 
broadcast of the NBC-syndicated <i>Chris 
Matthews Show</i>:</p><blockquote>

<p>MATTHEWS: 
<b>Well, just how New York would the 
face-off really be? When Hillary ran for the Senate, she tried hard to prove she 
was a Noo Yawker.</b></p>

<p>[begin 
video clip]</p><blockquote>

<p>COURIC: 
Are you a Yankees fan, too?</p>

<p>CLINTON: Well, now, the fact 
is, I&#39;ve always been a Yankees fan.</p>

<p>COURIC: I 
thought you were a Cubs fan.</p>

<p>CLINTON: I 
am.</p>

<p>COURIC: 
Mm.</p>

<p>CLINTON: I am a Cubs fan, but 
I needed an American League team. Because when you&#39;re from Chicago, you cannot root 
for both the Cubs and the [White] Sox. I mean that&#39;s -- you know, there&#39;s a 
dividing line which you can&#39;t cross there. So as a young girl, I became very 
interested and enamored of the 
Yankees.</p></blockquote>

<p>[end 
video clip]</p>

<p>O&#39;DONNELL: Oh, my 
god.</p>

<p>MATTHEWS: 
<b>I just love the way Katie Couric went at her 
there. "Come on, how many hats you wearing, babe?" I just think that was 
great.</b></p>

<p>SULLIVAN: 
<b>She&#39;s a Midwesterner, she&#39;s a New Yorker, 
she&#39;s from Arkansas, she has California -- she&#39;s 
anything she needs to be.</b></p>

<p>HEILEMANN: <b>She contains 
multitudes.</b></p></blockquote><table width="100%" style="background: #e8e8e8; 
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