Hardbrawl

(Richard A. Lipski - The Washington Post)

Yet the "Hardball" host has been particularly hard on the former first lady, to the point where some of her advisers have glared at him at parties. And there is a history here. In 1999, amid speculation that Clinton might seek a Senate seat in New York, Matthews told viewers: "No man would say, 'Make me a U.S. senator because my wife's been cheating on me.' "

The following year, he said: "Hillary Clinton bugs a lot of guys, I mean, really bugs people -- like maybe me on occasion. . . . She drives some of us absolutely nuts."

In 2005, when Clinton criticized the administration on homeland security the day after terrorist bombings in London, Matthews said: "It's a fact: You look more witchy when you're doing it like this."

In recent weeks, he has asked whether Clinton's criticism of Obama makes her "look like Nurse Ratched." He has said that "Hillary's loyal lieutenants are ready to scratch the eyes out of the opposition" and likened her to Evita Peron, "the one who gives gifts to the little people, and then they come and bring me flowers and they worship at me because I am the great Evita."

It was against that backdrop that Matthews sparked a furor last month when he said: "I'll be brutal: The reason she'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." The counterattack was fierce.

"The question is not how dumb he is, but how dumb he thinks the rest of us are to listen to this drivel," wrote Susan Estrich, a former Democratic strategist. Salon's Rebecca Traister denounced what she called his "drooling excitement at the prospect of her humiliation."

Ten days later, Matthews told viewers he had been unfair to Clinton and that his remarks had come off as "nasty," "callous" and "dismissive." At a New Hampshire event, he turned defensive when she mocked him for being "obsessed" with her as he attempted to interrogate her. When Clinton walked over for a brief hug, Matthews playfully pinched her cheek.

"I've said a million times, I like her," Matthews says. "We kid around back and forth. She's very charming." But, he says, "the way that got portrayed was, I was somehow against women's aspirations."

From Capitol Cop to Cable

Chris Matthews pokes at the fireplace in his whitewashed Chevy Chase home, in an art-filled dining room dating to 1885, and contemplates the question: Did you always, even in your political hackery days, want to be on television?

He talks about his five years as a Senate aide. He talks about riding in Marine One with Jimmy Carter, in his days as a White House speechwriter, when the president got the word from his pollster that he was about to lose his reelection bid. He talks about his work as the top aide to Tip O'Neill, when his job was to come up with something pithy for the House speaker to say each day. He talks about taking $200 a week in 1987 to write a political column for the San Francisco Examiner, joining the paper for half of what he was making in a corporate job, about writing a New Republic piece that got him on "Good Morning America," signing with the CBS morning show, meeting Roger Ailes, accepting Ailes's offer to launch a show on an obscure network called America's Talking, and learning the game from John McLaughlin.

Twenty-five minutes into his answer, he's still talking.

It's clear that Matthews hasn't forgotten the media establishment's initial scorn toward an ex-pol. "It wasn't an easy door to get through," he says. "I never thought I could get through it."