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And then Tom Brokaw interrupts the debate with the same lazy “both sides are bad” B.S. that makes the “liberal” media elite complicit with the right wing’s relentless destruction of American values and institutions.

Partial Transcript:

MATTHEWS: By the way. Your guy. I have to call you on this, Mr. Chairman. You’ve been suggesting that somehow Obama has been running a negative campaign and your guy has been running a positive campaign. That’s not accurate. In fact, if they both stopped all the negative, I’m not sure who would win. But they’ve both been negative. That cheap shot about “I don’t have a problem with my birth certificate” was awful. It’s an embarrassment to your party to play that card. This stuff about getting rid of the work requirement for Welfare is dishonest. Everyone has pointed out it’s dishonest and you are playing that little ethnic card there. You can play your games and giggle about it, but your side is playing that card. When you start talking about work requirements, you know what game you’re playing.

[Applause from the audience.]

And everybody knows what game you’re playing. It’s the race card. And this thing about birther … and, yeah, if you’re name’s Romney and you went to prep school. Yeah, brag about it. This guy has an African name. He’s got to live with it. Look who’s going further in life.

PRIEBUS: You’re…

MATTHEWS: Just a minute. Who was born on third base? It’s an absurdity. (Cross talk.) Making fun of the guy’s birth certificate issue when it was never a real issue except from the right wing.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Do you think Mitt Romney’s playing the race card?

MATTHEWS: When he said… (Cross talk.) Yeah. There’s no doubt he did with his birth certificate.

SCARBOROUGH: No doubt?

MATTHEWS: No doubt.

SCARBOROUGH: Wow.

MATTHEWS: Why would he bring it up? Why would he say I’ve got no problem with my birth certificate? What’s that supposed to mean?

MIKA BREZINSKI: Because he’s an awkward joker.

SCARBOROUGH: Because he misfired badly on the joke.

MATTHEWS: Why would he do it?

SCARBOROUGH: Well, I’m just asking you: Do you think Mitt Romney is playing the race card?

MATTHEWS; [Garbled] Yeah.

SCARBOROUGH: Do you really?

MATTHEWS: Yeah, and I think this work requirement fits right into it.

SCARBOROUGH: That’s the race card, too, huh?

MATTHEWS: Of course it is! Welfare? Food stamps.

PRIEBUS: Well, I’m happy…

MATTHEWS: Absolutely…

PRIEBUS: I’m…

MATTHEWS: You can chuckle about it, Mr. Chairman, because you have to flack this issue.

BREZINSKI: Now let him respond!

MATTHEWS: The fact is you know it’s going on.

(Cross talk.)

PRIEBUS: Well, you got your monologue in.

MATTHEWS: No, no. It’s important.

PRIEBUS: Congratulations. You’re loaded up. You got it out.

MATTHEWS: [Garbled] … this morning, the negativity on Obama.

PRIEBUS: The fact of the matter is, he’s from Michigan. He was born in Michigan. He was making the point that I was born in Michigan. And, you know what, we’ve gotten to place in politics that any moment of levity is totally frowned upon by guys like you just so that you .. you know .. push your brand and, you know what, good for you. It’s a moment of levity that he … everybody gets it.

MATTHEWS: What was the joke?

PRIEBUS: It’s a … Barack Obama came out at the Correspondents’ Dinner with his own joke, as you remember…

MATTHEWS: Well, what’s the joke in the fact that he has a birth certificate? I don’t get it.

PRIEBUS: … playing the Hulk Hogan song, “I’m a Real American…”

MATTHEWS: Well, what’s the joke in the fact that he has a birth certificate?

PRIEBUS: Every person, myself, starting in February of last year, as soon as I became chairman of the RNC, Mitt Romney continuously has said this president was born in this country. It’s a non-starter. It’s a dumb issue, a distraction. Forget about it.

MATTHEWS: It just seems funny that the first joke he’s ever told in his life was about Obama’s birth. It’s a funny choice.