Opinion: Chris Matthews interviews students, neglects to ID one: his daughter

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Last Friday Chris Matthews, the talkative political loudmouth of MSNBC who has a thing for college campuses, was at the University of Mississippi in Oxford for the first presidential debate between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. (Bob Barr was not invited.)

Matthews, you may recall from past Ticket items, is under fire from a women’s group, the New Agenda, which feels his style of punditry is ‘misogynsistic journalism.’

Matthews is currently on a tear though against the financial institution bailout package that failed in Washington today and he says he’s especially concerned about what it would do to the nation’s deficit that would have way too many zeros in his opinion.

The TV host found an eager group of professed nonpartisan college students in prison suits called CYA (No, not that one) -- Concerned Youth of America.

So he interviewed several and they all seemed to agree with Matthews about this horrible looming federal deficit thing; see the deficit would ‘sentence’ their generation to pay it off, just like being in prison except without all the murders, beatings and other institutional mayhem. Hence, the symbolic striped costumes.

Anyway, one of the students, an obviously bright young woman and apparent group leader, was very talkative and very assertive, just like her interviewer.

But she’s not identified -- not until just before the end of this video clip, which comes to us from the amazing, all-seeing, all-knowing folks over at MediaBistro.com. (Watch the video, then keep reading below.)

Turns out, as Matthews tells us, that young woman’s name is Caroline. He doesn’t reveal her last name.

Also turns out, according to MediaBistro, that’s because the young woman’s name is the same as his. Matthews was interviewing his own daughter on national TV without identifying her.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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