Chris Matthews Slams Sarah Palin for Not Knowing the Founding Fathers

On his MSNBC program Hardball tonight, host Chris Matthews took Sarah Palin to task for not knowing who the Founding Fathers were during her interview with Glenn Beck yesterday. Matthews said, America was the book she didn’t read, yet she is running around this country as this patriotic icon of American what?”

Here is the video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

After playing the clip of Palin struggling on Beck, Matthews said, “You know in school when you didn’t read the book, and you had to answer the essay question on the book and you didn’t read it. I thought the book was really interesting at times, sometimes it was boring, but a lot of it was really interesting. The book you didn’t read, that’s her story. America was the book she didn’t read, yet she is running around this country as this patriotic icon of American what? She doesn’t know us. How can you not say Ben Franklin? How can you not say Thomas Paine? Thomas Paine is a major hero of the teabaggers and he should be a hero to all. She doesn’t know the names of the Founding Fathers.”

Matthews also wondered why Sarah Palin can’t answer simple questions. As I pointed out in my initial post about her Founding Father struggles yesterday, this was not a hard question. Glenn Beck threw her a total softball and she struggled to come up with Washington.

This is heavy criticism from Matthews who has been known to gush over the charisma and political it factor that he believes that Palin possesses. The reality is that when struggles with simple questions she reinforces the widely held notion that she lacks even a rudimentary understanding of basic US civics.

She could have picked any Founding Father, but if she was a savvy politician she would have named Thomas Jefferson, or pandering to the teabaggers and their warped misunderstanding of Thomas Paine, but should couldn’t even figure that out because that devious Glenn Beck hit her with a “gotcha” question.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association