I was watching last night when Chris Matthews opened MSNBC’s “Hardball” show with the surprise announcement he was retiring and apologizing for remarks about women that were not OK then or, especially, now. Then he was gone.

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Matthews’ long history of commenting about the looks of women on his show came to a head in recent days for a variety of reasons, including his challenging of Elizabeth Warren for believing a woman who’d accused  Michael Bloomberg of sexual harassment.

A particularly effective hit on Matthews was the Daily Show’s mashup of some of his comments over the years, shown above.

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The departure was announced as a product of “mutual agreement,” but undoubtedly pushed by recent events.

Some defend Matthews for harmless flirtation while others say unwanted flirtation is harassment.

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For my money, the smartest comment on Matthews and the broader question of the treatment of women came a few days ago from Rebecca Traister in this deep piece on The Cut.

The beginning:

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Chris Matthews finally contributed something meaningful to 2020 political analysis on Tuesday night when, during his post-debate conversation with Elizabeth Warren, he put on display the very attitudes that have given rise to the controversial phrase “believe women.”

Matthews was questioning Warren about her citation, during the debate, of a 1998 lawsuit in which Sekiko Sakai Garrison, a former employee of Michael Bloomberg, alleged that upon hearing that she was pregnant, he suggested that she “kill it.”

In the post-debate interview, Matthews pressed Warren on this reference, which Bloomberg has denied, and denied again onstage when Warren brought it up, as if he simply could not believe his ears.

“You believe that the former mayor of New York said that to a pregnant employee?” Matthews asked. Warren replied, “Well, a pregnant employee sure said that he did,” and then, signaling that this exchange could go deeper, asked Matthews coolly, “Why shouldn’t I believe her?”

As Warren kept talking, recalling her own memory of not having been asked back to her job teaching special-needs students after she became visibly pregnant, Matthews’s brow furrowed with confusion.

Just as Warren was affirming that, indeed, “pregnancy discrimination is real,” he interrupted her: “You believe he’s that kind of person, who did that?” he asked. Again, Warren said, “Pregnancy discrimination is real,” and noted that the exchange they were having on air was itself part of the larger pattern that has permitted this kind of unfair treatment to continue, even after it became officially illegal in 1978, noting how often she has heard, “We can’t really believe the women. Really? Why not?”

But Matthews was living the dream — of continuing to not believe it. “You believe he’s lying?” he asked.

“I believe the woman …” Warren said.

“You believe he’s lying,” Matthews interjected, just making triple sure.

“… Which means he’s not telling the truth,” finished Warren.

Then came Matthews’s Big Question: “Why would he lie? Just to protect himself?”

Warren: “Yeah.” And then, “Why would she lie?”

“I just want to make sure you’re clear about this: You’re confident about your accusation,” Matthews went on, as if Warren were making the accusation herself, and not making reference to another woman’s robustly documented claim.

There’s much more, all worth the reading, about the trust given men and not women. Of course, Traister writes, women lie, too. But she comments:

Questions of power and believability are deeply intertwined: Whose word is reflexively taken seriously? For Matthews, and for so many people who watch him, the notion that a powerful man might have an incentive to lie in order to protect his power is far harder to grasp than the idea that a less powerful woman might lie to advance her own interests.

This has played out in the presidential primary, with Warren repeatedly on the defensive and less pressure applied on Joe Biden’s sometimes “wackadoo” tall tales (arrested while visiting Nelson Mandela, for example). Another lesson for the #MeToo times.

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A full media roundup here.