From Democratic Underground's Top Ten Conservative Idiots List for this week: Number Ten
And finally, what could you do with an hour-long, five-days-a-week cable news show all to yourself? No doubt a lot more than Chris Matthews, who has spent the last several months airing fascinating daily segments on the latest news from the Hillary Clinton campaign. Yes, if you want to know how Hillary is wearing her hair or what color her suit is, "Hardball" is the place to be.

But Matthews' deep political insight isn't just confined to the discussion of Hillary Clinton, he can be equally lame when it comes to the male candidates - with one important difference. In Matthews' eyes, Hillary's personal attributes are an indication of her cold and calculating nature, whereas the personal attributes of the Republican candidates always tend to be an indication of great integrity and courage. Take the show from last week, where according to the transcript on Think Progress, Matthews actually contemplated the gravitas of Fred Thompson's odor:

Does (Fred Thompson) have sex appeal? ... Gene, do you think there's a sex appeal for this guy, this sort of mature, older man, you know? ... Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man's shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of - a little bit of cigar smoke? You know, whatever.

Easy! Down boy! I haven't seen Matthews this excited since George W. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier dressed as a fighter pilot. Lest we forget:

MATTHEWS: What do you make of the actual visual that people will see on TV and probably, as you know, as well as I, will remember a lot longer than words spoken tonight? And that's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when he was younger, obviously. What does that image mean to the American people, a guy who can actually get into a supersonic plane and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin like an actual jet pilot?

(snip)

We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president.

Er, right.

Still, this gives me an idea. If Fred Thompson doesn't run for president, Aqua Velva could always hire him for their new ad campaign...