Memo to Chris Matthews

The two phrases “Shot himself” and “Self –inflicted wound” are not at all synonymous.

Read that over and over, you drooling moron, before attacking anyone in your disgusting, ill-informed, and incredibly arrogant fashion.

For example, Kurt Cobain ‘shot himself.’ I hate to delve too deeply into grammar here, because most of today’s kids have no clue what grammar is, but the ‘himself’ makes the verb ‘shot’ reflective. That is, the verb (in this case ‘shot’) reflects on the subject (in this case, ‘Kurt Cobain’). This reflectiveness is indicated by the associated reflective pronoun, which ends in ‘-self.’ So, in the above example, someone (Kurt Cobain) shot something (in particular), and as the verb is reflective, the subject shot exactly the subject. Kurt Cobain shot Kurt Cobain. Without any associated adverbs, such as ‘accidentally,’ the verb shot almost always implies an intentional act.

On the other hand, let’s assume that I am sighting in my M1 Garand, and an errant shot ricochets off of a nearby wall (ok, it is an extremely unlikely scenario, but bear with me) and strikes me in the leg. Obviously I am wounded, and since I inflicted this wound on myself (accidental though it may be), there is no way to describe the wound other than “self-inflicted.” This phrase basically has an assumption that the self-infliction was accidental. A stray .30-06 shell bouncing off a wall and striking me is accidental; placing the butt of a shotgun between your feet and shooting your face off is not.

Chris Matthews, in his infinite stupidity, berated and attacked Michelle Malkin for accusing John Kerry of shooting himself while in Vietnam. In actuality, she was discussing charges made by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that Kerry was awarded a Purple Heart for a self-inflicted wound. There is a difference between being shot by enemy forces, being injured (accidentally) by your own actions, and intentionally wounding yourself. To my knowledge, the SBVFT never once claimed that Kerry tried to injure himself; it just seems that he didn’t understand how to safely operate a grenade launcher (remember, rules and such don’t apply to people like him). When he aimed at a target too close, part of his own grenade struck him. This is, therefore, ‘self-inflicted.” He didn’t try to hurt himself (or at least that isn’t the claim here). But he did (according to SBVFT’s claims).

The problem is that Kerry then made sure he was awarded a medal for accidentally hurting himself – a medal which is reserved exclusively for people wounded by enemies. If Chris Matthews would have allowed Ms. Malkin to talk, rather than shouting at her in a most ridiculous and juvenile fashion, this could have been cleared up.

His actions were inexcusable, and likely have something to do with his recent abysmal ratings. Maybe he’ll get canned altogether. Good riddance. His disappearance would reduce the number of untalented liberal party-line hacks on TV by almost 0.00125%. Hurray.

UPDATE: I sent this post to Hardball's feedback e-mail address (hardball@msnbc.com). If I recieve a response, which I doubt, I will be sure to share it. If you find his antics disgusting, I suggest you let him know as well.