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I sometimes want to mute the Tee Vee Machine when Chris Matthews interviews certain guests, but I also think he’s a likable man with a lot of good things to say. In fact, Matthews is a hoot when he’s a guest himself, especially on Real Time with Bill Maher.

His “Let Me Finish” segments are most often the best part of Hardball, and this one in particular is worth sharing. A lot.

“Let me finish tonight with this. I think the difference between the Democrats and Republicans is getting as wide as the Grand Canyon. Watch how they do it. President Obama wants to keep the government going. Pretty simple, huh? Republicans threaten to stop it. It’s relentless. The fiscal abyss, the debt ceiling the sequester, the end to the continuing resolution. Different words, different deadlines all detonate the same explosion.

“They threaten to crash the government if they don’t like the way it’s doing something, if they don’t like who the American people have elected as president. Isn’t that what the Republicans did back in the old days? If they didn’t like a government somewhere, Guatemala, Iran, the Dominican Republic, Chile, they just brought it down.

“Guess what: Republicans are now using the same tactic here at home. If they don’t like who we’ve elected president, they find some way to undermine the government, discredit its leaders, whatever to destroy it. We are using in this country the same old cold war CIA tactics to destabilize our own country.

“Look at the impact the constant threats to shut down the government have been having on public confidence. It’s all in the ratings. It’s undermining it, making people forever nervous about the basic ability of America to even have a running government. Is that patriotic? I don’t think so.”

 Again, this is one of those commentaries that should not be ignored.