Can a Texas Pol Who Supports Obama Name One of His Accomplishments? Evidently Not.

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Appearing on Hardball last night to support Barack Obama, Texas State Senator Kirk Watson couldn’t name a single piece of Obama legislation. In one of the most painful minutes of live television in recent memory, Chris Matthews wouldn’t let him off the hook:

Score one for the empty-hope meme.

The segment would have been more revealing, and fair, if Matthews had posed the same question to the Clinton supporter. Perhaps he was too afraid. Matthews, who is normally unfriendly to just about everyone, has nonetheless taken heavy flack for several particularly harsh attacks on Hillary, most notably last month on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

The reason she’s a U.S. Senator, the reason she’s a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front runner is her husband messed around. That’s how she got to be senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn’t win on her merit.

On Morning Joe Matthews went on to describe Obama’s January 9th New Hampshire concession speech as “the best speech I’ve ever heard” and confess to tearing up as he listened. So much for equal opportunity invective.

If Matthews singled out Watson last night to make up for being too nice to Obama (a common charge against the press by the Clinton campaign), he certainly succeeded.

This morning the shell-shocked Watson faced the world on his blog, in perhaps the only way he could: with humor.

“So. . .that really happened,” he began.

He went on to list the Obama legislative accomplishments he’d forgotten. “Most of all,” he concluded, “he has the record to prove that all of this is possible. It’s something no one should forget.”

“. . .Even though I did.”

“. . .On national television”

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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