Chris Matthews recently held a conference call to celebrate the 5th anniversary of his show. He talked about bloggers that he favors, coverage of the Iraq war, and gun control among other things. Some excerpts:

BE: Which blogs do you tend to read to prepare for your shows, and how do you feel about inviting more bloggers to appear as guests on your program?

CM: Well, on the Sunday show we have limited mainly to press and broadcast and some cable, and that's where we are right now. I've sort of made an arbitrary judgment. I like...I mean, I don't want to get into playing favorites here, but I do think that, you know, we do have a couple of heroes on the show, I mean real...in terms of popularity among our viewers, Andrew Sullivan is probably one of our most passionate panelists. I think he might well be the most passionate panelist.

...

BE: Fair enough. I had a chance to speak with Darrell Hammond the other day...
CM: Isn't he a smart guy? What a great guy.
BE: How much do you think his impression of you has helped increase people's awareness of you and your program over the years?
CM: Well, it's a generation thing. I mean I'm a "Saturday Night Live" viewer, and I think that anything that's sort of, you know, enhances you as a public figure as a person they recognize and know sort of who you are, it broadens the people who would check in with our show in the morning.

...

BE: Would you ever have McLaughlin on your show?
CM: We might have him someday. But he has to give up his show first.

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