You may recall that a while back the New York Times Magazine ran a big profile on Chris Matthews. It was the one where they called him a "whip-tongued, name-dropping, self-promoting wise guy" and wondered whether he was "a man trapped in a tired caricature." There was also this little gem about his bumping into actress Kerry Washington in a hotel bar:

He paused. He seemed actually to be considering what he was about to say. He might even have been editing himself, which is anything but a natural act for him. He was grimacing. I imagined a little superego hamster racing against a speeding treadmill inside Matthews's skull, until the superego hamster was overrun and the pause ended.