My Staircase Moment with Chris Matthews

I missed most of the Democratic candidates' debate last night, watching about the last 40 minutes, some of it on fast-forward to skip the guys who have no chance. I was watching MSNBC, who had Chris Matthews interviewing some of the candidates in the spin room.

Now, I can't stand Chris Matthews (for many reasons, but the one that comes to mind most easily is his sexism) so it's no surprise I generally avoid watching whenever he's on, but at this point I couldn't avoid him as they cut back and forth to various talking heads, plus if you wanted to see a candidate, you had to put up with him.

I can't remember which candidate he was interviewing, but it was probably Elizabeth Warren, when he came out with this pronouncement: "the words 'structural change' are necessarily ideological."

This is a great example of why I never want to listen to Chris Matthews, but it wasn't until hours later that I had one of those staircase moments and thought of a response that escaped me in real time.

Hey, Chris... if structural change is necessarily ideological, then resisting structural change or refusing to see that structural change is needed is also ideological. Thinking that everything is individual and not structural is also ideological.

For instance, the structural change I would like to see is you retiring, Chris Matthews. Though I guess that's also an individual change. A twofer!