Yesterday Chris Matthews was working himself up into a Keith Olbermann like lather over the Republican ad in Tennessee on Harold Ford attending a Playboy party:

it's not that the Democrats don't know how to make these ads, they just feel they have gotten above it, that this is really bad stuff. It's like they are like Michael Corleone. They have gotten out of the business of running dirty ads. The Republicans are still in that business. They say, look, I have left that behind. That's the Democrat's attitude. We're not going to run that kind of campaign.

"They have gotten out of the business of running dirty ads." What planet is this guy on? Can he really be so blatantly partisan and holier than thou to honestly think Democrats don't go negative? Gimme a break. Matthews must really think the public is stupid.

Does he not remember the NAACP in 2000 running ads with a pickup truck dragging a chain while James Byrd's daughter accused George Bush of lynching her father again?

Or in Maryland, what about the Oreos thrown at African-American Republican Michael Steele when he was running for Lt. Gov., and who just last week in the middle of his campaign for Senate had the #2 Democrat in the House of Representatives refer to him as "slavishly" serving his GOP masters?

Chris Matthews is full of it, neither party has a monopoly on virtue in this country, and he knows it.

The Ford ad was a hard hitting ad that is fair game in today's political environment. The left is trying to counterattack with their standard "Republicans are racist" charge to energize black voters and bully moderates and independents into thinking Republicans are mean people - and that's what Chris Matthews' holier than thou schtick is all about.

Update: I have received a few emails defending Matthews and insisting that he was only talking about ads this cycle. I guess they didn't see this ad Patty Wetterling was running in Minnesota 6, an open seat ranked as a toss up by RCP and a critical seat in play for determining control of the House. In the ad Wetterling bluntly asserts:

It shocks the conscience. Congressional leaders have admitted covering up the predatory behavior of a congressman who used the internet to molest children.

One little problem, it is a total lie. I guess it doesn't count as a negative ad because she is a Democrat, and Democrats don't run negative ads any more according to MSNBC's Chris Matthews......