Curious about rumors that MSNBC's Chris Matthews will soon run for Senate, Philadelphia Gay News publisher Mark Segal asked the MSNBC news man where he stands on gay marriage.

Matthews sort of skirted the issue. First he declared, "I always start with freedom. That’s where I start on every issue," because that's where the constitution begins. Then Matthews said he has an "open heart" about this "evolving issue" and "will have to live with it." Again, that's confusing.

Hoping to get something relatively coherent, Segal continued pressing for a more robust response, to which Matthews replied, "I can answer it the way I have, which is any fucking way I want. I can answer in my way even if it isn’t your way."

Well, we've heard the just released audio, which we've included below, given it a thorough listen and, well, the Queerty team's torn on what to make of this all!

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Rumor has it that MSNBC newsman Chris Matthews will run for senate once his contract runs out.

Seizing on those rumors, Philadelphia Gay News publisher Mark Segal asked Matthews about his stance on gay marriage. After eschewing the question - what would Matthews do about the defense of marriage act - Matthews went into a valid tirade about freedom, which could come across as support.

Segal, however, wanted specifics. What he received were expletives:

MS: Well, where are you on the issue?
CM: I have an open heart. I’ll have to live with it.

MS: In other words, you won’t answer the question.
CM: I can answer it the way I have, which is any fucking way I want. I can answer in my way even if it isn’t your way.

You kiss your wife with that mouth?!

Gay-baiting previously played an enlarged role in American politics.

We all remember the 2000 and 2004 elections, where culture warriors threw stones, Bibles and unholy words toward the lavender set. This year's already shaping up to different, what with the Iraq War and an economy in the toilet.

Thus, the kids over at AfterElton have been wondering whether gay-baiting will influence this year's general election. In their quest for the truth, the homo-journos turned to some televisual political pundits, like Chris Matthews, CNN's John King, Keith Olbermann and others. Here's what Matthews had to say when asked about how the zeitgeist has changed over the past four years:

It’s a much different climate. It’s a totally different climate. It’s much more evenly matched, you know what I’m saying? [The marriage issue] is no longer a slam-dunk like it was as a statute. I think people are thinking about it, evolving on it and I don’t think it has the scare factor, culturally, that it had…. I think a lot of things have unintended consequences. You know, look at the Larry Craig story – it was so sad, that it made a lot of people say, “Wait a minute. If you don’t respect individuals, they’re not going to respect themselves.” And I think that’s a very good conservative argument for marriage. You know what I mean?

Olbermann echoed Matthews remarks, but put further emphasis on the economic influences: "When nobody can afford to go to a gay wedding, a straight wedding or a protest of a gay wedding, [the issue] is not going to make any difference." That doesn't mean, of course, that sexuality won't come into play in other, more local ways.

Isn’t funny that cable news’ talking heads – the Chris Matthews, the Tim Russerts, the Bill O’Reillys – all play up their blue collar roots, identifying as one of the people, when they earn millions of dollars a year and have more homes than you have limbs?

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Typically tough Hillary Clinton got whiny with Ellen DeGeneres yesterday, when the politician griped about MSNBC's Chris Matthews' consistently unflattering coverage of the Senator.

Speaking on DeGeneres dangerous tango with Matthews, Clinton remarked, "I feel like he manhandles me every night." Bill Clinton had no comment…

See the girls talk about gay rights here.

Obama-adoring homo-journo Andrew Sullivan predicts an epilogue to the Bush Administration: war crime indictments.

Sullivan, appearing on The Chris Matthews Show this weekend, believes that a newly released John Yoo "torture memo," which gave the government a green light to use excessive measures to question detainees, will get a new life after the next inauguration. Said Sullivan:

The latest revelations on the torture front show the memo from John Yoo…means that Don Rumsfeld, David Addington and John Yoo should not leave the United States any time soon. They will be, at some point, indicted for war crimes.

Yes, but what about the big chief, George W. Bush?

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama braved Chris Matthews' "Hardball College Tour" last night. During the electoral special, one of the West Chester University students asked Obama about his gay marriage stance. Obama reiterated that he supports "strong" civil unions, leading Matthews to wonder whether that counts as discrimination. Obama went on to iron out the details:

…It is very important that the state makes sure that they are not denying the same kind of rights that have historically been denied, because when I think about a same sex couple not being able to visit each other in the hospital, when I think about them not being able to transfer property, or to pass on benefits, I think that’s contrary to what most Americans believe, and that’s why I’m going to change it when I’m president of the United States.

Of course, we all know that civil unions have a long way to go before they're actually equal, a hard fact that didn't get played.

We've got a live one here!

You may have seen that Ellen DeGeneres hosted Chris Matthews yesterday. And, as per DeGeneres' tiresome tradition, the newsman was made to dance his way on stage.

While some people half ass their big entrance, Matthews went all out, swinging, shaking and nearly decapitating the lesbian chatter box.

If you didn't like Matthews before, you will now. If you did like him, well, now you'll love him. And if you loved him, you're going to ejaculate.

Journalist Rachel Maddow knows a thing or two about the media. Not only does she have her own show on Air America, but the 34-year old political junkie also appears regularly on MSNBC. And, as you'll see in the video above, she's not a wallflower.

Our editor recently sat down with Maddow to talk about the Hillary Clinton New Hampshire scandal, why we need to talk about race and how she embarrassed herself in front of Keith Olbermann…

Andrew Belonsky: I want to start with the Chris Matthews/Hillary Clinton brouhaha. As you pointed out on MSNBC, Talking Points Memo was talking about how women voted for Hillary in New Hampshire because Chris Matthews and other male news personalities were picking on her. Do you think that's valid? Do you think that people really are swayed so easily?

Rachel Maddow: I don't. Certainly there's no statistical evidence to support that that's why people unexpectedly voted for Hillary Clinton, but there's not that much of an explanation for why Hillary Clinton defied the last two days of polling. She was ahead in New Hampshire all year - the last four days of polling for Obama were very strong, but she had been leading all year. If you actually look at the exit polls and the people who voted for her, it wasn't people who decided the last day or the last couple of days. The people who turned out and voted for Clinton had decided, like 50% or something, had decided more than a month ago that they were going to vote for her. What made the difference is that they turned out in huge numbers. Now, could we emotionally explain that turnout as being mad at the media? Maybe. That's what political analysis is: putting an emotional frame for which we don't have facts.

AB: Really? You think emotion is inherent in political analysis?

RM: I think that political analysis is taking observable facts and working them into a story that makes sense to people and sticks with people. Making things into a story requires understanding people's emotions- you not only play into people's emotions, but you incorporate them. That leads to how you tell the story. I said that on MSNBC, because I was feeling it. I mean, I'm not a Hillary Clinton fan, but the last few days of coverage of her - once those Obama polls were coming out, there was almost glee from the 95% male newscasters. Their palatable excitement about how she was going to lose was gross. That's the only thing that has ever made me feel sympathetic for Hillary. That clip that we all saw of her being emotional at that campaign appearance, I think it was a genuinely affecting moment for more than half the people that saw that tape, but yet more than half the time it was presented in the media, there was cynical, nasty, joy in her pain. There were white guy journalists being like, "Ha! Look at the bitch crying" or "She's obviously faking this just to dupe stupid women voters". The consistent mean in the media was infuriating. I felt it and I was seeing it everywhere in the blog world.

AB: I was talking to Mary Breslauer recently and we spoke about how the lines are breaking down between media and political personalities. They're almost becoming one and the same. The definition of a politician is not necessarily someone who is elected to office. Do you think that the media has gained too much power - particularly with regard to the elections - but in shaping the zeitgeist?

RM: Well, the media has always been tremendously powerful. In historical context, it isn't new that the media is shaping how we view people, but I think what's happening right now is that we have newsish entertainment. We have people who are political operatives who dress up like news anchors and talk about really important political stories with some authority that they have not earned through journalistic credentials. That's not to say that those folks shouldn't be on tv - that's not to say that I shouldn't be on tv - I think there's a love for punditry in political analysis, which is to take facts and make them understandable and help put a context and an emotional frame on what we're seeing, so more people are compelled by the politics of the moment. It's an important role and it's actually, I think, a civically honorable role.

AB: I'm not sure everyone would agree with you, but I certainly do.

RM: What happens sometimes - and I think you saw this with Chris Matthews - the media tends to bandwagon. The higher the ratio of analysis to - you know, seeing five hours of cable new coverage to every AP story with one fact is a totally normal day in political news - the higher the ratio of analysis, the more likely is that the people talking about that fact are going to get on some stupid bandwagon and they're all going to say the same thing and they're all going to make the same point. Because it's all white guys who are all beltway guys - the whole pundit corp is so homogenous - occasionally, especially when you're talking about minority candidates and female candidates, their band wagon story is wrong.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews came under fire for being "dismissive" of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Apparently enough activists - and MSNBC executives - spoke out and forced Matthews to issue an apology…

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Mitt Romney's flip-flopping popped up on Hardball last night.

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We take it the Concord Monitor ain't feeling the Republicans. The New Hamsphire, which featured the aforementioned anti-Huckabee op-ed, announced this weekend that they will not vote for Mitt Romney.

Entitled "Mitt Romney Should Not Be President," the piece revolves around Romney's historic flip-flops:

If you followed only his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, you might imagine Romney as a pragmatic moderate with liberal positions on numerous social issues and an ability to work well with Democrats. If you followed only his campaign for president, you'd swear he was a red-meat conservative, pandering to the religious right, whatever the cost. Pay attention to both, and you're left to wonder if there's anything at all at his core.
…
When New Hampshire partisans are asked to defend the state's first-in-the-nation primary, we talk about our ability to see the candidates up close, ask tough questions and see through the baloney. If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we'll know it.

Mitt Romney is such a candidate. New Hampshire Republicans and independents must vote no.

Romney's handsome but misguided spokesman Kevin Madden dismissed the "liberal" editors.

(P.S. Did anyone else see Chris Matthews drill Madden about Romney's MLK lie? It's beautiful!)

You either love or hate Chris Matthews (pictured, younger). There's really no middle ground with this MSNBC newsman. Some complain that he's too smug. Other's find him disinterested. We, for the record, love him. First of all, he's cute. Second of all, he talks gay all the time, like last night, when he addressed our nation's comedic obsession with Larry Craig and bathroom cruisers.

Matthews first brings up a talking Craig doll and then offered a clip of Boston Legal's James Spader defending William Shatner in a lewd conduct arrest. Says Spader: "We‘re actually sitting in a courtroom wasting tax dollars because my client had gas. He was constipated."

From there Matthews veers toward that George Clooney/Brad Pitt toe-tapping send-up and ends his brief segment with this:

Isn‘t it great how we Americans can laugh at—even at the most desperate of human acts?

My own response to the Craig story is to side with gay marriage. If we don‘t respect people, how do we expect them to respect themselves? Anyway, that‘s just my reaction.

And that's exactly why we love you, blondie.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews played Hardball with Pat Roberton's Rudy Giuliani endorsement last night.

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It's been 366 days since blogger Michael Rogers first outed Larry Craig. And, as we all know, a lot's gone down in that year, particularly Craig's alleged toilet trolling and subsequent arrest.

Rogers sat down with MSNBC's Chris Matthews yesterday to discuss Craig's arrest, the Matt Lauer interview and Craig's "continued manufacturing of soundbites". With regard to Craig's repressed homosexuality, Rogers says, "He's unable to stand up and be proud and honest and open about who he is and that is something he helped create." And now his creation's turned on him.

Funny how that happens.