This sounds a bit closer to molesting to me:
Matthews once got confessional about his own wandering eyes and hands. Last May, in one of his highest-profile bookings, he confided in his guest, George W. Bush, about his reasons for quitting drinking (he's been sober six years). A roomful of the traveling press corps -- as well as a live audience surrounding the two -- could hear their conversation, as Matthews rambled on during a commercial break. "It was one of these parties, Sam Donaldson's daughter's party," he said to Bush, relating three hours of afternoon drinking. "And I am gone at about six or seven at night. I've got my hand on somebody's leg. Where's this going? Who am I kidding?"
Bush nodded and said simply, "Yeah, yeah," remembering the mike was live.
"I don't mind occasional disasters, but I was heading in the wrong direction," Matthews said. Bush assured him he did the right thing by cutting himself off the booze. By occasional disasters, Matthews meant only flirting, he says months later by way of explanation.
But then he wants to know why I asked. He knows that he has enemies, that some have told me that Matthews's anger toward Clinton has a weird dissonance with his own insensitivity toward women in his workplace.
"There's two governing emotions in this city: jealousy and fear, and you can't tell 'em apart," Matthews says. Maybe he was mean one day to an underling, snapped at a hairdresser, he admits. Maybe he's reached a height where bigger guns are aimed at him.
"What's the bounty on Chris Matthews?" he asked me in our first lengthy phone conversation. "What do you get for bringing back Chris Matthews in a bag?"
Tell Chris Matthews what you think.