Even to the most casual observer, the bias Chris Matthews has against women in general, and Hillary Clinton in particular, leaps off the screen. We are not fans of Ms. Clinton - we see her as part of the entrenched political establishment that is to blame for everything wrong with this country - but Matthews habit of gigging her every chance he gets for merely being female should not be tolerated at all. His obsession with her makes us wonder what kind of perceived abuse did he suffer at the hands of a female from his childhood. Was his mother cold and calculating? Did she not bake him cookies? Was she emotionally distant? Were the nuns at St. Christophers especially hard on him? Whatever the reasons, it's past time to get off the airwaves and onto the couch.

Put simply, Matthews behaves as though he is obsessed with Hillary Clinton. And not "obsessed" in a charming, mostly harmless, Lloyd-Dobler-with-a-boom-box kind of way. "Obsessed" in a this-person-needs-help kind of way.

More than six years ago, long before Hillary Clinton began running for president, the Philadelphia Inquirer magazine reported that, according to an MSNBC colleague, Matthews had said of Clinton: "I hate her. I hate her. All that she stands for."

Even before that, Matthews told the January 20, 2000, Hardball audience, "Hillary Clinton bugs a lot of guys, I mean, really bugs people like maybe me on occasion. I'm not going to take a firm position here, because the election is not coming up yet. But let me just say this, she drives some of us absolutely nuts."

Not that there was much chance his feelings would go unnoticed by even the most casual Hardball viewer.

Matthews has referred to Clinton as "She devil." He has repeatedly likened Clinton to "Nurse Ratched," referring to the "scheming, manipulative" character in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest who "asserts arbitrary control simply because she can." He has called her "Madame Defarge." And he has described male politicians who have endorsed Clinton as "castratos in the eunuch chorus."