The Associated Press -- Chris Matthews apologizes for comment about Sen. Clinton [View All]

[wyldwolf]

With protests rumbling, MSNBC's Chris Matthews said Thursday that he was wrong to say last week that the reason Hillary Clinton is a senator and a candidate for president "is that her husband messed around."

Matthews discussed those remarks at the opening of his show Hardball Thursday, the same day feminist leader Gloria Steinem and the heads of four prominent women's groups complained in a letter to his boss that Matthews had shown a pattern of sexism.

"Was it fair to imply that Hillary's whole career depended on being a victim of an unfaithful husband? No," Matthews said. "That's what it sounded like I was saying and it hurt people I'd like to think normally like what I say (and), in fact, like me."

He said that while he has not always taken the time to say things right or be appropriate, "I will try to be clearer, smarter, more obviously in support of the right of women, of all people, to full equality of respect and ambition."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2008-01-17-matthews_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip