Tea Party groups call for sponsors to drop Hardball following Chris Matthews’ ‘left-wing hit piece’

A coalition of Tea Party groups is slamming MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for his “left-wing propaganda hit piece” documentary on the Tea Party movement and is calling on sponsors to drop his show.

MSNBC aired “The Rise of the New Right,” hosted by Matthews, Wednesday night.

The National Tea Party Federation, a broad coalition of Tea Party groups that offer rapid response to attacks on the movement, condemned the documentary as “journalism at its worst” whose “purpose was to demonize and misrepresent.”

“Chris Matthews and MSNBC have just delivered one of the most dishonest pieces of propaganda posing as journalism in American broadcast and cable television history,” said National Tea Party Coalition co-founder Michael Patrick Leahy.

Activists say Matthews selectively portrayed groups and individuals in the program in a bad light. “The Tea Party movement I know looks nothing like the one portrayed on MSNBC,” said FreedomWorks grassroots director Brendan Steinhauser. “It is made up of good, hardworking, honest, smart people who love their country. It is a movement that reflects the best in America.”

Steinhauser suggested in an email to The Daily Caller that MSNBC will continue to hear protests from FreedomWorks. “In the days to come we will be rolling out the different pieces of our long-term campaign to make them pay for subsidizing this left-wing propaganda attack,” he said.

TeaParty365’s David Webb said that because Matthews “is a far-left commentator” he is “not a journalist and therefore should not be held to or credited with the same standards.”

The National Tea Party Federation is calling for tea party supporters to contact the sponsors of Hardball and ask them to pull their commercials from this show, something Mark Skoda of the Memphis TEA Party is encouraging.

“Chris Matthews continued to promote the racism narrative, suggested the prospect of violent behavior by activists and promulgated the idea that the conservative movement is somehow un-American,” Skoda said. “We will encourage our coalition and Tea Party people everywhere to make their voices heard at MSNBC and to their sponsors.”

The Daily Caller has been unable to reach representatives at MSNBC for comment.