What Chris Matthews Learned in Washington “This Country,” a new memoir from the host of “Hardball,” speaks volumes about the state of political punditry. JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/Getty Images Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews has made a career out of a certain image of American politics. It’s a nostalgic vision of the heyday of bare-knuckled ward bosses in and around city halls and orotund lords of patronage on Capitol Hill, of brash Irish-American presidents and speakers of the house lofting insults at one another in the press before adjourning for fraternal meals and drinks long into the D.C. evening. It’s a brand of political combat as glorified stag-bonding, at