Hugh Hewitt described Chris Matthews' questions of Sen. John Kerry last night on MSNBC's "Hardball" as softballs. (Via Instapundit)

Often, it's very difficult to prove real bias on the part of a journalist or interviewer on the basis of a single interview alone.

Here are the questions - just the questions - Matthews asked the presumptive Democratic nominee last night on "Hardball." Should he be allowed to keep the show named "Hardball" after this?

"CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: And now we have Senator John McCain�s good friend, Senator John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

As a man who was in war, and you were in a war in Vietnam, when you read the papers, like in Fallujah today. You check up during the day, as you�ve been doing today about what�s happening over there with our men, coming back in, trying to retake that city.

What do you think you know that the average guy who hasn�t been in a war knows?"

"MATTHEWS: When you�re in combat, and you�re facing the enemy every day and you get up, do you have a sense of the politics of that war all the time? Or is it, like in Vietnam�somewhere in the Vietnam experience you decided this war isn�t the right war.

KERRY: Yes.

MATTHEWS: Tell me about that."

"MATTHEWS: What do those medals mean to you? There�s been so much talk about these medals, and nobody�s ever asked you what they meant to you. Obviously, winning the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, three Purple Hearts.

You�ve saved them through thick and thin, through all changes of attitudes about the war. Why are they�what do they mean to you?"

"MATTHEWS: You�ve got them. What do they mean to you?"

"MATTHEWS: Maybe it�s a small distinction, but I think people could figure this out if you helped them. The difference between a medal, that you�that you keep and a ribbon that you might, for a political�to make a political statement in 1971, you might toss at the capital steps.

What�s that distinction?"

"MATTHEWS: Do you think this is a stupid argument that�s going on from the other side, attacking you for throwing away what you said, or implied, or allowed the people to imply were medals when in fact they�re ribbons?"

"MATTHEWS: But they do have, Senator, a piece of videotape going back 33 years of you talking to a Washington, D.C., reporter, a woman reporter, saying, after she says you threw�you tossed your bronze and your silver...

KERRY: Right.

MATTHEWS: �And beyond that,� you said, and you said �other ribbons.�

You allowed her...

KERRY: I didn�t say other ribbons. I said, �And the others.�

MATTHEWS: And the others. Well, you allowed�you allowed her to use the word �medals.�

KERRY: Well, we all did. We all...

MATTHEWS: But you know they were ribbons."

"MATTHEWS: Why do you think, along those lines, a vice president who has three deferments, why do you think he�s putting his three deferments up against your three Purple Hearts?"

"MATTHEWS: I�ll tell you what matters to a lot of people, our generation. I�m almost as old as you. Very close.

And I remember guys in college who were all right wing and hawkish on the war in Vietnam and then you said, �Are you going to join?� Because they all could have been officers.

And they said, �No, I�m participating in the system.� Meaning they�re going to�they�re going to get out of it through deferments or whatever.

What do you think of guys like Cheney who said, �I�m going to have a kid at the right time. I�m going to grad school at the right time. I�m going to stack up those deferments till I�m 83 years old, before they get anywhere near me�? And they�re also hawkish."

"KERRY: I have historically never begrudged the choices that people made.

MATTHEWS: Even hawks who avoid the war?"

"MATTHEWS: What went out, it basically tracks what you did the other day on �Good Morning America.� And the question your staff put out, under your name, is, is Bush telling the truth, President Bush, when he said he had no special privileges or favoritism in jumping 150 places to get in the Air Guard in Texas?

What do you think about that? Is that something you care about? You want to know the truth?

KERRY: He ought to answer that question.

MATTHEWS: Why?"

"MATTHEWS: Is it accountable�should the president be accountable for skipping that�that physical when he was in the military?"

"MATTHEWS: Should he prove that he was in the Guard and actively involved in the Guard when he was out of town, he was in Alabama?"

"MATTHEWS: Do you think the people around the president have hoisted themselves on their own petard by bringing up this issue of your service?"

"MATTHEWS: Is it relevant that you served in combat and faced enemy fire and the president of the United States did not? Is that a relevant fact, when picking a commander in chief for the next four years?"

"MATTHEWS: If you had to vote between two candidates, one who served in the military and one who didn�t, and they�re actively conducting a war, would you look at the service records of both men?"

"MATTHEWS: Are you a stronger man for having gone through that rite of passage?

KERRY: Yes.

MATTHEWS: Facing combat?

KERRY: Yes.

MATTHEWS: With the enemy?

KERRY: Yes."

"MATTHEWS: We�re here in Ohio with Senator John Kerry for his job summit here in Cleveland. I want to get to the jobs thing. I promise you, we�ll get to it in a couple minutes.

But this president has made�and he is the issue, the president of the United States, because he�s running for reelection. And you�re offering yourself as an alternative, as an alternative plan.

The president of the United States was asked by the press the other day if he�d ever made any mistakes as president. And he said he hadn�t. What do you think of that answer?"

"MATTHEWS: The absence of any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, does that justify a statement that he did make a mistake?"

"MATTHEWS: Was he mistaken to think there were weapons of mass destruction there?"

"MATTHEWS: Do you think he�s�he�s afraid that his testimony won�t jive with the vice president�s?"

"MATTHEWS: I mean, they�re not the Menendez brothers. I mean, they don�t have some major crime to hang�hang up. You were a prosecutor. You just brought me into an area of great opportunity here.

If you had two witnesses, two material witnesses, you had two, even defendants, and they said, and they were accused of operating together in some sort of theft or whatever, and they said, �Can we testify together?� What would you have said as a prosecutor?"

"MATTHEWS: Well, I make the analogy, but generally, in terms of human nature, do you think people have good reason for wanting to testify together?"

"MATTHEWS: But he says he never makes mistakes. So why would he be afraid to do it alone?"

"MATTHEWS: Was he mistaken? Was he led to make this mistake by his advisers, that these people are going to be happy as hell to have us be there and there wasn�t going to be any nationalistic resistance to our�our occupation of Iraq? Was that a big mistake?"

"MATTHEWS: Should this guy have fired a bunch of people for that intelligence failure?"

"MATTHEWS: You�ve spoken at length and very completely about the how question. But why do you think we went to war? If there was exaggeration of WMD, exaggeration of the danger, exaggeration implicitly with the connection of al Qaeda and 9/11, what�s the motive for this? What�s the why?

Why did Bush and Cheney and the ideologues around take us to war? Why do you think they did it?"

"MATTHEWS: We�re back with Senator John Kerry.

You go through the towns of this state, like Spencerville, and there�s only a few buildings left in the downtown areas, maybe a Blockbuster, maybe a dinette. All the factories are old and rusting. And can you change that or is that just the past?"

"MATTHEWS: The other day, I bought one of those XM radios for the car and I called up to get it installed. And I get a guy about a half-hour later. He�s got an Indian accent. He�s in Bangalore somewhere. And it took the longest�and I said, forget about it. I�ll use online to get this thing fixed.

Why are we going around the world to get our radios set up or our computers set up, or why isn�t there somebody in this town or city or this part of Ohio that can work for 15 bucks an hour? Apparently, they�re paying them good money over there in India to help us get our computers online or help us get our problems with high tech fixed up."

"MATTHEWS: Can you make health care cheaper than a phone bill? That�s what we�re talking about here.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: Serious. Long distance to India is cheaper for those companies than giving health care to an American worker."

"MATTHEWS: Do you think this administration and its political handlers like Karl Rove are capable of realizing they can�t beat you on the jobs issue, they can�t beat you on foreign policy, so they are going to drop this nonsensical stuff?

Don Evans, the secretary of commerce and the president�s good friend, said you look French the other day. Are they going to after Teresa because she was born in Mozambique? Are they going to try to build the idea that you�re like Mike Dukakis or you�re like Al Gore, a little different than most people? You know what they did the last couple times."

MORE: Some additional thoughts on MSNBC's actions surrounding the Matthews-Kerry interview can be found at Wizbang.