Matthews: Tea Party Treats Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ ‘Like It’s the Little Red Book of Mao’

Matthews: Tea Party Treats Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' 'Like It's the Little Red Book of Mao' (NewsBusters)

On Friday's Hardball, Chris Matthews and Howard Dean slammed the supposedly "lunatic" Republican Party for opposing President Obama's $3.7 billion request to deal with the ongoing crisis at the U.S-Mexico border. Dean likened the political stalemate over this issue and in general in Washington to McCarthyism in the 1950s: "It reminds me of the 'who lost China' debate...where one side is frothing at the mouth and finding communists under every bed; and the other side – including some reasonable Republicans...actually trying to run the country."

Matthews endorsed the former Vermont governor's take, and targeted fiscal conservatives/the Tea Party as somehow akin to Mao's Red Guards.