My dad is a man who could care less about politics, but in the days just before the launch of the war in Afghanistan, we were watching “Hardball” together and Chris Matthews (who was just beginning his career implosion) was prattling on and on about what our troops would have to face in the caves of Afghanistan where the Taliban were supposedly dug in.

At one point, Matthews told his audience that American troops would have to be sacrificed as “canaries in a coalmine” to effectively enter these booby-trapped caves. This is when my dad turned to me and asked, quite seriously, “How did someone so stupid get on television?”

Chris Matthews just isn’t a very bright guy. A decade ago, he at least used to ask interesting questions, but once he was struck with Bush and Palin Derangement Syndrome, he’s become a laughingstock in his quest to carry the left’s water, especially Obama’s.

Not only is Chris Matthews dumb enough to get a leg tingle from President Obama’s dull, pedantic speeches, he’s dumb enough to admit to to those tingles on television.

As if to reinforce my father’s opinion of him, after relentlessly mocking how well Governor Sarah Palin would hypothetically do on “Jeopardy,” Matthews made a king-size fool of himself in reality .

Picture of an idiot in action:

Problems started for Matthews when he requested a category in the form of a question.

“Let’s go back to, what is ‘Crossword Clues E?'” Matthews said. “I mean, I’m sorry, let’s go $200 for the category ‘Crossword Clues E.'”

For the answer, “Full name of the U2 pilot shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960,” Matthews responded, “Who is Gary Powers?” The correct response was “Who is Francis Gary Powers?”

“We need the full name,” Alex Trebek told Matthews.

“Who is Gary Powers?” Mathews said, repeating himself.

“No,” Trebek said to audience laughtewr.

Later, after Trebek said, “A U.S.D.C. is one of these, charged with the jurisdiction of a specific region,” Matthews responded, “What is a U.S. attorney?”

The correct answer was, “What is a district court?”

“In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled that the ‘hostile environment’ type of this can be sex discrimination.”

Matthews responded, “What is a hostile workplace?” The correct answer was, “What is sexual harrassment?”

In the category “6-Letter World Capitals,” the clue was, “St. Basil’s Cathedral is there.” Matthews responded: “What is Istanbul?”

The correct answer: “What is Moscow?”

How does that song go? “I bombed on ‘Jeopardy,’ baby…”