Chris Matthews: GOP Would 'Scorn' Pro-Civil Rights Republicans of the Past

[See NewsBusters for more.] According to Chris Matthews, the modern GOP would throw out the party's pro-civil rights members from the 1960s. Talking to former Lyndon Johnson aide Joseph Califano on Tuesday, the Hardball anchor appeared amazed by the fact that the 1964 Civil Rights Act "passed with four out of five Republicans." He sneered, "People don't believe the Republican Party" of today is the same.  The host jeered, "What happened to those Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller and Jack Javits and Hugh Scott and all those people who totally, utterly believed in civil rights?" Smearing the chairman of the Republican National Committee, he continued, "They would be scorned in the party of, of Reince Priebus, which is out there trying to kill voting rights through these I.D. laws."