Cuckoo's Nest Endorsement (updated with video)

During the December 4 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews asked about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY): "So does her attack on him [Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)] for having had ambition as a teeny-bopper -- not a teeny-bopper, a kindergartner, does she look like Nurse Ratched here?"

A Media Matters for America Nexis search found that hosts, including Matthews, and guests of programs on NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC have a long history of associating Clinton with Kesey's fictional character, whom Cliff's Notes describes as a "scheming, manipulative agent" who "asserts arbitrary control simply because she can."

Indeed, during the August 9 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, host Tucker Carlson said, "I think we have a picture, actually, of Hillary Clinton in a nursing outfit we're going to put up on the screen in a second." MSNBC then aired a screen shot of actress Louise Fletcher portraying Ratched in the 1975 film adaptation of the novel. Carlson went on to say, "I'm sorry. That's Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I'm sorry. It must have gotten confused in the files."

"Mrs. Clinton has been involved in issues, everything from health care, which we know and prison reform and helping the military, speaking for women and speaking for Americans," Nicholson said.