Chris Matthews' sudden crash

On the Monday before Super Tuesday, longtime MSNBC host Chris Matthews came on the air and promptly, tartly announced he was retiring, that "tonight will be my last 'Hardball.'" His language and tone strongly implied he was being pushed out.

Politically, it felt like part of a pattern. At the same time that Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar suddenly dropped out of the race in an apparent attempt to solidify the anti-Bernie Sanders vote, MSNBC was acting in the opposite direction, shedding a host that had become a liability with...