On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” host Chris Matthews reacted to the controversy over author Ann Coulter speaking at UC-Berkeley by arguing that “free thinking, argument, debate” are why people go to college and asked those trying to cancel the speech, “why don’t you just don’t go?”

Matthews said, “So, what’s going on with this violence anarchist thing — this anti-fascist thing on the left, followed by this right-wing thing, do you know what’s going on with these groups? Because they’re different. They don’t go to school all day, and go out and watch a speech at night. They’re schooled in this kind of action. They’re up for it.”

He later wondered, “What about the people who are our age, or my age who run these colleges, who get paid because they’re considered to be grown-ups, and make judicious decisions based upon the principles the university’s founded on? Which is free thinking, argument, debate, left and right. That’s how we do things here. That’s why we come here, to hear radical ideas exposed to us because we’re not getting them at home. That’s why we come to college.”

Matthews concluded, “But why don’t you just don’t go? And by the way, I’d recommend — the best way to blow away somebody like Ann Coulter is, don’t say a word about it. Don’t even show up, don’t even comment on it. Let her bore herself to death.”

(h/t Mediaite)

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