This is hardball?

I just watched Chris Matthews conduct separate interviews with Senator Norm Coleman and George Galloway. Matthews was his usual aggressive self with Coleman. With Galloway he was a pussy cat, lobbing softball questions like, so are you saying you never benefited personally from oil for food payments. Matthews accepted all of Galloway’s answers without challenge. This from a man who once was filmed telling Saddam Hussein “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability,” and tried to claim he was talking not about the dictator but about the Iraqi people.
Was Matthews intimidated by Galloway’s aggressive manner? Or was he won over by Galloway’s attack on neo-conservatives and his criticism of the war?
UPDATE: Here’s an account by The Scotsman of Galloway’s performance. Let’s give credit, as The Scotsman does, to Senator Levin, the ranking Democrat, for joining with Senator Coleman in persistent tough questioning of the corrupt, tyranny-abetting MP.
FURTHER UPDATE: A reader suggests that Matthews’ performance was worse than I described it because I “didn’t mention that Matthews could be heard saying ‘Uh huh’ during many of Galloway’s replies.” I didn’t mention it because, though I thought I heard this, I wasn’t 100 percent certain (my hearing isn’t what it used to be). Having heard from this reader, I’m prepared to say that Matthews did, in fact, support Galloway with these utterances.