There is no denying it.  Chris Matthews was a loudmouth.  Except for his surprise subdued farewell opener on his final “Hardball” Monday night, when he seemed also contrite, sad and sorry to go.

Much has been said and written about him before and since, including by me back in 2011, when I interviewed him for an article in Bethesda Magazine about media celebrities in our area. He was just a couple of paragraphs in a much longer story that also included David Brooks, Cokie Roberts, John Feinstein, Howard Kurtz, Doreen Gentzler, Candy Crowley, George Will and Tony Kornheiser.

“It’s not like being a movie star or even a local anchor where everyone knows you,” I quoted him as saying. But “if I get on an airplane in front, everyone knows me. I’m not bragging, it’s just the way it is. I like to have people say, ‘What do you think is going on?’”

Now, it’s fair to say, there’s a lot going on and pretty much everyone knows him, and not in a good way.  His sudden departure from MSNBC came after several cringe-worthy on-air gaffes (if that’s the right word) and public disclosures of sexist behaviors towards guests and associates. The breaking point came after a GQ freelance writer outed him for making discomfiting remarks about her looks in the makeup room prior to her appearance on his show.

Since then, there have been extensive stories both supporting and criticizing him and his banishment from cable news.  In no way excusing or approving of his alleged misbehaviors, I got into a Twitter argument with one of my “followers” over the so-called “cancel culture” and whether a person’s entire life’s work should be erased by his or her obvious flaws and mistakes.

I believe we are at an inflection point in our culture and country that is to some extent generational.  I came of age in the 1950s, as did Matthews, when a popular song went “Standing on the corner, watching all the girls go by.” The verse continued, “Brother, you can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking, or for that wolf [insert wolf whistle sound here] look in your eye. You’re only standing on the corner watching all the girls, watching all the girls, watching all the girls…go by.”

Today, even that “wolf look in your eye” could be, well, problematic.

It was pervasive in the culture. In movies, on TV shows, on radio, in lyrics, you could hear men “complimenting” or “flattering” women on their looks.  There was also something called “sex appeal,” a once common phrase applied only to women and seldom if ever heard anymore. In magazines, on calendars, even on matchbcovers, there were “pin-up girls,” and, of course, the “Playmate of the Month” in Hugh Heffner’s Playboy magazine. Women were encouraged to dress provocatively. That was then. This is now.

If Rip Van Winkle of that era were suddenly to awake in these times and didn’t know the rules had changed, he would be at risk of offending and suffering the consequences. But Matthews wasn’t sleepwalking through the years; he was living through them and didn’t get the memo.

Otherwise, he told me back in 2011, referring to himself and his wife, Kathleen Matthews, “we live a pretty normal life,” consisting of breakfast while reading the newspaper at the unpretentious Olympia Cafe on Brookville road, near his home in Chevy Chase, and sometimes dinner with church friends (“the Blessed Sacrament crowd” at Columbia Country Club.

Chris was and will always be a Philly boy, but not with an upper crust Main Line accent. Since I’d been a young newspaper reporter there, we had a common bond.  In that first and subsequent conversations, we also talked politics and politicians we both had known. As I recall, he went on for 45 minutes, nonstop, and I was hard pressed to ask my questions.  Later, in 2014, he graciously accepted my invitation to appear on a panel (“politicians and the press”) at an authors conference I helped organize. There was no fee, and he was gracious and engaging. My friend and colleague Peggy Engel moderated, and the other panelists – Peter Baker and Evan Thomas – somehow managed to get a few words in.

As I said, Chris Matthews was a loudmouth. And that mouth, misstatements and worse ultimately ended his 20-year run on “Hardball.” His strident, overly aggressive interview of Elizabeth Warren regarding Michael Bloomberg, his conflation of two black politicians, his bizarre comparison of Bernie Sander’s Nevada caucus win to the Nazi blitzkrieg of France, topped off by the GQ column—it was all just too much.  It was time for him to move off the stage.

Is that worth celebrating?  In the aftermath, thoughtful commentaries, by Laura Bassett, author of the GQ article, by Kathleen Parker, Margaret Sullivan, Jonathan Capehart and others have appeared.  All are worth reading. Wrote Capehart: “One day, we’ll face a moment when we understand that we are products of our times — and that the times have moved beyond us.”   I suspect Chris will not be the last of our generation to fall from grace.  But, please, let’s give them credit where credit is due, even as we focus on their faults.  Let us not simply “cancel” them. That would be bad journalism and unfair to history. And, it would be wrong.