Andrea Mitchell is the Voice of Reason on The Chris Matthews Show
By Heather Sunday Nov 29, 2009 1:00pm
There are so many things wrong with this panel discussion on the Chris Matthews Show, it's hard to decide where to begin, but for starters, Andrea Mitchell seems to be the only one that gets it that some happy talk on increasing our troop presence in Afghanistan is not going to satisfy the left. Chris Matthews seems to take absolute glee in the fact that escalating our presence there is going to piss off those of us who are anti-war and thinks that “the center” of this country is pro-war.
Joe Klein thinks that President Obama’s bigger problems are going to be from the screeching right that are not going to support him no matter what he does and that of course the left is going to have to suck it up if the President does something they don’t agree with. As John has said here repeatedly, the Villagers always think it’s a good thing if Obama alienates his base and that we should all sit quietly and STFU when we don't agree with his policies.
I’ll wait to hear what the President has to say on Tuesday rather than second guess him as the media has, but playing the middle and sending more troops rather than getting our military out of Afghanistan is not going to satisfy any of us who don’t think we belonged there in the first place. The people who attacked us on 9-11 were from Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan, but we didn’t invade and occupy that country.
Matthews: And finally the President said he will say how much it’s going to cost. Anne it’s amazing. I’ve never heard of going to war but saying how much is it going to cost. It’s like that old saying if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.
Kornblut: Well, the White House would say the opposite, that we haven’t asked until now and they have to finally start taking it into account. They’ve actually broken down the numbers to figure out how many per soldier it would be. You know half a million dollars a year to have them there, so at this point they’re taking it into account and they’re measuring it against the other important priorities, like health care, like the other domestic achievements they want to get done.
Matthews: Andrea isn’t it odd we’re talking about the cost of this war and we’re already in it?
Mitchell: Because of the economy, because of health care, all of the other competing demands, I think the problem that we’ve all been addressing here you ask well how are they going to try to sell this and those are the answers. But the problem is the credibility; what David and Joe and Anne are all pointing out is that it doesn’t meet the smell test that they can either train up the Afghan troops, get the allied commitment and afford this.
Matthews: The bottom line we asked the Matthews Meter, 12 of our regulars, who will the President’s decision please more, the left or the center? Unanimous, these are the powerful ones on the meter. Everybody says the center is going to like this a lot more than the left. I am absolutely sure of that Joe. The left is not going to like this. The center might.
Klein: But it’s not going to make all that much difference. I think that the left will give the President the leeway on this.
Matthews: Really?
Klein: I do. I think he’s going to have more problems from the right, from the people who get upset that he doesn’t give Stanley McChrystal everything that he wants.
Matthews: Andrea do you think the left will buy this? The people who got him in office?
Mitchell: I don’t. I think that this is the President who won in Iowa partly because he was perceived as that anti-war—Hillary you remember wouldn’t apologize for voting for the war—and here he is about to sell another war six months after he laid it out… (crosstalk)
Matthews: Even though he said it was the good war. Let’s go about—will this long deliberation Anne Kornblut, you’ve got the tough question here to start with, a whip around here—it took three months to make this decision. Will he look smart and deliberative for having taken all this time or will the dithering shot still being cast in by people like former Vice President Dick Cheney—is that still going to hurt?
Kornblut: The gamble they’re making is that he’ll look smart and he’ll look like the anti-Bush for having thought about it for so long.
Klein: The anti-Bush part is really important because Bush really needed to do a strategy re-evaluation about Iraq six months in there and he never did.
Matthews: Andrea, will it look good if he takes some time?
Mitchell: I agree. I think he would have looked good, it will look good if he takes his time, if taking his time he comes out with something that adds up. If he doesn’t then people will say you took so long and what did you deliver.
Ignatius: The long period of analysis, very deliberative robs this of passion. This is—he is going to be a war time president now and he has to sell the country on the idea that our young men and women are going to go there, fight and get killed and you know this is not the…
Matthews: Too much Chamberlain, not enough Churchill?
Ignatius: Well too much, too much college professor.
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WE need to get out and spend the money on fixing what bush/chenny fucked up. I don't know that any one person can repair all the damage caused by the bush/chenny cabal. Because 1/2 of the problem still exists in the congress and the senate. If we don't get rid of these filthy republican pics we are never going to get things back on track!
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness that is killing America!
If there's a final due date for withdrawal. And even then, the left will not like this.
It won't be soon enough to make the left happy.
He does run the risk of losing the left base over this.
As I'm sure many here will not approve.
It's too late for anything else but a rapid withdrawal.
If he does, and I think he will, send in more troops, there has to be a withdrawal date within 18 months. Too long for my liking.
But fixing Boosh's fuck up would never be easy. We all knew that.
Combat troops are already slotted for withdrawal from Iraq next August.
If he balks on that. He will have effectively lost the left.
And will not get re elected in 2012. Unless, the GOP keeps alienating the moderates and independents. And even then, I think it would be close.
Hmmm, seems like I've heard that before, something like "out of Iraq in 16 months."
Anybody believe THAT's going to happen?
Well, you see, when Obama said "Out of Iraq in 16 months" he left out the second part, which is "And into Afghanistan"
Actually, even while I worked on his campaign, I was frustrated with Obama's views on Afghanistan. It was clear from day one he thought this was the right war and would likely send in more troops as Iraq drew down. I knew what McCain would do, I just hoped Obama was smart and open enough that he would figure it out before he became the next LBJ. So far my hope is not being realized and damned unlikely it will be. Reminds me how awful it felt a year after LBJ was elected and started marching us deeper into Viet Nam. "When will they ever learn?"
The only thing odd Tweety is that you still have a TV show as often as you're wrong and absolutely clueless. Why the hell does MSNBC retain the likes of you?
I will make my own decisions on this and what the talking heads have to say means nothing to me. They are sitting on their asses trying to create news and a conflict so they can sit on their asses next weekend and discuss the conflict they helped to create. I don't need their thoughts to determine my own.
The mastermind of 9/11 was and probably still is in Afghanistan and that was the original reason for invading - to remove the Taliban and get bin Laden. The downside is Bush and company were to pumped for Iraq and sapped any momentum we had in Afghanistan.
Now we have installed a corrupt government that no one likes and we still haven't captured bin Laden - that's *WHY* more troops aren't the answer since the biggest problems aren't military.
Yes, since the costs should have been discussed before we went in, and they should have been on the books the entire time.
Going to war in order to profiteer for the few has bankrupted us.
The left is not going to take this. Obama definitely won over Hillary due to AUMF. Becoming pro-war in addition to failing to make any serious progress toward any other campaign promise is going to kill his administration.
No, health care isn't helping. He's having to be shoved to provide a crappy public option to a bill that mostly rewards insurance companies instead of reforming health care or starting off with single-payer and fighting for it.
It's NOT good news for Republicans b/c tacking to the right isn't working. Pissing off the left is not going to work for the Dems b/c people will just stay home. What is the point of voting for DINOs if they don't act any differently from Republicans?
I don't care if they TRY. I care about results. So far...I'm not seeing them. If he can't get anything done, then he and everyone else needs to go.
It's disheartening, since I really wanted to believe my erstwhile Senator was serious about change and returning to a rule of law, but he's being led by the nose by Geithner and Emanuel.
In fact the only good thing is Emmanuel is no longer my representative and Quigley is a much more progressive replacement.
We still need a new party. The Dems are traditional center-right Republicans. Republicans are whackadoodle fringe theocrats. The country still needs a party for the center-left and left, and we don't have that right now.
otherwise what I see is America heading toward the kind of slave wages we see in India and other Corporate outsourced factory labor havens.
I am ready for a left of center social democratic party. But, please don't let it run Ralph Nader for office.
in case you haven't noticed.
Who could have ever predicted that we would ever be talking about the cost of a war. Go frigging figure.
PS: The CIA wishes to remain in Afghanistan for at least one more growing season or something.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/24-11
At least he had the courage to stand up to his generals and their overheated rhetoric. Sometimes, you just have to take a political risk and do what's right. Had he lived, I am sure Kennedy would have ended the US presence in Vietnam and saved over 56,000 needless American deaths. What's right is to do the same and end this foolish war in Afghanistan now and never indulge in one like it ever again.
Kennedy wrote a book on political fortitude and had the integrity to live his convictions.
Do you?
BMW 528 you need to understand it needs oil to run. That's why we are over there. We don't have the will or brains to change our oil driven lifestyle.
I have a 1986 Mercedes Benz 300 SDL diesel that runs on 100% American made biodiesel. I got rid of the 528 long ago. I agree that our oil based paradigm is a fraud run by fraudsters and to what extent I can, I don't support it.
With Ignatius' closing remark, "too much college professor." Oooh -- let's fear the educated, they're so often liberal.
Too deliberative and not passionate enough? WTF?!! Ignatius unconsciously epitomizes the classic Stephen Colbert crack about thinking with your gut, not your head. Does somebody want to clue him in that that was a parody?
BTW, all those people are on the panel because they look deliberative and professorial. The audience tunes in hoping they'll be learning something from somebody who is well informed. The irony hangs heavy in the room.
What has Political Talk Show Television done for this country otherwise? Except present rich people talking about all the great things they are going to do for people?
Want Obama to "go with his gut feeling" or "shoot from the hip" like Bush?
I think a solid case can be made for not doing anything remotely like Bush.
If you ask me, whenever Barack does anything like Bush in action or policy it is a huge mistake.
So far, the rule seems complete.
bmw 528 said:
"Had he lived, I am sure Kennedy would have ended the US in Vietnam and saved over 56,000 needless American deaths...(he) wrote a book on political fortitude and had the integrity to live his convictions."
Actually, while JFK can be credited with conceiving the idea of PROFILES IN COURAGE, he didn't write it.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2478...
As to your conviction that--had he lived--Kennedy would have ended our involvement in Viet Nam, this is purely wishful speculation, with no reason to think it true. Of course, no one knows, and the course of history would be very different had Kennedy not been assassinated, but, given Kennedy's ardent anti-Communist fervor and given that he increased aid and poured thousands of military "advisors" into Viet Nam, I think it more likely that he would have fallen prey to the same fears for his political future as did LBJ, who escalated the war against his own awareness that we had little to no hope of "winning" in Viet Nam. (Everyone who hasn't already should watch the recent episode of BILL MOYERS' NOW in which he plays private recordings of LBJ debating whether to "go in or get out" with various of his friends and political associates. It's compelling and sobering, to see that a man's better judgement can be so perverted by political concerns.)
In a September 1963 interview, Kennedy said this: "...I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake.... [The United States] made this effort to defend Europe. Now Europe is quite secure. We also have to participate—we may not like it—in the defense of Asia.”
The Kennedy Administration also encouraged the coup that toppled the government of South Viet Nam just weeks before Kennedy's assassination. This cannot be said to indicate a President inclined to withdraw from the country.
See:
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resource...
However the fact is, unfortunately we will never know. I believe he would have gotten out of Vietnam after he was elected in 1964. Personally, I agree with Ray Mc Govern's perspective and believe Kennedy's pragmatism would have ultimately been more compelling than your stated "anti communist fervor" ala Barry Goldwater.
who needs enemies? If they had their way they would sell a whole generation of youth to war and debt.
Also, I find it morbidly humorous that the talking heads keep talking about financing 'training Afghanis', when it is obvious they should be hiring them to train U.S. troops.
The Afghan resistance are obviously winning with less money, older equipment, and limited technology.
I guess maybe 'training Afghanis' is a euphemism for bribery.
And don't forget about 75% of Afghans, and one would assume probably the Taliban, are illiterate. We don't speak their language and they can't read or write it. First we would have to teach them to read a training manual.
"If they have come to fight, they are far too few. If they have come to die, they are far too many". I'm hoping someone here can tell me the source of that quote.
I guess we now know that Tweety never read his Bible. Tweety said that we never asked how much a war is going to cost. I seem to remember a famous sermon by Jesus where he talked about counting the costs (Luke 14:28-33). If you are going to war, you gotta first count the costs to see if it is worth it. Afghanistan is no longer worth it.
but there seems to be some sort of sexual tension between Joe Klein and Andrea Greenspan.
At 1:10 and again at 1:27 there is a possessive glance between the two and a bizarre hand gesture later by Klein that makes them both appear uncomfortable.
Perhaps Mathews should put those two on opposite ends of the panel until they can work things out.
Just keeps on giving. Why is it that those President's that are genetically related feel the need to leave a stinking pile of dog excrement for their successor's? Bush senior left the deployment in Mogadishu for Clinton to clean up and now the Daphne has left Karzai for Obama to clean up. Oh well, it is what it is an must be addressed. Running away from Afghanistan is not an option for us. We must give it all the tools and support to function as a country it is our moral obligation.
Is this really important stuff?
Look...These panelists are just not very smart people.
The hoi polloi think they're brilliantly insightful but anyone with half a brain is simply bored stiff.
much more conservative on his syndicated show, but takes more of a noticeably progressive approach on msnbc with "hardball".
like every American President is a War President?
Is crap. The fact is that Afghanistan gave them training grounds to create these terrorist, so the "Afghan" was the right thing to do and of course Bush fucked it all up. I can't even understand why there is still a debate on it. What fucked this whole shit up was the idea of invading Iraq rather than pursuing Bin Laden. At this point I feel like I'm talking to a bunch of third graders.
to blow up that country either. There are terrorist training camps all over the world. In just how many countries do you think it would be alright to invade and kill innocent civilians in the name of ending terrorism? I could understand if we went in there and only went after Bin Laden with some sort of limited covert action. But that's not what we did. We invaded and occupied them. Sorry if you think that point of view is "arguing with a third grader". Personally I think dropping a bunch of bombs on civilians heads just makes more terrorists, but hey, that's just me. I was against us invading that country from the start back when I was just contributing video to the site and before John added Video Cafe.
I think that a single innocent death is too much, but not trying to destroy al qaida would have had much worse consequences, in fact it was. This is not easy, and it's hard for me to say this war was justified, but at the same time I can't run away from reality and the thousands dead on 9/11. Like I said, this should have been over fast and we should have gotten Bin Laden and get the hell out of there, but that was not in our hands, the decision belong to the worst president in American history. I don't know if we can just get out now and avoid other innocent people from dying. Anyway you see it, it's fucked up.
This panel craze is just an arrogant way of saying the people at MSNBC knows more than the president. They would like for us to believe they have put together a team of sharp shooters who have figured out the next move President Obama will make.
I can't wait to see Obama step up to the microphone tomorrow and prove every one of them absolutely wrong. Then, and only then, they will shut their mouths and stop acting like fortune tellers of Obama's doom.
Joseph
..then do the opposite.
We have been fighting in Afghanistan too long.
Pack up the troops and bring them home immediately'
If the Afghanees want to have peace, it's OK with me
If the Afghanees want to fight amongst the factions and kill each other, it's OK with me.
It the want Shirea law, it's OK with me as long as they don't send the body parts they hack off as penalty, to me, that's not OK with me!
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