Chris Matthews on Charlie Rose makes the astounding pronouncement that he knew full well that what he was saying on the air about our invasion of Iraq was wrong but he didn't want to admit it since he felt it would have been bad for the country. He also takes a cheap shot at bloggers while he's at it.
Sorry Chris, but some of us who blog also have full-time jobs, like myself. I also consider myself and most others who I respect on the left who blog as "grownups". I don't know too many children that are taking on you and your ilk in the media, so spare us the condescending cheap shots if you don't mind.
Matthews is a prime example as to what happens to someone when they allow themselves to be scared to death by government propaganda to the point where they no longer have the ability to do their jobs as supposed "journalists". He knows he dropped the ball when it was time to speak up, and now wants to make excuses for his behavior.
I've said before that Matthews was a cheerleader for invading Iraq and had commenters try to dispute that, citing Matthews' Johnny-come-lately criticism of the invasion. Well, he just admitted here that he not only agreed on the air with the invasion of a country that wasn't a threat to the United States, but that he also knew what he was saying wasn't true, and did it anyway.
There's your supposed "liberal media" for you, folks: War cheerleaders who despise bloggers for daring to tell the truth, and dismiss them as children who don't want to work for a living.
Bravo, Chris Matthews.
Transcript below the fold:
Rose: There is about you the following. This is my only psychological point. It's like you're not sure about something. You're very introspective. You know who you are.
Matthews: This is really deep Charlie. I think that I'm not absolutely sure of myself on issues. I know that my opinion, and I know that other people that I have different ones. And I feel like ending every show with not everything I say can be wrong. I mean I do think it's possible everything I said is wrong. I have a very strange view.
Some of the bloggers jumped on me. And this is what I think explains what some people think about me. When we first went into Iraq...
Rose: What do you think they think about you?
Matthews: Well they don't quite get me. They, I'm first of all a grown up and they resent that, but secondly, and also, I have a job..they don't like that either. That's really going to fester them with anger. But when we first went into Iraq and when they set it up this way or not and whether or not Mike Deaver still had his hand in this or not, you know like it all looked good, they all tore down the statues and everything looked great, I thought you know I've been dead wrong about this.
Rose: At that point everything was great.
Matthews: I thought I was wrong, but I thought it was good for the country.
Rose: That...
Matthews: That's what's different. I'm not a lefty now because I said you know, I'd rather be wrong about something this fundamental and have it good for my country that was the right move to go in. And the Charles Krauthammer's and the other smart people and the neo-conservatives that supported the war, I'm glad they're right, because this is good for my country. And for the days right after that when the statues were coming down and the people seemed happy and the Sunnis were on the run, the Shias seemed happy and they hadn't started causing trouble yet, and Sistani was with us and al Sadr hadn't started causing trouble, and everything seemed alright, I was glad for my country.
And so I would say positive things about mission accomplished. I wanted to be wrong. That's why I'm different than these bloggers and people that are so cock sure of themselves. I'd rather have my country succeed than be right. You know I can live with being wrong. I don't want to live in a country that's failed. So I'm different than most people that way. I don't want to just be the smartass that's right all the time. I'd rather be wrong when my country is hurt. I don't want it to get hurt.
