Chris Matthews: I'd Rather Have My Country Succeed Than Be Right
By Heather Wednesday May 27, 2009 4:30am
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.
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so what are you too scared to tell the truth about today? is this something we always have to keep in mind from now on when we listen to you? that you might have a urine stain running down your leg we should be aware of? perhaps your nickname "tweety" is misapplied. you remind me more of captain queeg of the caine mutiny. his nickname "old yellow stain" seems more appropos.
you know...I like that a whole lot better than Tweety. Far as I'm concerned, that's his new name. Hope it goes viral.
Funny, he just admitted that he has no integrity as a suppossed journalist, a thing the rest of the world has known all along. The pathetic little man should be ashamed to show his face in public, yet somehow, he can find it in himself to make cheap shots at people in the blogshpere who have consistantly demonstrated the integrity and courage to do the job that he can't quite find it within himself to do. Not only is he a moral coward and and ethical cripple, Old Yellow Stain lacks even that minimum amount of sense that lead a better person to be embarrassed. What an ass hat.
Afterthought: Just exactly, I wonder, how is it possible for a country to succeed when it its actions are so wrong that they amount to the equivalent of jumping into an abyss? The man is not only a coward, he's intellectually lazy and intellectually dishonest.
And you know how Boggie played that part so well!
Members of the American media who were complicit in rah-rahing the Iraq War should forever be looked at sceptically. As they say to all the witnesses on the court shows when they change their stories, "Were you lying then, or are you lying now."?
If he thought the invasion was wrong but became a cheerleader, it was because he was afraid of the backlash from a public that was frantic to have something done, a public that had been whipped into a frenzy by the Bush administration and its lies. What we needed was a Walter Cronkite or a Edward R Murrow. "Where is your shame, Mr. President?" We needed someone who would seriously question guests who were beating the war drums.
I now wonder, what are the reprecussions for lying on the air and promoting deceitful propaganda? If his employer is not willing to do something about it, then like overzealous investors in junk mortgage backed securities, there's nothing to prevent him from repeating the same mistake.
To me, journalists, like lawyers or real estate salespersons need to obtain a permit or license. This way they are accountable to a body that would hopefully hold them accountable for stepping on every moral practice journalists had. Whatever happened to reporting the facts!
Truth in advertizing laws,There should be a law once caught lying they should be taken off the air forever.
However what Matthew's and others have done with all their lies is treason and they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law and their fortunes made from their treasonist lies should be used to fix the mess their treason caused and to compensate the victims
Word.
Each time this bipolar fucker takes a step forward, he opens his ignorant mouth, tells the truth and takes three steps back.
spoken like a true coward. i don't think much of chris but i didn't think he was that spineless.
JAW-dropping statement.
He needs to go off-air asap with this further proof he's no journalist.
So has he just told us that we can't trust a word he says?
"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."
That's funny, I thought the hard work is actually discerning the truth, when it is not convenient to do so...
So essentially, Matthews isn't man enough to really work for a living.
"I'm a grownup and ... I have a job."
Yeah? Same here, asscake.
And frankly, if your country is wrong, why the fuck would you hope it succeeds? "Gosh, I'm against slavery, but I'd so much rather have my country be successful trading molasses to rum and slaves."
Rah! Rah! Go, America!
That's a great analogy; I wish you could say it to Tweety himself and then see what he says.
his leg all tingly.
Being "wrong" and "succeeding" tend to be contradictory in the long run for nations, as most grownup have discovered. There are always exceptions, but doing the "wrong thing" tends to be bad policy.
Germany under Hitler was "wrong" and "succeeding" in the short run, but not the long run. Seventy years later, when we think of Germany, we still think of Hitler. I only hope Obama can begin to undo the damage that being wrong has done to my country.
Tweety was far more worried about his own success than his country's. After the example his bosses made of Phil Donahue for speaking the truth, Tweety decided to be "grownup" and keep his "job."
He could have quit and become a blogger, but that would have meant sacrifice and hard work.
Tweety is a sociopath without convictions or a soul. He will do or say anything that pays off for him. No wonder he wants to be a politician.
I don't work for a living, I live to work.
I found an interesting quote from Johann Goethe's Die Leiden Des Jungen Werther (1774):
17 May
The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.
22 May
All our learned teachers and educators agreed that children do not know why they want what they want; but no one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about the earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genius motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by the biscuits and cake, and the rod.
My rod is my governor.
Here's mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIBxK-5Bt3s&fe...
This asshole could care less about doing or saying what's right. He's already proved that during Bush's bloody reign. He just wants to be popular. Matthews could easily do The Jerry Springer Show, Maury Povich, or "Cheaters" in a fucking heartbeat so long as we paid attention to him.
I used to watch his show, it is better than Dobbs, but not much. He treats women, and blacks poorly too. I find that offensive. He may have been a liberal when he worked for Carter but I believe he has changed and is now a conservative coward afraid to do his job as a journalist. Bloggers must be doing something right if they are getting to him. He along with the other cheerleaders for the illegal, immoral, and unnecessary war should be brought to justice along with the actual war criminals. In a decent world that is.
"Principle and the critical thinking method aside, if my country is heading in the wrong direction and it will hurt itself, I'm all for staying the course." Lots of ways to say the same thing Chris.
How many people feel that way in our government today? The last job I was in I was told something very similar. When I had trouble swallowing the disconnect, my Dad told me something that I've never stopped thinking about:
"Sometimes you are so right, you're wrong."
I stopped watching Matthews quite a while ago (with the exception of posted clips on C&L).
I think its wrong for me to enable his schizophrenia by adding to his ratings.
Matthews' ego is what drives every damned thing he does. I can't believe he doesn't embarrass himself when it takes total control of him. I think it was just last week on his show he showed a clip of himself speaking at a college graduation. Why do that except being ego driven. He seems to have some feeling of inadequacy that he needs to cover with an awfully inflated ego.
Wow, it's like my comment just, suddenly, disappeared.
You were replying to a spam bot!
A spam bot?? Never heard that before. Guess I'm willfully out of touch?
But thanks for the 'splain. It's kind of eerie. I was wondering.
When are you going to post the video of Olbermann admiting that he was biased against the Clintons during the last elections?
Hack, hack, hack.
Hehe.
He ripped Barack a new one a few weeks ago as well.
You're like a year late with this grievance dude.
By your logic, torture happened so long ago that it shouldn't matter. Actually, why didn't they post Olbermann's video when it came out, then?
I'm still pissed at Rutherford B. Hayes for selling out us black folk in 1876 ordering the army to leave the south for votes to become President, thus creating Jim Crow.
It is better to stay silent and be thought an idiot, than to post and leave no doubt.
That Olbermann bit went up within 24 hours of airing.
Really? Because I read this blog several times a day, I just like it a lot. People like Amato and Neiwert are not just bloggers to me, but they have great in depth of how things are playing in the national scenario. There are others who write great stuff, but it seems to me that you and Heather are just a bit (I mean a lot) biased against Matthews, even if you have to pull it out of thin air, or as I've seen in most cases, just making stuff up because you don't like the guy while ignoring some disasterous comments made by people you like. It's that simple and in my view, a betrayal of honesty and common sense and it makes you just as guilty as Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Reilly.
Making personal attacks on those who disagree with you like calling them unemployed children shows he has no real defense for what he did. When the argument against you turns personal, you know you have won.
is all puffery and dumb downed, anti-intellectual critical thinking. His prolix and voluble rants are embarassing to listen to.
Ok, maybe I missed something, or maybe I'm just not fitting into the mold of the general comments here, but it seemed to me that he thought he was against the war and that thought he was right, then thought he saw good things happening there (no matter how misguided that judgment may have been), and then thought he had the guts to say he was wrong all along.
Maybe I'm as wrong as he was, but I'd rather be rich than stupid. :-)
Tweety says he was opposed to the war, but withheld criticism because of stirring moments like Bush in his flight suit, or the 'Mission Accomplished' banner.
Really? That's the sum of his critical analysis?
And what of Ari Fleischer's, "I submit that it is unpatriotic to criticize the President," or John Ashcroft's solemn declaration that to question the USA PATRIOT Act was "... only aiding terrorists"?
Still want to go with the 'it looks like success, so I'll say good things'?
Oh, not saying it wasn't a poor decision on his part, but critical analysis of political/social issues isn't really his game, ratings are.
On the other side of the coin, though, I think I'd rather be wrong about good things than right about bad things.
Of course, I'd still rather be correct about good things and bad things, assuming they both are happening.....
Matthews is just another dishonest, paid Reslug, with a pulpit to habitually lie To Americans.
I had more respect for Mr. Matthews before I became a regular viewer.
I'm adult and I work though I don't get paid millions to be a cowardly Bush lapdog and a war cheerleader.
And you know what else. I and so many "loony lefties" were right about the war so I guess that means that unlike Matthews we hate our country even though had the media shills like Matthews done his job we might never have gone into this quagmire. This is how Tweety shows his "love of country"?
"We want to help people get from the lower class to the middle class, and the middle class to STAY THERE."
-- George W. Bush, on the economy.
The Shrub helped drive the middle-class so far down that it met the lower class—and we haven't reached the bottom yet!
Maybe if he actually goes on a blog and reads some of the comments he could learn for himself. However, Chris is Chris and he's always comfortable saying what reaches his mouth before he checks the facts.
let me say that I can certainly understand why he hates them. Progressives have had his number from quite some time, and criticize him openly. Media Matters thinks he's a total loser, so I am sure that he dislikes much of what he hears is written about him. I would doubt that conservative bloggers like him any better because he's so inconsistent. And they do love consistency, as long as it favors their agenda.
Tweety's body language says it all. The crossed arms in "please don't attack me Charlie" fashion. Not that Charlie would dare throw anything but a soft ball.
HA!
usually it's demonstrated in less obvious ways.
I'm done watchin Hardball.
Matthews is a punk bitch.
What took you so long.
I spend my nights watching DVDs and surfing the web.
There is no "news" only entertainment, and personally...I don't find what the mainstream tv media has to offer as entertaining anymore.
I was watching one of those talk shows yesterday at the VA hospital, and without thinking said, "Do you have to have the brain of a gnat to have your own talk show?
Some guys started laughing, so I added, "They look like Barbie and Ken. The hosts have probably been changed over the years, but you'd never know it."
... at least when I earned my degree back in 1985, was that we watch television (or read books, or go to movies) not only for entertainment, but to reinforce views we hold and/or see basic needs met.
We watch police dramas to see justice done, medical dramas to see people get the help they need, and so on.
So when the bulk of television 'entertainment' is falling by the wayside for you, it simply means the box has been dumbed down to the point of being useless.
Can you tell me why I watch the Family Guy?
Lack of taste?
That show is funnier'n hell!
What's the alternative?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGc5iWuUNDs
I'll take that.
say about my love of cheeseball sci-fi/horror/zombie movies...
on second thought...I'm not sure I wanna know, lol!
When I was in the Air Force, I'd smoke sinsimillian laced with Afghani hashish in a bong, and about 3/4 of a gram of coke, turn on Jerry Falwell with the sound off, and Alice Cooper singing Sick Things and I Love the Dead.
that's intense, lol!
Jerry Falwell?
Yeah...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxy9-Em2z68
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWU7FxQIsoM
And just for the hell of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOk1jdIqVX0 (audio only).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwqxKS1QhNs
My cranium is extremely dense.
That, or I was just very generous in giving him the benefit of the doubt.
No mas!
Everything on TV is crap
My dog likes to watch some shows on Animal Planet. Should I be worried?
Only if you're watching with him/her.
I watch the him watching the shows. He's cute when he does it. For me, that can be filed under the heading of cheap thrills.
Ya gotta be very selective.
At your service.
It's amazing listening to jerks like Matthews continually trying to justify his war cheerleading. And that "I'm a grown-up" put him in the Fox category, absolute ignore list.
unwatchable.
"becoming"??
regarding the density of my skull.
you are so right!
ditto.
if he was half the man he thinks he is, he would have done the RIGHT thing which is never the wrong thing. Tell the truth. Speak truth to power even when its the unpopular thing to do.
Feb 2003 - Toxic Talk on War - by Lawrence F. Kaplan (originally from washingtonpost.com)
Who is driving this rush to war in Iraq? A decade ago, on the eve of the last Persian Gulf War, conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan alleged that Israel and its "amen corner" were to blame. A media firestorm ensued, with condemnations pouring in from across the political spectrum. Now, on the eve of yet another Gulf war, Buchanan has revived the claim. Only this time a chorus of voices from the left, right and center has emerged to echo it.
(snip)
The ubiquitous talk-show host Chris Matthews pins blame for the impending war on "conservative people out there, some of them Jewish, who are very tough on foreign policy. They believe we should fight the Arabs and take them down. They believe that if we don't fight Iraq, Israel will be in danger." Matthews even thinks that Sharon is "writing [Bush's] speeches sometimes" and that Sharon's cabinet ministers are "in bed with the vice president's office and the Defense Department."
Washington Post profiles Chris Matthews - Feb 2008
In 2003 he became inadvertently entangled in the Scooter Libby scandal. Adam Levine, then a White House spokesman, called Matthews -- for whom he had once been a producer -- to complain that the host had been harping on the Iraq role of Libby and other neoconservatives with Jewish-sounding names. "Some of what you're saying about this sounds anti-Semitic," Levine told him. (Levine and other Jewish friends in no way consider Matthews anti-Semitic, but tensions were running high.)
Libby, then a top aide to Vice President Cheney, soon called Tim Russert, NBC's Washington bureau chief, to complain that Matthews was always taking aim at "Libby and Wolfowitz and Perle." That phone call became the linchpin in Libby's conviction for obstruction of justice, after Libby claimed that Russert told him during the conversation that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative. A jury believed Russert's account that Plame was never mentioned.
See Chris Matthews in action:
youtube.com/watch?v=C1R3dXBMWxc
youtube.com/watch?v=asUJ01u1pMw
youtube.com/watch?v=wjPsqoy-FR4
Watch the following videos on the carving up of Iraq:
youtube.com/watch?v=u4MdyJDnSoI
youtube.com/watch?v=yp_iTR9dI6o
Watch the BBC documentary "The War Party" (part 1 of 5)
... but I do believe that the OP misrepresented Matthews' comments in the Rose segment, above.
Here's a partial transcript between Matthews and John McCain in Dec 2001
McCain: My nightmare -- I have several nightmares about Saddam Hussein, but one of them is the that SCUD missile which he has...that's in the view of most, aimed at Israel. Aimed at Israel.
Matthews: Why doesn't Israel take them out? I'm using the popular parlance. Why doesn't Israel do the work that they have to do? Isn't that their job if it's a strategic threat to them? They're the most powerful nation in the Mideast.
McCain: I don't think that Israel fee-one [the transcript reads]. They've got their hands full just as you said right now. But second, I don't this we would ever countenance. We criticized them when they took out his nuclear facility back-back -- many years ago.
Matthews: Well, why don't we give them the go-ahead. Get rid of Saddam. You know, if you hate him, do it.
McCain: Because I'm not sure we should ask the Israelis to do -- to take care of a threat to the United States of America.
Matthews: But you just said it was a threat to Israel.
McCain: Well to world peace, I think.
Matthews: No you said it was a threat to Israel. Why should the United States deal with a threat to Israel? Why don't we let Israel -- we've been giving them $3 billion a year to defend themselves. Why don't we say, "Defend yourselves. You've got a clear fight. Go take Saddam out"?
McCain: Because I think it's our job. I think we're the world's leader and I...
Matthews: Our job is to defend Israel?
McCain: No, it's our job to remove threats to the security of the United States.
---
Here's an article Matthews wrote in March 2002 in the San Francisco Chronicle:
I wonder if anything can prevent this military move against Baghdad on which so many who hold power have set their hearts.
Start with the neo-conservative faction. Op-ed pages are full of anti-Hussein war drums. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol has made a crusade of getting U.S. troops onto the streets of Baghdad.
He and fellow Iraq hawk Robert Kagan write a regular column in the Washington Post pushing war, as does fellow neo-conservative Frank Gaffney Jr. for the Washington Times. Also on an Iraq jag is William Safire of the New York Times.
When the neo-conservatives cannot blame Hussein for Sept. 11, they try tagging him with the anthrax letters. When that doesn't work, they again try to connect him to the World Trade Center and Pentagon horrors.
Meanwhile, back at the White House, fellow neo-conservatives keep up the cadence. David Frum, a neo-conservative Canadian, crafted President Bush's "axis of evil" locution targeting Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Joseph Shattan, a like-minded ideologue, fills the vacuum left by Frum's recent departure.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz leads the neo-conservative forces at the Pentagon. Undersecretary Doug Feith recently OK'd a new U.S. "posture" that threatens to nuke Iraq if it moves against Israel. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, is another well- placed hawk, as is neo-conservative high priest and Pentagon adviser Richard Perle.
The neo-cons casually compare Iraq to the Third Reich, Israel to forsaken Czechoslovakia and skeptics to Neville Chamberlain, but their evidence for attacking Iraq doesn't hold up.
then I find the fact that he STOPPED analyzing this situation, one that he definitely seems to have a handle on, could mean only one thing....he put his personal beliefs on hold and looked out for his personal career. That doesn't make his choices any better. Remember Bill Maher lost his program for saying what he thought about Bush, 9/11 and Iraq. That took some courage, and he could have used some support from others who had courage and would add their voices. Apparently, Matthews could have been one of those voices, and chose not to be.
Here's a Hardball transcript from July 2004 with author James Bamford
MATTHEWS: Do you think they deluded themselves? Do you think Colin Powell deluded himself? Do you think Rumsfeld deludes himself, Wolfowitz, Feith, the whole gang? Do you think the administration sort of war cabinet. Do you believe all of them, including the president, said, We don‘t really believe this stuff, but we‘re going to force ourselves to believe it to sell this war?
BAMFORD: Well, I think they had planned this war long before the administration came to power. The neocons, particularly at the Pentagon, had dreamed up this plan in 1996 and were trying to give to it Israel, to Benjamin Netanyahu.
MATTHEWS: Yes, it‘s called the clean break...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Right. I know.
BAMFORD: They were working as consultants for him. And it never went anywhere. Netanyahu never did anything with it. And then September 11 came up, and all of a sudden, as one of the members of that group wrote, Crisis is our opportunity.
MATTHEWS: Was that Richard Perle?
BAMFORD: No, that was David Wurmser (ph), who...
MATTHEWS: Oh, Wurmser, Feith and Perle were all in on both, both trying to sell it to Netanyahu...
BAMFORD: That‘s right.
MATTHEWS: ...head of Likud at the time and head of the Israeli government, and also now head -- trying to sell the same package of arguments to us.
BAMFORD: Well, they brought it with them, and they became...
MATTHEWS: Years later.
BAMFORD: ...high officials at the Pentagon, and they‘re the architects of the war.
MATTHEWS: I‘ve read all about it. Thank you for putting a lot of this in the book, James Bamford. The book‘s called "A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America‘s Intelligence Agencies."
---
Philip Weiss is a huge fan of Chris Matthews, see this piece he wrote in August 2006 as the Israel-Lebanon war raged:
I have a fantasy about Chris Matthews. It's the 1980s and the height of the violent "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, and Hardball is on. Matthews goes to political turf he knows well, Irish Boston, and gathers a group of American Catholic activists on air. Then he screws these guys to the wall. He asks them what being Irish-Catholic means to them, he grills them about whether they are sending money to the Sinn Fein or the Provisional IRA. He shows us from the inside out why an American interest group feels as passionately as it does, and how it is heating up a hot zone overseas.
But here's the rest of my fantasy: Matthews does the same thing now, for Jews and Israel. Only this time he isn't gathering Catholic corner boys like himself, he is gathering neocons at think tanks and publications and White House offices.
Chris Matthews should do this because as he now demonstrates nearly every night, he believes (as I do) that devotion to Israel on the part of socially- and politically-empowered hawkish Jews helped to distort our leaders' definitions of American interests. He should stop hinting, and put his money down on the counter. Matthews is probably the smartest guy about politics -- if not ideas -- on air, and if he is holding himself back, it just demonstrates the influence of the Israel lobby. People are afraid to take it on.
Matthews is losing his excuses on this. As it is, night after night, Matthews goes after the Iraq hawks for their deluded Middle East agenda. On Hardball on Friday night he kept shaking his head and saying WHY did they believe this line of nonsense? He seems to have just woken up to the tremendous imposture that Israel-centric right wingers represent.
Matthews's understanding of how policy works is that after 9/11 a group of feverish thinkers, working in conservative magazines and thinktanks, and at Dick Cheney's elbow, took the Administration's thinking by storm. As he has said now, these guys were pounding the drum for removing Saddam way back when, and the realists in the first Bush Administration had the wisdom not to do it.
(snip)
At times, Matthews has accused this Jacobin mob of trying to make the Middle East safer for Israel. And gone about so foolishly, turning the Middle East into a terror incubator. He's worried they're about to double the bet, using Iran.
Then Matthews says that the same deluded thinking has a home in the Democratic party, and is preventing the Dems from being an antiwar party.
MATTHEWS: Here's where I don't get it. If 80 percent of the Democratic party, four out of five Democrats, are totally against us even being in Iraq, it's got to be that one quarter out there, the fund raisers, the more hawkish people. Somebody is putting their thumb on the scale here and stopping Democrats from being Democrats. What is it?
Talk of "fundraisers" is code. Matthews means the Lieberman faction, of hawkish Jews, making up the financial base of the traditional Democratic Party. He should say as much. He should have John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt on air tomorrow, to explain how they think the Israel lobby distorted American policy in the Middle East.
But Walt and Mearsheimer are intellectuals. Matthews is a tough guy from the wards. He knows ethnic politics, he knows about human motivation. He should explore the dream of Israel cultivated in liberal American Jews who have never gone there to see the anti-Arab policies. He should explore the shadow of the Holocaust in American Jewish hearts and how it affects their allegiance to Israel.
Most important, Matthews should put a panel together of influential Jews to ask them about what they did to thwart the Oslo peace process. He should ask Doug Feith why he has a photograph of Herzl on his study wall and how that affects his view of invading Israel's enemey, Iraq. He should ask Elliott Abrams why he believes that Jews stand apart in every society they live in except Israel—Abrams, Bush's Middle East adviser!
read the rest at philipweiss.org
Chris Matthews: Today's Worst. Person. In the World!
"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."
I thought journalism isn't about being right or wrong, it's about reporting the verifiable facts that are available. The stupidy oozes from this comment. He identifies anybody that has their facts in order and made a correct decision a "smartass". Then, when our country is in pain, he'd rather push propaganda and hatred of a whole religion and people.
We were in pain, thus, the million plus Iraqi's that are now dead are kleenex to blow our nose with. This man should be put on trial for treason.
Perhaps if we had a few more "smartasses" who were right all the time and spoke out, our country would never have been hurt by invading Iraq.
I'm not sure you've accurately represented what Matthews was saying during the captured segment.
From what I heard, Matthews was *only* talking about what he felt post-invasion, during the few days during and after Saddam's statue was pulled-down. He seems to be saying that he was glad to have been wrong about the invasion and that the "smart guys, the neo-cons," were right, as demonstrated by the "Sunnis on the run," etc -- implying that he'd been against the invasion.
Matthews is a shallow, insecure, pompous windbag, concerned only for extending his contract, and nothing else; but he provides ample material for which he can be criticized without manufacturing arguments.
tweety is part of the problem...that the media gives a megaphone to liars, morons, and criminals
Is anyone else screaming follow up questions at their viewing device?
Unchallenged bullshit is very hard to watch.
I do it frequently.
I don't think he's saying that he lied about his feelings about the invasion.
When I listened to this, I heard him say that although he thought the invasion was wrong, when he saw that things seemed to be going well, in the early stages, he was not afraid to admit he might have been wrong and that Krauthammer and others might have been right, because it was good for the country for the war to succeed. He's saying that he would rather have been wrong and have something turn out well for the country than wish for failure because that supported what he'd believed. In other words, he was willing to be wrong if it meant things would turn out better. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Is this guy one slimy idiot or what?
I never watch this guy and can't stand to hear his mealy-mouth excuses (or his whiny-ass voice.)
In the early days of Iraq War and the Bush regime, it was blogs like Crooks & Liars that kept me sane while all the idiot "grown up" war mongers and MSM Bush loving suck ups like Tweety-bird Matthews were constantly spewing out their stenography.
Until proven otherwise, I'll continue to be a child of the blogs.
Maybe Chris was just very, very afraid. Before the war when I told people I was against the invasion my friends and coworkers called me a traitor. The only person who had the same opinion I did was a former army major. Go figure.
Yes, Chris, I am sure everything looked bright and cheery after we invaded a country that did us no harm but we created a huge power vacuum with absolutely no plan. What did we think would happen? All those happy people would have been happier if we had toppled Sadaam and left, but that didn't happen. How would you feel, Chris, if some country invaded us for "our own good" and then decided to stay an indefinite number of years. Bet you wouldn't like it, but would you be a patriot and protest the invasion of our country or would you keep mum? I think we know that answer.
msm whore.
Anything to keep his job. Anything to lick up to the players. No soul....just an ambition to keep on pumping out nonsense 24/7.
tweety is pathetic. he doesn't get it AT ALL!! he honestly thinks he is "really something". Just pathetic tweety. you are shit on the sidewalk, and nothing more.
It's because of soulless scum-bucket whores like you that this country is where it is at today. Ass hole!
I am so sick of the unchallanged bullshit that the socalled news puts on.
I wish we had some real news people, real reporters like Helen Thomas who will ask the hard question and go back till she gets the answer.
Since the supremes installed bush/chenny the news stopped and now all we get are idealogs like the insane cokie roberts,george will, pat buchanon, and the new bunch of over paid liars like chuck todd and brian williams. None of these people have any honesty, or honor, or integrity, they are there for the money and fame.
republicanism is a proven mental illness and needs to be treated as such!
Way to go Chris, you are just another poster boy for the MSM's lack of journalistic ethics and integrity.
Guess it was just easier to cop out and be a coward rather than to take the more difficult but rewarding path of telling the truth. Evidentally risk taking is not your strength, is it?
Small wonder that many regard our media as little more than propagandists shilling for the narrow minded and retrograde interests of
the Politborocorporate America.You and your arrogant colleagues really need to clean your act up.
Come back to middle school with me. Chris Matthews is the guy who tries to hang out with the cool kids in the cafeteria during lunch, and mimics them, but doesn't understand what he's doing and further doesn't understand that his incessant posturing is what makes him the target of swirlies. He laughs at the cool kids' jokes at his expense and agrees with everyone that he's a big dildo if that's what gets the girls to laugh and smile in his direction. He buys the same sneakers as the cool kids and expects that acquisition to land him a spot on the varsity football team. He'll use the hidden key to his mom's liquor cabinet and when everyone gets caught he points his fingers at the "friends" who drained the bottles as the ones who are wrong.
He has no self-respect, and therefore will be used in any way the ones in power see fit. He knows it, and he loves it. There is no hope for him; he's basically the class patsy and he derives the most pleasure from the false admiration and sense of belonging he receives when he agrees with the guys that snicker behind his back about the public wedgies he so richly deserves.
I SO would not have hung out with this guy in middle school, college, or at a church bake sale. Fake, stupid, and proud of it.
Got nuthin ta do wit his country.
Mathews is about his own career and avarice. Just like the others who are supposedly objective news reporters. When you pay them big money, they work for the money, not for any altruistic, journalistic ethic. In the process, they were aqccomplices with the government in defrauding us into an illegal invasion which has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
Hey Mathews, I hope your 20 pieces of silver are a comfort to you. We stupid bloggers saw through your lies, and all of the critique you spew out will never stop us.
Sorry about the spelling error.
I think that the minority of commentators here are right -- he is saying that he was against the war, but when it seemed (to him, at least) that things were going well he was willing to admit he had been wrong and maybe the neo-cons had been right about the invasion. He is contrasting that to the "lefties" (as he says) who would never have admitted that the invasion would have been right.
He says that he would be happy to be proven wrong in his opposition to the invasion if it turned out that Saddam had WMDs he was ready to use and the people welcomed the US forces with flowers and thanks. That if the invasion would have turned out to be good for the country he would be happy about being wrong. He thought that is what it looked like for a moment in the early part of the invasion.
You may justifiably hate this point of view and hate Chris Mathews, but it is not the case that this clip shows "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 may not have been authentically against the war, but that is what he is claiming in his conversation with Rose. You can dispute the claim that he was against the war, but that is a different issue than the way that this clip is described.
His actual comments do not match the description in the original post.
He goes whichever way the popular wind is blowing. I stopped watching years ago when he could not stop the Clinton bashing years after they left the White House, but he was one of the last on the bus to start holding the Bush ADM accountable for their lies. He was allowing right-wing pundits to spin to their hearts content w/out holding them accountable. Bloggers called him on this which is why he doesn't like them. I think he blames bloggers for Keith O. leap-frogging him in popularity.
I think the issue might be that some of us just can't see what "went right" about the Iraq war.
Aside from snuff video of Saddam's hanging that can keep Poppy Bush erect for another few years of skull fucking, just what have Americans gotten out of that mess? I see an economy in tatters, dead and wounded Americans coming back in bags and pieces and a mid-east that's even more out of control than it was 8 years ago - including the Taliban.
What was right about it Tweety?
... but just piling on because they don't like Matthews. I'm not crazy about the guy but what he says in this clip is frankly admirable. Well at least part of what he says is.
have thought. It is called moral relativism. If the war was wrong, it was wrong. Even if it went well for us, it would still have been wrong. It's sort of like all those people who kept saying we had to stay to win, "or those who died would have died in vain." If they died in vain, more people dying wouldn't have made their deaths any more just or necessary or glorious. If the war was wrong, those poor guys didn't die for a noble cause because their wasn't any noble cause to die for. They just died for some crazy concept pushed upon them by an immoral government. Moral relativism, as I said before. Chris should know better. He's an educated person. The BS he hands out today doesn't justify his chicken heart.
posing as a commentator
which viewers perceive to be journalism?
most of the asshats anchoring these shows didn't really STUDY journalism.
Yeah...they have degrees...honorary...oh and the Connecticut School of Broadcasting doesn't count either.
Look up their lineage. Most are children of "insiders".
So in essence, any German who might have been wary of the 3rd Reich leading up to say the invasion of Poland could have said "Fuck it" after that, and gone goosesteppin all over the place.
How pathetic. Back in the day when journalism had principles, this type of thing would ruin one's career. Nowadays, he can wear it like a badge to claim "I'm not a liberal" when the wingnuttery comes ater him.
Get out of the news game now Mr. Matthews, please!!!!
...even for a teevee talking head and that is saying something.
And nice show of "maturity", Tweets, taking cheap, stupid shots at people who aren't there to shove your stupid snarks down your throat along with the ol' metaphorical mouthful of teeth.
(egad, that gleeful hand-wringing while talked about his books and movie options. Does it get any more gross?)
I think what he REALLY MEANS is "I'd rather have tons of money from anyone than do the right thing."
Which means he is a cheap whore.
And a traitor to his nation.
And certainly, NO JOURNALIST.
Newspapers and Newsrooms are crapping their pants trying to come up with a way to charge money for their sites. We won't pay it at all. You see, we are NOT interested in their lies (oops: I mean stories). We rather are interested in talking about them and their traitorous behavior.
You pretty much summed up what i was thinking.
When you do something for the wrong reasons it doesn't matter what the out come it is still the wrong thing.
When you back a pack of murdering criminals like the bush cabal it makes you a murdering criminal also.
In legal terms don't they call that being an accessory?
That is what I think old yellow stain is like the rest of the media that backed the bush chenny cabal, accessories!
What is with him portraying bloggers as youngsters who don't have a job? I m about his age, I have a very good job and after this, to me(well... to a certain extent before as well) Chris has no worth as a journalist whatsoever.
The only thing a journalist cannot afford to sacrifice for whatever cause there is, is his honesty and integrity.
...Tweety would go to prison or be executed for aiding and abetting the war criminals Bush, Cheney and the members of PNAC.
I disagree with the opening salvo of this post:
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.
While I don't think that's what Matthews said or did, he does reveal himself to be a narcissitic uneducated loser when he says incredibly insincere bullshit like:
"I wanted to be wrong...and that's why I'm different from the these bloggers who are so cocksure of themselves."
Those who understood the power vacuum created by the lying warmongering Bush Administration were not cocksure, but students of history, of world politics, and not some lucky Washington staffer who ended up on TV pretending to play "hardball" with those who create and affect American opinion.
Matthews is as lame as Tim Russert (RIP) and it's really kind of unfortunate that Charlie Rose coddles rather than crushes the insecure Matthews. When Rose makes one slightly insightful observation about Matthews
"There is this about you...It's like you're not sure about something...
Matthews goes into full-on defensive body language, with arms tightly crossed to protect himself because at the end of the day, it is Chris Matthews, not those bloggers, who is the frightened child holding himself tightly, utterly horrified for a moment that Rose may expose him as the shallow clueless poser he is.
always, a front-runner worshipper. When it was good to be for the war, he was for it. When that changed, in great part due to Keith Olbermann having the guts to call Bush out as a liar.... when that was accepted by a large number of Americans, then and only then, was he fearless enough to start speaking about against the war. Sad. He, who once got that "tingly" feeling listening to W (yech!) couldn't have the courage to let the American people on a the costly fiasco that was and is Iraq. He needs to grow a pair.
Matthews has his flaws, but it's simply NOT true that he cheered for the war in Iraq before it began. He was one of the few people on cable news who was skeptical - and at times VERY skeptical - about WMD, the link w/ Al-Qaeda, the aluminum tubes, and other reasons for war. I watched a lot of coverage and remember this very clearly.
Heather's original post says:
"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."
1) the link she provides leads to NO evidence of Matthews endorsing war with Iraq before we went in (just post-invasion comments in 05-06 where he was kind to war cheerleaders)
2) Heather grossly misinterprets Matthews point in the interview in question. A few people have caught it in the comments, but they've been overrun by Tweety haters. :)
3) I expect more from C&L than the kind of knee-jerk reactions we see on the far right. But Heather is just way off base here. Why is no one discussing the actual post she provided?
Matthews has never been "for the war." But he tries too hard to appear balanced - so he gave Bush credit at the time for his 'flight suit' moment. We on the left think that was ridiculous. Guess what? The far right doesn't remember that - they remember his "tingle up the leg" comment about Obama and claim he's in the tank for the left!
Remember the relentless march to war in 2002, when the country finally said "uncle" and gave Bush/Cheney the OK after they said 'mushroom could'? Very few people had the nerve to say "wait a minute" - this is crazy. Chris Matthews was one of them who did. I was watching TV every night at the time. Please don't bring this weak stuff in here. There are so many other places to criticize him . . .
Okay, on you and a lot of other Chris Matthews apologists on here, I have to call BULLSHIT. Matthews may have been against the war in statement and theory, but in practice he was the head cheerleader. For all his anti-war bombast in 2002 and '03, by 2004 he was very much for the war, for the politicians supporting the war, and attacked anti-war protesters. He used his television show as a tool to stack up neo-conservative war apologists and prop up the Bush team and justify everything that in theory he was supposedly against. Peruse, these are all using his own words in context:
6-16-05 Hardball's Matthews lobbed softballs at Rice
8-24-05 More "Truth Tour" misinformation on Hardball: Williams implied Iraq had WMD when U.S. invaded
11-11-05 Matthews resurrected false claim that Hussein let Sunni fundamentalists "come in for ... training"
1-20-06 Matthews, Gingrich, Hannity, others seize on new bin Laden tape to discredit war critics
3-23-06 Matthews: "How can you not trust" Bush?
5-17-06 Overlooking his own complicity, Matthews criticized "mainstream media" for "continu[ing] to act as if most people support the war"
8-8-06 Matthews suggested Democrats who voted for the war but now criticize it favor "cut and run"
9-12-06 Matthews claimed he has opposed Iraq war "from the beginning," that media coverage of war "sucks" -- but he has frequently contributed to problematic war reporting
10-12-06 Matthews proclaimed "the best critics of this war [in Iraq]" are "smart, grown-up Republicans"
5-7-2008 Matthews takes a pro-war position like his idol Tim Russert
"nutcase" without any question! This man has had serious phsycological malfunctions for years, and more than likely since very early age. He represents the elite to absolute perfection and should not be taken seriously on any account.
The invasion of Iraq has proved to be a total failure for "your country" AND you were wrong for cheerleading the war initially. Oh, as for being a grownup with a job - yeah, you've got one job - analyzing current events- and you can't even get that right despite the millions you get paid. Bloggers work regular jobs, and then they come home to undertake the arduous task of deciphering your bullshit;they do it without pay, book deals, etc. And they have been right way more than you have, Chris, so fuck you!
You were not only wrong, but we failed.
...when grownups say i know it's wrong but it just feels so right, they're not talking about war and illegal imprisonment.
Then why Chris, do you keep on saying that "YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THE WAR FROM THE BEGINNING"?
Remember when you said: "We Are All Neocons Now"! (Carrier Landing)
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2842
Here is just one example of how you have talked on your show ever since the war in Iraq went bad.
Matthews: ‘I Have Been…Against This BS War From The Beginning’
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/21/matthews-...
"Let the truth be told... though the heavens fall!"
Matthews is tough to nail on issues, because he is always changing his tune. In fact, in his last op-ed article for the San Francisco Examiner (9/1/02) he "hates the war that is coming" and calls on us all to oppose it (link is provided). I always suspected that his loyalties were framed not so much on his own conviction, but on helping his new employer (MSNBC) to fan the flames of war for profit.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?fil...
So by him ra-rahing the war, he felt better for his country. What extremem BS.
If you actually watch the tape you'll see that what he meant was something quite different than most of you are assuming. In fact, what he meant was admirable. What he meant -- and it's clear -- is that he'd rather things go well for his country than that his predictions turn out correct. Most of you are interpreting him to mean is that he wants his country to be successful even if what it is doing is not right.
Look, I hate Matthews as much as the rest of you, and he has sinned in many ways. But for god's sake slander is wrong. Read Somerby.
Other than the fact that he's loud, why does he have his own show?
... just argued in favor of not only the very justification for his own immediate termination from MSNBC, but also in favor for the justification of the CEOs, CFOs, and shareholders of MSNBC and it parent companies (including their office freezers and their multiple McMansions) to be raided by the Feds and have its broadcast licenses revoked by the FCC! Make no mistake: by admitting that he himself has no journalistic integrity or ethics whatsoever and knowingly pumped, shilled, and trafficked in the lies and propaganda of The Bush Administration, then neither does HIS EMPLOYER -- MSNBC!!
Remember folks: with the repealing of The Fairness Doctrine and media consolidation and concentration via De-Regulation, this video is a confession of being silent accessories to crime! We now have a press that can't be trusted to do its job (i.e. informing the public) for fear of losing its job (i.e. access to government sources), directly resulting in exactly what we have in this very video: a criminal clap-happy press that simply can't tell the difference between a FREE press and a STATE press -- and therefore becoming a corporate fascist press -- and apparently they could care less, evidenced by actively enabling, rewarding, and gainfully employing people like Chris Matthews!
Under such a nefarious state of affairs, if they're not going to just hire a bunch of "Baghdad Bob" clones and stop bothering with keeping up any sort pretense of their role as Volkisher Beobachter to the great unwashed, then there's only one solution bottom lined in the words of H. L. Mencken: It's time to "raise the black flag and start slitting throats".
Raid their asses!
Suspend/Revoke their broadcasting license. Frog march 'em all in front of a Congressional truth commission to find out what did they know and when did they know it, and start serving the foreclosure notices on their careers, tax cuts, milti-million salaries, mansions, and book deals. Try 'em. Convict them. Cuff 'em. Stuff em, and flush 'em straight down the Potomac with the rest of sewage in both worthless political parties, and replace 'em.
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