Chris Matthews

A friend writes:

Did you by any chance see hardball yesterday? I have no use for Chris Matthews, though I know you like him, but last night was over the top.

He had one of those swift boat guys against Kerry on, and while I initially thought that movement was nonsense, I think now they have to be addressed as serious men with serious allegations. I suppose there is a fear of backlash, [My wife] feels this way, but those guys have incorporated themselves in such a way as to make themselves personally accountable in a libel suit, and more over, unlike most dirt-bag campaign stuff, this is all footnoted and sourced. There are no anonymous charges.

Instead of holding a debate he used his time to pillory the swift boat guy and claim Kerry did more that Bush ever did. I'd like to see Matthews, or Gore or Kerry for that matter, qualify to fly fighter jets, even if only for the lowly National Guard. It's also obvious that if Kerry is going to report for duty we have an obligation to be sure he is fit for duty.

Lying about his service disqualifies him. As to the charges, who knows. There certainly are more lined up against him than support him and apparently you didn't have to be on his boat to be working alongside of him, so these opinions have to be reckoned with. Just what Kerry will admit to is troubling enough.

How does a guy get three purple hearts without missing a day of work? How does an injury treated with one single band-aid qualify someone for a purple heart? How does a Christmas memory of a river trip into Cambodia sear itself on the brain, providing years worth of fodder for speeches, and then become a fuzzy "oh yeah, it must have been January when I was in Cambodia?"

Chris Mathews has been working the "Bush lied" and "Bush was AWOL" angle for months and now when there is credible evidence that Kerry might be the liar, as was Hero Joe Wilson, all Matthews can do is cloud the debate with personal invective and stonewalling for the DNC.

Kerry didn't need to send anyone to defend him at all, Mathews was only too happy to do it himself. So, to use language the blog won't allow, fuck that guy and fuck Kerry too. The two of them kept me up last night and I can't abide that.

Man, I have been trying to recruit this guy as a blogger for years (and look, I just did!) He's dead on. To answer him publicly: I used to watch "Hardball" religiously. That's not a metaphor, it was my religion. Since the Iraq war and the great neocon cabal, I have tuned out It is a shame because he is/was a great host. He has a love of politics, keen insights from his years with Speaker O'Neill and President Carter, and from reading his books I know he has a great love of country. He is a liberal patriot without question. I know he's not the only, but he is one of the clearly disambiguous.

But he has, if I can slip into medical jargon, "completely wigged out." National Review had a nice piece on him an issue or two ago saying the same thing.

Past that, it is not just Chris Matthews. The "Christmas in Cambodia" charge needs to be addressed. The blogosphere is all over it but the mainstream media is AWOL in a funny way they weren't AWOL about unexplained interstices in the President's National Guard record. And that was pure "gotcha journalism;" Senator Kerry's Cambodian Christmas is a part of his politics and a part of his biography because he chose it.

We haven’t had much serious posting about the SwiftVets around here. Other outlets are doing a great job. But as an example of media bias, that favorite Berkeley Square Blog whipping boy, it is non-pariel!

UPDATE: Instapundit is on the "Hardball" case. They have doctored the transcript to make Matthews look less unhinged. Glen sez: "Kerry may or may not win the election, but he's going through Big Media credibility like a wrecking ball along the way."

Posted by jk at August 13, 2004 08:43 AM