And to do so in a revisionary manner. This is Chris Matthews who openly and publicly gushed and lusted over Bully Boy Bush. In fact, we may need to give Chris Matthews some sort of credit because I do believe he's the first man on television to openly lust after a sitting president.
This happened over and over but most infamously after Bully Boy Bush posed under the banner "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" when nothing was accomplished and the Iraq War would continue and continue. Media Matters noted some of Chris Matthews' 2003 gushing in 2005:
We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like [former President Bill] Clinton or even like [former Democratic presidential candidates Michael] Dukakis or [Walter] Mondale, all those guys, [George] McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits. We don't want an indoor prime minister type, or the Danes or the Dutch or the Italians, or a [Russian Federation President Vladimir] Putin. Can you imagine Putin getting elected here? We want a guy as president.
Joining Chris Matthews in flirting with coming out of the bisexual closet, convicted felon G. Gordon Liddy.
MATTHEWS: What do you make of this broadside against the USS Abraham Lincoln and its chief visitor last week?
LIDDY: Well, I -- in the first place, I think it's envy. I mean, after all, Al Gore had to go get some woman to tell him how to be a man. And here comes George Bush. You know, he's in his flight suit, he's striding across the deck, and he's wearing his parachute harness, you know -- and I've worn those because I parachute -- and it makes the best of his manly characteristic. You go run those -- run that stuff again of him walking across there with the parachute. He has just won every woman's vote in the United States of America. You know, all those women who say size doesn't count -- they're all liars. Check that out. I hope the Democrats keep ratting on him and all of this stuff so that they keep showing that tape.
Again, I do believe that's a first. The sexual drooling over a sitting president by two men who had been assumed to be heterosexual.
In 2006, Media Matters also catalogued some of Chris Matthews' efforts to sell the illegal war:
- As Media Matters noted, Matthews was chief among the cheerleaders when Bush delivered a nationally televised speech from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, in which he declared that "[m]ajor combat operations in Iraq have ended," all the while standing under a banner reading: "Mission Accomplished." Despite lingering questions over the continued violence in Iraq, the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction, and the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein, Matthews fawned over Bush: "He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics. ... He looks for real. ... [H]e didn't fight in a war, but he looks like he does. ... We're proud of our president. ... Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president."
- On the January 31, 2005, edition of Hardball, while praising that month's Iraqi election, Matthews falsely claimed that no insurgent attacks had occurred at polling places on Election Day. In fact, attacks on Iraqi polling places were widely reported during the January 30 elections.
- Before Bush had even delivered his November 30, 2005, speech at the U.S. Naval Academy laying out a "Strategy for Victory in Iraq," Matthews used variations of the word "brilliant" twice to describe it, while deriding Democratic critics of the Iraq war as "carpers and complainers." Media Matters noted at that time that Matthews's over-the-top praise for Bush included his claim that "[e]verybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs" and his statement that Bush sometimes "glimmers" with "sunny nobility."
- On the December 16, 2005, edition of Hardball, Matthews stated, "If [Bush's] gamble that he can create a democracy in the middle of the Arab world" is successful, "he belongs on Mount Rushmore."
- On the July 31 edition of Hardball, Matthews stated that if Democratic critics recognize that Bush made a "smart decision" to invade Iraq, then Bush "deserves to have a place in history" because "[y]ou can't say he did the right thing but he didn't quite do it right."
- During a roundtable discussion about the August 8 Democratic senatorial primary in Connecticut, Matthews accused Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) of having employed a "bob and weave" with her position on the Iraq war, contrasting her with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-CT), who Matthews said "hasn't cut and run." In doing so, Matthews adopted the terminology employed by the Bush administration, and repeated by many in the media, to attack Democratic critics who have called for a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq -- a position polls show most Americans support.
- In recent months, Matthews and his guests on Hardball and the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show have repeatedly gushed over McCain and Giuliani as potential presidential candidates in 2008, even though both have been supporters of the war and Bush. For example, Matthews stated on the May 10 edition of Hardball that he was "still hanging in there for a McCain-Giuliani ticket."
Since MSNBC began exploring a leftward move and since the Iraq War was tanking (and had been for over a year by the time Chris tried to walk away from it), Matthews likes to pretend he was against the Iraq War. As Peter Hart (FAIR) pointed out in 2010, the MSNBC host against the Iraq War was Phil Donahue and Donahue was fired for that but, as Hart explained, more than just that, Chris Matthews went to MSNBC and GE management and made it clear he wanted Donahue off MSNBC because of Phil's stance against the war.
Last night, Chris Matthews again wanted to pose as the voice against the war -- here for transcript and a video to a segment on last night's show.
The segment's apparently his closing thoughts and it's hilariously entitled "Let Me Finish." If you've never seen Chris, you may not get that joke. Chris pioneered yelling, screaming and other means of cutting off a guest in mid-sentence. The only one who ever gets to finish is Chris (and that's probably true in other areas of his life -- he is both rushed and selfish and that tends to translate into the bedroom, doesn't it?).
And what did he want to finish on last night?
The Kagans, Fred and Kimberly. Refer to Rajiv Chandrasekarn's "Civilians analysts gained Petraeus's ear while he was commander in Afghanistan" in yesterday's Washington Post. Matthews pontificating included:
Why are they on the inside of an administration elected based on its opposition to the Iraq war? I am one of those who believed from square one that the war in Iraq was an ideological war pushed from the outset by those who wanted us to overthrow the Iraq government and install ourselves in Baghdad. They got their way under a less-than-informed President, George W. Bush.
Well, first off, is he unaware of all the hawks "inside of an administration" currently. Victoria Nuland isn't just Fred and Kim's sister-in-law. She married their brother Robert Kagan, so she is that. But she's also Dick Cheney's former Deputy National Security Advisor. She held that post before and after the start of the Iraq War. She is not in opposition to her husband or her in-laws, she is a War Hawk. And what is she today?
She is the spokesperson for the US State Dept and Chris seems unaware of that. Susan Rice refused to stand against the illegal war and, as we noted in "The Unqualified Susan Rice," she declared that Colin Powell had made the case for the war in his lie-filled speech to the United Nations that he now calls "a blot" on his record.
Until recently there was War Hawk and Cheerleader Michele Flournoy who served in the current administration as Under Secretary of Defense (and who is still on the short list of names to replace Leon Panetta as Secretary of Defense).
So how stupid is Chris?
Chris Matthews is pretty stupid. But what he's really hoping is that the audience is even more stupid --and since they watch MSNBC prime time, maybe they are.
Chris thinks he can get away with lying and revisionary tactics because MSNBC has.
It's not a liberal station. It is a propaganda outlet for the government. It was that under Bush. When it became clear that any Democrat would win the presidency in the 2008 race (around the middle of 2007), MSNBC began their big shift to the faux left.
And the same Chris Matthews who provided America with 'manly' talk about Bully Boy Bush's crotch transferred that slobbering onto Barack Obama. As The Huffington Post noted in a brief item in March 2008, having already cried at the 'beauty' of a speech Barack gave and likened Barack to Jesus Christ, Chris had to share -- on air -- what happened to him when Barack spoke, "My -- I felt this thrill going up my leg." Barack gave him the tingles. It was as though he were about to hit puberty and had just ridden his first horse. Could someone explain those feelings to Chris?
Chris Matthews applauded and cheerleaded the Iraq War until months and months of polling demonstrated that the American people had turned against the war. At which point, he began declaring in 2006 that he had been against the war and spoke out and did his job and all this other crap that is just not true.
But people watch him so he must be right that he's not the stupidest person in the world. People watch him and believe him and never feel the need to say, "Hey, I seem to recall Chris being for the war."
He sold the illegal war beginning in the fall of 2002 up until 2006.
He is a suck up to power. He does today what he did when Bush was riding high, slobber and spit polish the knob of the man in the Oval Office. And some people apparently find that entertaining. Me, I've never been into watching porn.
The following community sites -- plus Antiwar.com, Jody Watley, Adam Kokesh, Dissident Voice, The Diane Rehm Show, Chocolate City, Susan's On the Edge, Black Agenda Report, Pacifica Evening News, KPFK and NYT's At War blog -- updated last night and this morning:
Okay, we're having some editing problems this morning. To make sure Senator Murray's press release doesn't leap to the side of the page as it's doing currently, I'll just grab a few e-mails and comment here on them. (Everything after the links above and before the Murray press release was added after this went up.) Yesterday's "World Can't Wait goes completely nuts" prompted many e-mails, no surprise. One person wondered why I even wrote about it?
I was stunned by the news of the protest. To reconstruct, I'm finishing the first entry and working on the second and flipping from screen to screen to go to my e-mails, to go to the e-mail account for community members to go to the public account for visitors and I see the e-mail about a protest. It's Debra Sweet. I love Debra and she's a very strong advocate for many important issues. So I figure we can toss it at the end of the first morning entry and get that up. Just a copy and paste.
So I do the first sentence (that is the first sentence still of the entry from yesterday) and I'm getting the details. It's Kathryn Bigelow's film. I consider Kathryn a friend. But I don't play gate keeper. (And being accused of doing so usually gets anything at all noted here, if you haven't already noticed that.) So there's a protest of Kathryn's film, not the end of the world. Not anything I'll participate in, but I'll put the info up. There's a politician that's been trashed a few weeks ago at other sites. It had nothing to do with Iraq so I didn't weigh in. And I thought, as I chose the non-community links to include on those mornings, "You know, I still care for him. We had a very long affair. And I'm really not happy including these links." But I did. I tried to be fair. Even though I disagreed with what the linked material (including headlines) were saying.
And the left is not monolithic and we can disagree. On issue of war and peace, I'm less tolerant of disagreements. But I'm getting the details to include them in a heads up for Debra's protest when I see that she hasn't seen the film.
Now get that I like Kathryn and I think a great deal of the attacks on her are gender based. But I'm trying to be fair and I'm going out of my way to note a protest against the film (that feels like a protest against Kathryn). And then I get to the fact that Debra hasn't seen the film?
I'm trying to be fair but Debra's organizing a protest against a film she hasn't seen?
I have held my friends accountable here, I have held two lovers accountable here. (And I don't make a point to disclose "We used to f**k" because it's not anyone's business. It gets the same generic "I know and like ____" that any other disclosure here gets.) Not just linked to material calling them out, I have called out two men I slept with, called them out for nonsense to do with the Iraq War. Called them out loudly. Didn't want to. Wasn't thrilled about it. But I knew ethically, I had to.
So when I'm going out of my way to be as ethical as I can be and someone else thinks it's okay to organize a protest against a film they haven't even bothered to see?
Screw that. Sorry, I love Debra but she's dead wrong to have done that. And, as an artist, I don't support it. In the last years, especially since 2008, we've seen how unethical so many people are. (And I'm not calling Debra unethical, to be clear. But that was a stupid thing to do: Protest something before you've seen it.) I've seen pundits whore, I've seen politicians whore, I've seen the supposed peace movement whore. Everything has lost meaning and value except friendship and art. Those are the only two things you can honestly count on. And I take an attack on art very seriously.
And let me join Kat in decrying the efforts of Senators Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and John McCain to get a studio to alter a director's vision. I don't care if you like the film or like the director, those three senators crossed a very serious line yesterday and they need to be called out.
Okay, hopefully that's enough space and this may run all over but the Murray press release will be in one piece and not float over to the side.
Senator Patty Murray is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and her office notes:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, December 20th, 2012
Contact: Murray Press Office
(202) 224-2834
GI Bill
Watchdog Legislation Passes Senate
Bill will provide
servicemembers and veterans using the Post-9/11 GI Bill, and other VA education
programs, with resources to make informed education decisions
WASHINGTON, D.C. –
Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs’
Committee, released the following statement after the U.S. Senate passed
legislation giving servicemembers and veterans access to information to help
them make informed decisions about schools in order to get the most out of VA
education benefits. Chairman Murray worked with House and Senate Members,
veterans groups, and higher education stakeholders to develop legislation
that would require VA to develop a
comprehensive policy to improve outreach and transparency to veterans and
members of the Armed Forces through the provision of information on institutions
of higher learning.
“The Post-9/11
GI Bill has offered tremendous opportunity to so many veterans since it was
passed in 2008,” said Chairman
Murray. “But like any benefit,
we need to constantly monitor and improve on it to ensure that our veterans are
getting the treatment that they deserve. I am grateful my colleagues in the
Senate have joined me in supporting a bill that is designed to ensure our
veterans have the facts to make informed decisions about the school they will
attend. We can’t allow them to get anything less than the full potential of this
benefit – because so much is riding on it.”
“The VFW has
worked diligently for the last year, building consensus among veterans’ groups
and education advocates to ensure that we arm our student-veterans with quality
consumer information and consumer protections when they seek to use their earned
G.I. Bill benefits,” said VFW
Executive Director Bob Wallace.
“We’re proud to see that the Senate has taken this issue seriously by passing HR
4057, and we thank Sen. Murray for continuing to serve as a vocal advocate for
our veterans.”
"IAVA is
pleased by the Senate's passage of HR 4057," said Tom Tarantino, the chief policy officer fo2834r Iraq
and Afghanistan Veterans of America,
the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization representing veterans
of Iraq and Afghanistan. "This bill will help ensure that veterans using the
GI Bill will have the tools and consumer protections that they need to make the
best choice for their educational future."
"This bill is
another result of the House and Senate working together -- across party lines --
to have the backs of new veterans. IAVA would like to thank Rep. Gus Bilirakis,
Rep. Jeff Miller and Sen. Patty Murray for their leadership and their hard work
to ensure that every veteran who uses the GI Bill will continue to have the
opportunity at a first class future," Tarantino added.
The bill will now
move on to the House of Representatives.
###
Kathryn
Robertson
Specialty Media Coordinator
Specialty Media Coordinator
Office of U.S. Senator
Patty Murray
448 Russell Senate
Office Building
Washington D.C.
20510
202-224-2834
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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