Chris Mathews: Dumbest of the Dumbed-Down Cable News Hosts
By Gary Krasner (05/10/07)
I suppose the one advantage of holding a candidates debate that limits the participants to 30-second responses is that the dumbed-down news programs do not have to spend much effort selecting the sound-bites from the debate. The responses were necessarily sound-bites. And who better to host such an event than Chris Mathews, the loudest shouter of the cable news shout-fests that inexplicably pass for news and information today.
I'm referring to the Republican debate of course. There was also a Democratic Presidential candidates debate held on April 26 in South Carolina. In that one, candidates were given a whole 60 seconds to complete their answers to questions by NBC news anchor Brian Williams, and they were not allowed to engage with each other, as if that were even possible in that limited amount of time. Like the GOP debate, the event was heavily and proudly promoted by NBC.
It's not that I could have coached my 12-year old son to sound presidential in such forums. The tragedy is that the mainstream news media take them seriously, thereby accepting this farce as a legitimate means to screen candidates to lead our nation. Consider the hypocrisy of Mathews and his colleagues in the mostly liberal mainstream media: They complain about the electoral process which enables shallow, non-intellects like GW Bush to become president. Yet they accept such forums for broadcast; promote them; and expect us to consider it anything more than entertainment. Unfortunately, too many of us do.
During the week of the aforementioned Republican Presidential sound-bite debate, PBS broadcasted a documentary produced by liberal editorialist Bill Moyers entitled, Buying the War. Moyers intended to show that coverage of the lead-up to the Iraq war was too timid, not critical enough and one-sided in favor of the Administrations view. Ironically, the only way he could make this argument was to produce a one-sided documentary!
The program repeated the same half-truths ones has been hearing from the left. For example, with regards to Saddam's WMDs, Moyers claimed---without citing evidence---that "most had been destroyed." He also validated the supposed effectiveness of the U.N. inspection regime, without acknowledging that there were serious flaws with it, including the many bribes and threats directed at individual inspectors by Saddam, or the fact that the U.N. resolution required Saddam to locate and display where he supposedly disposed of his already-declared WMD stockpiles, and not require the inspectors to hunt for them and discover where they were buried and hid.
Of course Moyers didn't mention that the investigations by Charles Dulfer and David Kay were unequivocal that Saddam was preparing to restore his WMD capabilities, including nuclear, once he succeeded in undercutting the inspection regime with the help of our "allies" whom be bribed through the oil-for-food program. Also not mentioned was that had the coalition forces not invaded Iraq when it had, the North Koreans would have completed a shipment of U.N.-forbidden missiles capable of carrying chemical weapons that Saddam had already paid for.
The issue of the firing of Phil Donahue before the Iraq invasion was another supposed piece of evidence that the news media feared to appear looking too dovish to the public. Moyers quoted from an internal memo from the brass at NBC complaining that "Donahue presents a difficult face." Bear in mind, these are liberal execs discussing their perception of public sentiment. Donahue's low ratings was a consideration Moyers didn't mention. But the fact that Donahue presented a one-hour show each weekday night on MSNBC that was always critical of President Bush, Republicans, the war in Afghanistan, and the prospect of toppling Saddam---all with the inherent boredom of rarely including counterpoint in the discussions---had to be as incidental to execs at NBC as it was to Donahue, and as it seems to be now to Moyers---despite being armed with the advantage of retrospect.
On the same day that I watched this Moyers diatribe from the left, I saw a typical episode of Hardball later that night. There are parallels of the Donahue show to what Chris Mathews' Hardball show has become over the last 5 years: A forum to showcase alleged wrong-doing by the Administration, Administration failures, and of course, Iraq. It's also another discussion show on MSNBC that carries on the Donahue tradition of insularity of viewpoints. (Even the house conservatives---Joe Scarborough, Pat Buchannan, Tucker Carleson---oppose the Iraq war, and no longer even sound like conservatives on other issues.)
And if you had wondered how Mathews could possibly have managed to interrupt those Republican Presidential candidates---right in the middle of their 30-second responses---during that "debate" two weeks ago, you just have to watch an episode of Hardball. If a guest on that show manages to complete a sentence, Mathews feels that person got away with murder; that he was not properly interrogated...errr, interviewed.
While watching Mathews that night wonder---as he often does---why conservatives think and believe certain things, absent of a smart conservative who could easily answer his question, I thought what it would it be like if I were that conservative sitting among his usual panel of liberal or anti-Iraq guests. Maybe my comments will show what an ignorant liberal Mathews is. And thus I came up with this idea: Why don't I just pencil in my name to the MSNBC transcripts of that show, and enter my comments as if I were actually participating in the discussion?
With that in mind, here are a few excerpts from that show's transcripts for April 27th. Remember, the text uttered by the participants that night are real, and they are not responding or acknowledging my comments, because obviously I wasn't really there. But by imagining that I were there, my comments will enable you to see how ignorance has been allowed to flourish in an environment where diversity of opinion and political philosophy is foreign, and apparently unwelcome.
- - - - - transcript begins - - - - - -
Joining us now is Hillary Clinton‘s campaign adviser, Mandy Grunwald. And you advised the candidate because you‘re a communications expert. And because Hillary Clinton did so well last night, congratulations.
MANDY GRUNWALD, CLINTON CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: Thanks very much.
MATTHEWS: What—there‘s a couple of things that separated her, and I will do the cosmetics because everybody gives me trouble for the cosmetics because it is a visual medium. This is not a radio debate. She not only looked elegant, she looked relaxed. Unlike Richard Nixon of 1960, she did not sweat. She did not look like she was surprised by any question. She looked like she had been taken care—cosseted, if you will, on the way down in a private plane, I would be. Whereas the other candidates, poor guys like bill Richardson, flies in, he‘s in the back of my little plane, coming down here. He looked like he had arrived—we saw him having a meeting in the hotel lobby the night before. Hillary was so prepared, so well groomed, so ready—I mean well groomed intellectually. How many days did you put into this?
GRUNWALD: You know, I think the most interesting...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: ... how many days?
GRUNWALD: Just hang with me.
MATTHEWS: All right.
Gary Krasner: C'mon Chris. You don't give up that easily when it's a Republican avoiding your question.
GRUNWALD: The most interesting thing is that the most revealing questions are questions you cannot prepare for. But I thought the most interesting question of the night was the question about how you would deal with a terrorist attack if America was—if two cities in America were attacked, what would you do? There‘s no way we prepared for anything like that. It‘s a hypothetical question. She was—she gave a fabulous answer. I thought she gave the best answer of the night on that...
Gary Krasner: You say one cannot prepare for hypothetical questions?! They're the most common types of questions posed during debates! Especially that most unusual and unexpected question: what would you do if the country was attacked?!
MATTHEWS: The key word was? The key word was?
GRUNWALD: Retaliate.
Gary Krasner: Ah yes, no way she could have been coached to utter that word!
MATTHEWS: Right.
GRUNWALD: The key word...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: The other guys didn‘t have that word...
Gary Krasner: Like perhaps President Bill Clinton? ...Who allowed 8 terrorist attacks on U.S. interests without retaliating, or even uttering the word "retaliate". ...Who barely acknowledged the first Islamist attack on the World Trade Center.
GRUNWALD: ... she was the commander-in-chief...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: The other guy didn‘t have that word in his instinct, did he.
GRUNWALD: Look, You cannot prepare for that in debate prep. You prepare for that in your life. And she came prepared because her life is prepared her for this job. And I thought it was the most revealing moment of the night, and it had nothing do with anything we smart advisers told her to do. It‘s just who she is...
Gary Krasner: Sitting on the Senate Armed Services Committee for one term prepared her to be Commander-in-Chief?!
MATTHEWS: Do you think it was revealing of the other guys‘ performance, too?
GRUNWALD: You know...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: You do this! You lead the—the audience watching right now, Mandy—you‘re such a smart person. You want the audience to think and focus on both candidates‘ reaction to that very good question by Brian and the people that helped to put this together about whether—what you would do when hit—when America is hit, and that‘s what you want to know, how these people will respond.
And your candidate, Mrs. Clinton, Senator Clinton, was able to not only put together the word “prudent,” discovering and determining the adversary involved, using the word “retaliate” to show strength. So in one answer, she used prudence, she used a visceral American reaction of self-defense and retaliation, put it all together. She also did the same kind of thing with Wal-Mart, perhaps a less important question.
GRUNWALD: She lived in the White House for eight years and saw that job as up close as you can see it.
Gary Krasner: And how to use word combinations like "prudent" and "retaliate" to convey imagery, in place of substance.
MATTHEWS: Right.
GRUNWALD: And she‘s a senator from New York and has been dealing with the aftermath of 9/11 for the last seven (SIC) years.
Gary Krasner: She's a federally elected official who commutes from her home in Chappaqua to Washington. It's the New York City Mayor and New York State Governor who have "been dealing with the aftermath of 9/11."
GRUNWALD: She was prepared for that answer. She used those words because she understands what it takes to protect this country. And a big part of what people are going to vote for is who‘s going to keep this country safe in a very dangerous time. And I thought it was an extraordinary question and an extraordinary moment that revealed why she should be president.
Gary Krasner: No, it revealed why she should not be President. You say that by uttering the word retaliate proves that "she understands what it takes to protect this country"? You haven't "protected" the country very well if your only option is to retaliate. Retaliation can only mean that an attack against the U.S. had already succeeded. Senator Clinton should have recognized that salient point and remarked accordingly. But she didn't. No Democrat there had. Because they're still in the defense state of mind, as Rudy had pointed out that week. Waiting for an attack, and then retaliating, comprises the discredited pre-911 strategy of dealing with Muslim terrorists. By contrast, preemption and prevention is the correct post-911 strategy. Not even Hilary got that question right, with all the coaching she was given.
MATTHEWS: And you didn‘t think of it beforehand?
GRUNWALD: No.
MATTHEWS: You didn‘t practice that one.
GRUNWALD: Absolutely not.
Gary Krasner: Oh sure! What would you do if terrorists attacked the U.S.? THAT had to have been a total surprise question for Hilary!
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you...
(CROSSTALK)
GRUNWALD: ... tell you we were smart enough to, but we weren‘t.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, did you do like Jack Kennedy did back in ‘60 in his debate with Richard Nixon—and I‘ve written about it. Did you sit in a room with flash cards and test her to get her ready for this?
GRUNWALD: I‘m not going to go through all the details of the process...
MATTHEWS: Why?
GRUNWALD: Because I don‘t talk about that kind of stuff. But yes, you know, she was prepared. Sure. Absolutely.
MATTHEWS: Did you drill?
GRUNWALD: Chris...
MATTHEWS: I mean, just generally. Did you drill?
GRUNWALD: Did we give her a sense of the kinds of questions that we thought Brian would ask and get her prepared for what we thought was to come? Absolutely.
Gary Krasner: Uh huh, so Senator Clinton is prepared for leadership through experience she never had, and was ready for all the tough questioning through coaching and practice sessions she never received?
MATTHEWS: Who played Brian?
GRUNWALD: Sorry.
(LAUGHTER)
- - - - - - - - - - - - snip - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Resuming later in the show, and following commercial break:
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. Who made the most news in Thursday‘s Democratic debate? Who succeeded in not making any news? Roger Simon is chief political columnist for politico.com where you can send your questions right now for the MSNBC/politico.com Reagan Library GOP—a lot of words there, GOP presidential candidates debate that is coming up this Thursday. And Craig Crawford is a columnist for the Congressional Quarterly and an MSNBC political analyst.
Craig and Roger, first of all, right across the boardwalk, looking at the whole think last, what mattered last night? I mean, a month from now or six months from now what will matter?
CRAIG CRAWFORD, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: I will say up front this is a micro point that a lot of viewers probably didn‘t get into but I got into it, is I thought Hillary‘s response on the twin attacks on the U.S., her instinctive response that.
MATTHEWS: Retaliation.
CRAWFORD: . that she would retaliate, prudent retaliation, which I think is an interesting doctrine.
MATTHEWS: If we can discover who was the perp.
Gary Krasner: Yes, just like before 911, when we tried these illegal combatants in article 3 civilian courts.
CRAWFORD: Yes. But prudent retaliation is an interesting doctrine.
MATTHEWS: As opposed to just going to Iraq and blowing up a country.
Gary Krasner: Err, Chris, I think it's the jihadists who are "blowing up the country and killing Iraqis."
CRAWFORD: As opposed to preemptive strike.
MATTHEWS: Right.
Gary Krasner: Right guys, because why prevent an attack and mass killings through preemption when you can always retaliate after the attack has succeeded?!!
CRAWFORD: I thought she .
MATTHEWS: She put it all together.
CRAWFORD: I though she enunciated a Hillary Clinton doctrine.
Gary Krasner: Better still, a "Clintonesque doctrine."
MATTHEWS: And the other fellow, Barack, didn‘t do that because he talked about homeland defense and first responders.
CRAWFORD: Yes. And he initially didn‘t show the instincts for—the political instincts for how to answer that question.
Gary Krasner: Yes, he clearly spoke his heart as a true multilateralist, UN-worshipping, weeny. How can he possibly beat the "political instincts" of that calculating ice queen?!
ROGER SIMON, POLITICO.COM: I thought what mattered beyond individual performances, and much more important for the Democratic Party at this point, was to demonstrate to the American people that you could look at this group and say, we could find a president here who will protect the country, get us back on the right track and that we can be proud of.
Gary Krasner: "Back on track" to the pre-911 days when waiting to be attacked---albeit this time we retaliate---is the way Democrats wish to go.
ROGER SIMON: And that‘s what the Democrats have to sell now before we pick an individual Democrat. And we will see next week at your debate whether the Republicans present the same image as a group.
MATTHEWS: You know what I was impressed by, and I don‘t think everybody has thought about this yet, even though a lot of these people are people we know pretty well, including Hillary Clinton, it had something of the turning over of the pillow, something new. There was a fresh piece to it.
If John Kerry had been on that platform again, I don‘t think it would have been the same feel. It would have been a feel of, oh, we have been here before. The establishment is here. I think even if Al Gore had been there, it would have been the same thing.
They were relatively new faces to this business. Even Biden, even though he has been around, 20 years ago he ran, I just thought it had a fresh look at the new—and also the calibrations, I thought, was great. That you could go all the way to the left if you wanted to with Gravel, almost that far with Kucinich, a bit in further with Obama, and then you could work your way through Biden, and you could move yourself to the more moderate people like Biden and Hillary.
Gary Krasner: Indeed, we saw the total appeasers. We also saw the one's who will ask the UN permission to retaliate. And of course Hilary, who will retaliate with prudence. Always with prudence, which is what playing defense is essentially all about.
SIMON: I think they were all smart, they were all quick, they got it. I mean, you can go to the individual performances and make legitimate criticisms and say this wasn‘t what it should have been, this should have been better, but as group they showed I thought that they were tough and smart.
Gary Krasner: And well-rehearsed with their one minute responses.
CRAWFORD: I thought it was so cool that the way they drew the straws that Hillary and Obama were right there in the center.
MATTHEWS: Wasn‘t that wild?
CRAWFORD: That was amazing.
MATTHEWS: That was wild. What did you make of.
(CROSSTALK)
CRAWFORD: People probably don‘t believe that is—that was the.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Lets give Obama some credit, when he was asked about mistakes he has made, he said holding back and not challenging the intervention with the Schiavo case. That was an interesting novelty, I thought, Craig. He jumped on that.
CRAWFORD: I don‘t know if that was something he thought about before or if he was just thinking on his feet with that answer, I would love to know.
Gary Krasner: Oh, how could he have possibly have anticipated such a novel question at a debate as, "can you describe a mistake that you made?"!!
MATTHEWS: But I thought it was a great message to the average suburbanite, regular American saying, stay out of our family affairs.
Gary Krasner: Ah yes, further proof it was a candid, unrehearsed response!!
- - - snip - - - - -
- - - - - transcript ends - - - - - -
So as not to subject conservatives to too much of this nonsensical discussion, I limited this demonstration to just the above two brief excerpts. But it's sufficient to show what an insufferable moron Mathews is, and an example of how the show has become an exercise in mutual masturbation for Democrats. Of course you'll never hear the likes of me, or anyone else with a brain, debating Iraq and terrorism on Hardball. And if Mathews' Hardball was held to the same standards that existed for Phil Donahue---low ratings and boring one-sided commentary---the show would have been cancelled long ago.
Who knows, maybe Mathews lost too many brain cells from his drinking days? In possible future installments about him, I may display past transcripts of Hardball over the years.
They exist as monuments, both to his stupidity, and to his partisan bullying.
Gary Krasner
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