Chris Matthews rips 'rich kid', 'tabula rasa' Bush and the neocons after farewell address

[camera obscura]

Run time: 04:03 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j3Dvvw2x8U   Posted on YouTube: January 16, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: January 16, 2009 By DU Member: camera obscura Views on DU: 3224

 
Transcript (via NewsBusters, heh):

The scary thing about the last eight years is that George Bush, whatever you think of him, came to office pretty much tabula rasa in terms of philosophy. He didn’t have much. He was a rich kid driving his father’s car. He got to be President because of his father, let’s face it, the same way he got into school and everything else, the same way he got his car probably. But the scary thing about Bush is somewhere he came to meet people like Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby and Paul Wolfowitz and Feith and the rest of them. They had this ideology that he bought in to, this ideology that somehow the United States in waging war and taking over countries somehow was fighting for freedom, and somehow in doing so we would encourage a moderation in the Arab world. Well, history would have taught him, and I know he just put down history by quoting Jefferson which was unfair to Jefferson, history would have told him that in the Arab world, it’s the Arab street, it’s the regular people out there, the vast population in numbers, who oppose the state of Israel, who have always been radicalized. It’s been the leaders that you could deal with, the potentates, the kings we set up over there, the British did, the people that were propped up with oil wealth. We could deal with those people, but the minute the street had a hand in the politics over there, it was radical.

Look what happened under him. Algeria had a chance at radical politics, and look what we got there, a bit of, a taste of that. Hamas elected on the West Bank, that did a great deal for peace-making in the Middle East. The election of Ahmadinejad. The idea that somehow the mechanical nature of holding elections, somehow moderates a country. He said it again in his speech tonight that somehow elections and democracy and freedom lead to a moderation on the part of these people. Well, these people have a problem in the Middle East. They want to fight. They don’t like Israel. They don’t like the West. There’s a real seething anger over there towards the West. We better start to figure it out instead of retreating to these notions that he’s been carrying around with him ever since he met Dick Cheney and the neo-conservatives.

I go back to this. The scary thing about Bush is he picked up on -- almost in the way that a hermit crab does -- another identity in becoming President. He didn't have a book knowledge to come to the White House with, having ignored and made fun of at college the pointy heads, he called them, or the intellectuals. He made fun of the smart kids at school and hung around with the jocks.

He decided he’s going to start listening to the intellectuals, so he said this Paul Wolfowitz is such a smart guy, let's go with this neo-conservative idea, let's go into Iraq. He listened to Dick Cheney, he listened to the rest of them. And, all of a sudden, he became this new scholar of freedom, and he's going to spend the rest of his life selling this stuff. This stuff cost the lives of 100,000 Iraqis, it cost the lives of 4,000 U.S. service people, and we don’t know what’s coming around the corner in Iraq. The Brits took over that part of the world and turned it into a series of monarchies. We’ve taken over and we supply it with our ideology. Well, we’ll see if it lasts because, in the end, the Arabs are going to have their own culture, their own politics, and down the road, we’re going to have to make peace with the elements we can find to make peace with.

The idea that we have some brand new neo-conservative ideology of freedom that's going to bring peace over in that part of the world is not true, and he's still selling it, and that's the tragedy of the last eight years. He's learned the wrong lessons, and he's out there selling them again tonight.

[Old and In the Way]

1. Damn...this would have kicked ass in 2002.

The barn door has long been open and the animals are nowhere in sight.

[Auggie]

2. FUCK YOU MATTHEWS --

You knew about this back in 2002 and didn't lift a finger to stop it. You knew. You have the deaths of 4000 Americans hanging over your heads as much as Bush, Cheney and the rest of them.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

6. Yeah of course he knew he knew all along

and said nothing. It wasn't politically correct to do so at least in his mind and all the other villagers. Now that Obama and the Dems are in power it is politically viable for them to say things like this.

[camera obscura]

11. He wrote it in his column, but everyone was prohibited from speaking ill on MSNBC then

same with other anti-war pundits such as Pat Buchanan (who opposed the war on isolationist values, but nonetheless couldn't talk about it)

[bahrbearian]

14. Matthews quote "we're all neocon now"

During chimpys Mission Accomplised Parade "Look at that swagger, the women love that" Not just the women right Tweety?

[driver8]

19. "Look at that swagger"...

Tweety got his panties in a bunch over that one.

That swagger made me want to puke.

[Auggie]

16. If the guy had balls he would have resigned

and made real issue of it. He's a major player and would have been listened to. Others might have jumped on the bandwagon. Including Congress.

[driver8]

18. He had his head up chimpy's ass for so long...

I cannot take anything this POS says, seriously.

[Xipe Totec]

3. The only American President ever to belong to the Menso club n/t

[ejbr]

7. That or the

Mens 'doh! club.

[Xipe Totec]

17. I think the term 'menso' is more direct, dont you?

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/menso

[ejbr]

26. Oh! Foolish or stupid!. You got it!! n/t

[lostnotforgotten]

4. Where O Where Was This Commentary Before Now - DU Has Been Saying This For Years!

eom

[Stardust]

5. True, Matthews could have said this long before now, but it was still a great rant.

[Stevepol]

8. Right on the money. I think he's got Bush's psychology dead to rights.

[Piewhacket]

9. Chris has been holding that in for awhile...

good to see it finally get out.

[Moonwalk]

10. It was a good rant, but I have serious disagreements with it--

Matthews argues that Bush came under the thrall of NeoCons and honestly believes that democracy will save the world. I think this is generous to Bush. It's quite clear from Bush's record that what Bush really came under was both a religious thrall, and his own faith in himself and his record of greedy, selfish, personal success. Time and again he became manager of something and ran it into the ground while enriching himself and his friends. Then he would bail, leaving the ship to sink. This was his history, and he's done the same thing all over again. Anyone with eyes could see it coming from the 2000 election. There is nothing to suggest that he was a jock who became enamored of "scholars" who happened to be NeoCons. He merely did what he always did, only this time with the NeoCons to help him get away with it.

Putting it another way: Bush did not try to free these places from tyrants and put in democracy to make these regions more like America and more peaceful; he put in Democracies in the hope of getting his own puppet president elected--and enrich his buddies in the process by giving them the military contracts and such. The puppet president would then create a alliance with the U.S. and let us rape such regions for their resources or use them for military advantage. The aim, in short, was not to give anyone the blessing of democracy. It was to make these places NeoCon pets and corporate piggy banks. They would jump when we said jump, vote anyway we told them to vote, let our companies build and run their infrastructure and make all the money--tax free, of course. Give us the most favorable trade. This was Bush's far less admirable and far more sinister aim.

I guarantee you if Saddam had been America's best friend, selling oil only to the U.S., and doing everything the U.S. wanted, he would have never been tossed out for a faux democracy. I think Matthews let Bush off easy, and with far too much credit in regards to Bush intentions or goals in regards to anything. This man, who swore on a Bible to uphold the constitution and serve the people of the U.S. fucked over everyone for his own gain and that of his buddies. He is not only the worst president in history, but he most reprehensible.

[bahrbearian]

15. Word ,Moonwalk Word

Tweety is jealous of Jeff Gannon.

[Jefferson23]

23. Well stated and I agree. I don't find that even Wolfowitz is motivated

by any particular ideology either, unless you refer to opportunism as an ideology. Power and money, that is what Matthews should have stated as the foundation of their foreign policy.

[ooglymoogly]

12. Will the real Chris Mathews please stand up.... Who is the real Chris Mathews?;

Wherever the political winds take him, even if that is off the edge of the reality. Now that his "Real Deal" president has disastrously flopped, he is trying to catch the winds of a new wave and he has to justify his past support of the ghastly failure by making of * a basically decent intelligent guy worthy of support; Who was led astray, another balloon waiting to burst. * is evil through and through and did not need bad guys to fall in with. He was one of them even before he was governor and the plot was hatched to make him president and carry out their evil schemes by way of first getting him elected governor and by way of being his fathers son.

[BeyondGeography]

13. "Where did we find this sudden scholar?"

I love that he brings it all back to Chimpy's fatal and fundamental inadequacies.

[Moonwalk]

20. The quote would've worked better if it wasn't from Henry V referring to Henry V--

Who, as we scholars all recall, turns out to be a kick ass leader, winning the war and putting all those French nobles who mocked him to shame. If Matthews is going to quote Shakespeare in order to indicate that Bush was a puppet scholar and failure, then he really need to pick a quote that referenced a different and more apt character. There are plenty of characters in Shakespeare who think and pretend that they are smarter than they are. Matthews, himself, would seem to be a "sudden" scholar is this is the best quote he could find for Bush. No Henry V Bush even if, like Henry V, he started a war for no good reason. At least Henry won.

[tclambert]

22. MacBeth might be more apt, methinks.

Cheney as Lady MacBeth?

Here's a quote you might like:

"Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief." --Angus, Act V, scene ii

And of course, all DUers had this feeling when Bush took office, (or whenever Cheney walked by):

"By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes."

[Moonwalk]

24. Oh, Bravo! The Scottish Play, yes! Very apt.

Let's see: Stealing the crown, yes, yes, Bush did that. Driving all the good people away? Yes, yes. Walking, as Macbeth puts it, so far into a river of blood that he there's no backing out of it...that works...and ending up, as you rightly quoted with subjects who:

"...move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief." --Angus, Act V, scene ii

Cheney as Lady M. Would be perfect, except I don't think he has a guilty enough conscience to end up going mad and constantly washing his hands or throwing himself to his death. Pity. How about Karl Rove as the drunk gatekeeper, joking, quite rightfully, about how he's guarding the gates of hell?

"A tale told by an idiot,
Full of Sound and Fury,
Signifying...nothing."

I think that's the perfect coda for the Bush administration.

[Stardust]

25. Wow, Moonwalk, where have you been keeping yourself? Your posts are spot on.

[enuegii]

27. You have ruined my day...

the image of Dick Cheney in drag as Lady MacBeth is something more than creepy...

[DutchLiberal]

21. "These people [in the Middle East] like fighting."

Yeah, sure, Chris, that's it. That's the only logical explanation.

This guy has supported the same neocon policies he now condemns, for the last 8 years. So why people on the left are praising him now is beyond me.