Chris Matthews Revises History on His Opposition to the Iraq Invasion...

[babylonsister]

Chris Matthews Revises History on His Opposition to the Iraq Invasion During his 'Let Me Finish' Segment
By Heather
Video at link~


Chris Matthews apparently thinks that no one is going to go back and look at the things he actually said when he had a chance to speak out about the United States invading Iraq after watching this bit of revisionist history in his "Let Me Finish" segment on Hardball.

Media Matters' Eric Boehlert wrote a piece for Salon back in 2006 which is an excerpt from his book Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush. I thought I'd share some of what he wrote about Chris Matthews in that article.

Lapdogs: Cowardly and clueless, the U.S. media abandoned its post as Bush led the country into a disastrous war. A look inside one of the great journalistic collapses of our time:

At one point while making his way through the press questioners, Bush awkwardly referred to a list of reporters whom he was instructed to call on. "This is scripted," he joked. The press laughed. But Bush meant it was scripted, literally. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer later admitted he compiled Bush's cheat sheet, which made sure he did not call on reporters from some prominent outlets like Time, Newsweek, USA Today, or the Washington Post. Yet even after Bush announced the event was "scripted," reporters, either embarrassed for Bush or embarrassed for themselves, continued to play the part of eager participants at a spontaneous news conference, shooting their hands up in the air in hopes of getting Bush's attention. For TV viewers it certainly looked like an actual press event.

That was not the night's only oddly scripted moment. Before the cameras went live, White House handlers, in a highly unusual move, marched veteran reporters to their seats in the East Room, two-by-two, like school children being led onto the stage for the annual holiday pageant. The White House was taking no chances with the choreography. Looking back on the night, New York Times White House correspondent Elisabeth Bumiller defended the press corps' timid behavior: "I think we were very deferential because ... it's live, it's very intense, it's frightening to stand up there. Think about it, you' re standing up on prime-time live TV asking the president of the United States a question when the country's about to go to war," she told students at Towson University in Maryland. "There was a very serious, somber tone that evening, and no one wanted to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time."

It's unlikely viewers expected "an argument" that night in the East Room. But what about simply asking pointed questions and firmly requesting a direct response? On March 6, even that was beyond the media's grasp. The entire press conference performance was a farce -- the staging, the seating, the questions, the order, and the answers. Nothing about it was real or truly informative. It was, nonetheless, unintentionally revealing. Not revealing about the war, Bush's rationale, or about the bloody, sustained conflict that was about to be unleashed inside Iraq. Reporters helped shed virtually no light on those key issues. Instead, the calculated kabuki press conference, stage-managed by the White House employing the nation's most elite reporters as high-profile extras, did reveal what viewers needed to know about the mind-set of the MSM on the eve of war.

And for viewers that night who didn't get a strong enough sense of just how obediently in-step the press corps was with the White House, there was the televised post-press conference analysis. On MSNBC, for instance, "Hardball's" Chris Matthews hosted a full hour of discussion. In order to get a wide array of opinion, he invited a pro-war Republican senator (Saxby Chambliss, from Georgia), a pro-war former Secretary of State (Lawrence Eagleburger), a pro-war retired Army general (Montgomery Meigs), pro-war retired Air Force general (Buster Glosson), a pro-war Republican pollster (Frank Luntz), as well as, for the sake of balance, somebody who, twenty-five years earlier, once worked in Jimmy Carter's White House (Pat Caddell).

And then there's this with his interview with Jim Lehrer.

more...

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/chris-matthews-revises-history-during-his-

[ThomWV]

1. A Kick and Recommend just so the fucking "Memory Hole" doesn't get clogged

least we forget what a whore Tweety is.

[malaise]

2. Some of us have been pointing this out all week

and since Rachel was in Iraq. Tweety believes he can reinvent history.

[Fumesucker]

3. Irony is dead, buried, rotted to dust and blowing in the wind..

Tweety has a segment called "Let Me Finish"?

I haven't watched that bobbleheaded poltroon in years and years but the last damn thing he ever does is let anyone else finish so much as a goddamn sentence..

[bullwinkle428]

11. Can I recommend a post, simply based on the inclusion of "bobbleheaded poltroon"?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[kristopher]

4. Heard that and it really torqued my jaws...

Thanks for the documentation; off to the greatest with ya...

[Poboy]

5. I too watched that ridiculous display yesterday.

Mr. 'We are all neocons now", Mr. "tingle up my leg", was catapulting the propaganda back then like the rest of them.

Pissed me off.

[seabeyond]

6. getting all opinions is not supporting war. matthews never supported war adn was the only journalist

that spoke out against going to war with iraq. he often pointed out that they had nothing to do with 911 and was an unjust war.

[Poboy]

7. Oh, I remember him on occasion sheepishly mentioning every so often

under his breath that he was against the war, but his overwhelming demeanor was of emotional support, and he certainly swallowed all the talking points and sucked up to the war mongers.
He always had an attitude with Cheney though, I'l give him that.

[SoCalDem]

12. Remember the time-frame too.. He works for MSNBC who had recently FIRED

the host of their most-watched show Phil Donahue for being too anti-war.


These "hosts" are nothing more than employees and Tweety knew then, that if he did not toe the company-line, he too could be gone in a flash. TV hosts have a pretty sweet job, and they know it.

There is no real "news" show anymore...not since news was rolled into the "entertainment" divisions at the networks.

Once upon a time, news was their public service sector, and there was a "wall" between the divisions, so the reporters felt secure enough to actually report what was happening...not what the company thought was safe to report...safe , as in what their sponsors & corporate hierarchy would allow.

[IndianaJoe]

8. That's my recollection too. However....

I also recall him almost orgasmic with admiration when Bush did his "I'm a jet pilot stunt" and landed on the aircraft carrier with the "Mission Accomplished" banner. Matthews then was all aglow with how well Jr. had managed things and all the pre-war stuff Matthews had put out prior to the war (I recall him calling the Neocons "crazy") was then forgotten.

Matthews is no mental giant. I've always seen him as sort of a reed in the wind more enamored with the "political process" itself than the "political ideas" that form the process. His background is as a speech writer, so this is perhaps natural. He seems more liberal now than then -- probably because that's the slant that MSNBC has taken and Matthews is a go-along sort of guy.

[seabeyond]

9. i agree with your post. though suggesting he is rewriting history is wrong. it is reverse

hence, why i posted. i have seen matthews on other shows and he is more dogmatic on position, but on his own show, he often goes along with guest. sometimes he holds to opinion consistently, but not always, that is for sure.

[mzmolly]

10. This is my recollection as well. He also brought the Valerie Plame

incident into the forefront.

[Dawson Leery]

13. The day the military rolled into Bahgdad, Chris

was glowing about how 'ignorant' and 'foolish' the left was for opposing this war.
Recall April 9, 2003: the STAGED toppling of one of MANY Saddam statues was sited by Matthews
of a 'decisive' victory. Perhaps Matthews was blinded by Bush's 'sunny nobility'.

[gratuitous]

14. It's just so unfair to Chris Matthews

He's just one guy, with hardly any pull whatever. Sure, he and Liddy 69ed each other talking about Boy George and the flight deck stunt, but he was really, really against the war all the time! It's just that he couldn't find anyone else against the war to book on his show, and he couldn't very well just speak his mind.

Leave Chris alooooooone!