Chris Matthews Nails a Swift Boat Vet

[livius drusus]

Transcript here (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5765243/). I have a whole new respect for Matthews now. That is some serious hardcore questioning and follow-up. I tried to pick a few favorite quotes but ended up selecting so much of it that there was little left in the transcript.

[viscousmemories]

This is my favorite part so far:

MATTHEWS: Can you honestly tell me now, sir, that you could swear in open court that you know that John Kerry, when he was a lieutenant JG in the same theater you were in had some plan for winning medals? Do you know that for a fact?

THURLOW: OK. In other words, present evidence that he had this plan?

MATTHEWS: Yes.

THURLOW: Of course, I couldn‘t.

MATTHEWS: Well, what...

THURLOW: I‘m basing it on my observations.

MATTHEWS: These are after-the-fact observations. You say he had a plan ahead of time to make himself a war hero to get elected to office.

THURLOW: I‘m saying that he had a plan that included not only being a war hero but getting an early out.

MATTHEWS: But you admit you have no tangible evidence.

THURLOW: I have my own personal observations.

MATTHEWS: Of what?

THURLOW: And you‘re right, it is not tangible evidence.

MATTHEWS: OK, so you don‘t. Let me ask you about...

THURLOW: I‘m not in a court of law here.

I'm not positive I'll still feel this way by the end of the transcript, but at this juncture I think Thurlow is a stinking pile of rancid shit that should be court-martialed for treason. If anyone hasn't seen John Lovitz's Pathological Liar sketch on SNL, just read this instead.

[livius drusus]

I think he's slightly more hapless than the Pathological Liar, but the backtracking and squirming definitely fits.

[LadyShea]

What a lying, 15-minute grabbing piece of shit!

[viscousmemories]

Well that Michelle Malkin woman was an even more impressive piece of shit than Thurlow. I can't believe she tried to suggest that Kerry shot himself to win the Purple Heart! Man I may be making the wrong decision by starting to pay attention to politics...

[D. Scarlatti]

Man I may be making the wrong decision by starting to pay attention to politics...

If it means enduring that vituperative touch-hole's revolting horseshit then, speaking from experience, yes.

[viscousmemories]

If it means enduring that vituperative touch-hole's revolting horseshit then, speaking from experience, yes.
You mean Matthews or Malkin? :)

I've only watched Matthews a few times in my life, and while I find his voice pretty annoying and his style sometimes excessively confrontational, I haven't formed a much of an opinion of him. I'd never heard of Malkin until this transcript but she seems snakelike in this interview.

[Clutch Munny]

Where was this sort of questioning in 2000, when anyone with a grasp of arithmetic could see that Bush was lying about his budget, and when Bush or Karl Rove could "with a single phone call" have put an end to the known lies told about Gore's non-existent fibbing problem?

Or earlier, when the Repubs were hard-selling the "Clintons have murdered dozens" line, through groups at no further arm's-length than these veteran shills?

Or when Peggy Noonan was asking in the WSJ if it wasn't a little creepy, the way Clinton liked to hold his daughter's hand?

The only surprising thing about CM's entirely reasonable trashing of the lying sacks of shit on this episode is that it happened at all, given the stuff he and his pundit cohorts typically let slide, and even repeat themselves.

[viscousmemories]

Looks like the only other officer from that mission still alive broke a 30 year silence (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=1&u=/nm/20040821/pl_nm/campaign_kerry_dc) about the war to get Kerry's back on this.


Weighing in on the bitterly divisive issue, William Rood of the Chicago Tribune said the tales told by Kerry's detractors are simply untrue.

"There were three swift boats on the river that day in Vietnam more than 35 years ago -- three officers and 15 crew members. Only two of those officers remain to talk about what happened on February 28, 1969," he wrote in a story on the newspaper's Web site.

"One is John Kerry ... who won a Silver Star for what happened on that date. I am the other."

[D. Scarlatti]

I meant Michelle Malkin, of course. She makes Ann Coulter look like the president of NOW. When I first came to the states, I spent an inordinate amount of time consuming those cable news shows, including Hardball, O'Reilly, Hannity & Colmes, et al. In retrospect, I think all it did was piss me off. Since then I haven't even had cable for nearly two years, and I don't miss any of those assholes one bit.

Clutch's point is well taken, and I'd add to it a National Review column suggesting Chelsea Clinton be killed to prevent her from reproducing, and another op-ed column by that hypoprick William Bennett that appeared in the WSJ a couple of days before the 2000 election enumerating the so-called "lies" of Al Gore.

These days I follow politics about as much as I have to, and most of my thinking tends to be framed by what's going on in my law school classes. I did volunteer to work on Russ Feingold's senate campaign, but all of his events seem to take place on Saturdays, when I'm working.

As for the subject of this thread I'm appalled that anyone here would call into question an American's military service. Certainly Kerry can be criticized for his post-service opposition to the Vietnam "war," but at the same time his service there puts him in the most credible position from which to voice opposition. If it's true that the Bush campaign is supporting these anti-Kerry ads, well, I don't think it's possible for me to be any more nauseated by those people than I already am.

[D. Scarlatti]

Looks like there may have been something to Kerry's allegations after all:

Lawyer Advising Vets Quits Bush Campaign (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VETERANS_GROUP_BUSH?SITE=WIMIL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)

"I cannot begin to express my sadness that my legal representations have become a distraction from the critical issues at hand in this election," Benjamin Ginsberg wrote in a resignation letter to Bush released by the campaign.

Poor baby.

[Clutch Munny]

Ginsberg said he had not yet decided whether to charge the Swift Boat Veterans a fee for his work.


Jeez, that's strange -- to do all that work without first deciding, and making it clear to the clients, whether they would be billed. Unless he was doing it as part of his independently paid Bush-advisory position...

[D. Scarlatti]

Yeah really. My ex-wife saw Ginsberg on Ted Koppel last night, and said his appearance was one of the most farcical, dissembling, and disingenuous performances she's seen in a while, and she prosecutes child molestors for a living.

[viscousmemories]

Yeah really. My ex-wife saw Ginsberg on Ted Koppel last night, and said his appearance was one of the most farcical, dissembling, and disingenuous performances she's seen in a while,
You divorced a woman who knows what those words mean? What were you thinking? (Oh and don't look at me, I only know the third one).

and she prosecutes child molestors for a living.
I'm prepared to look ridiculous if this was hyperbole. Do prosecutor's specialize?

[D. Scarlatti]

She divorced me! And yes, that was a bit of hyperbole. I was referring to the standard child molestor's defense, which generally runs something along the lines of: "Me and my nine-year-old daughter were play wrestling, nude, and my penis just happened to accidentally fall into her mouth." I am not kidding. That is an actual verbatim defendant testimony, and I have heard many more like it. Most of those types of statements are made during the initial investigations. Not too many are stupid enough to make those claims at trial, if they get there.

Prosecutors don't necessarily specialize, but the ex has, in some part because no one else in her office will touch the cases she litigates. She gets all the sexual assaults and animal abuse cases. I thought I was a fairly worldly guy, but I still can't believe some of the shit people do.