VIDEO: Chris Matthews Calls Out Bush Administration ‘Propaganda’ On Leno

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Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

“I think we in journalism have got to stop being so scared of being unobjective and to start focusing on our job which is to question, question, question,” Chris Matthews told Jay Leno this week. Welcome aboard, Chris. Took ya long enough.

Leno begins his July 17, 2007 interview with Matthews by saying that the Hardball host has been “all fired up” this week. Well, that certainly describes Matthews in the video below. While he does take a couple backhanded, albeit deserving, shots at Tim Russert, he focuses his wrath primarily on the Bush administration, adding that “this crowd wasn’t even exactly elected, you know.”

While Matthews glosses over his own culpability when speaking of the failures of the press, he does deliver a powerful indictment on the Bushies and their vast propaganda campaign against the American people. Here’s a particularly good rant:

MATTHEWS: The misinformation, the indoctrination that is going on. And the rest of the American have gotten so skeptical now. Do you think that the American people believe that the brass didn’t have something to do with Abu Ghraib? Do you think the American people don’t think we were given a bill of goods to get us in over there? Do you think anybody in America believes that we are going to get out if this surge doesn’t work?

The latest I’ve heard this weekend was if the surge doesn’t work Bush is going to want more troops. He has snookered us again. So I think we in journalism have got to stop being so scared of being unobjective and to start focusing on our job which is to question, question, question. String them out.

We got to stop treating politicians who get elected, and this crowd wasn’t even exactly elected, you know, stop treating them like the dispensers of the truth. That’s our biggest mistake. We put them on these Sunday shows and say, “Okay Daddy, tell us what the truth is.’ And we write it down and type it up and we put it in the paper the next day.

I think we have got to be damn skeptical about this crowd because on WMD, on the connection to 9/11, on this surge, every step of the way, on the torture, on every step of the way — we have been given misinformation.

In the last part of the interview Leno shifts the conversation to the 2008 presidential election and Matthews predicts a Hillary/Giuliani showdown. The video follows in full…


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VIDEO: Chris Matthews Calls Out Bush Administration ‘Propaganda’ On Leno

17 Comments

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17 Responses

  1. 1)
    leftisbest said on 7/21/2007 @ 2:27am PT: [Permalink]

    Alan,

    Thanks for all your hard work in editing and putting all these videos together. They really help to MAKE the BradBlog a “must see” every day.

  2. 2)
    Dredd said on 7/21/2007 @ 6:55am PT: [Permalink]

    Ok Mr. Matthews, but keep it that way from here on out.

    And convince the rest of the rubber stamp press (MSM) that it is in their interest to rid our country of these criminals.

    If we don’t Chris may be doing hardtime, instead of hardball, from inside GITMO. I mean really, really, really inside GITMO.

    Truth, its not just for lefties any more.

  3. 3)
    JUDGE OF JUDGES said on 7/21/2007 @ 7:55am PT: [Permalink]

    Hmmm… was it the lightning, perhaps a lobotomy or Shitball with chris matthews . . .
    ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

    Dredd
    I think The Truth … is … was … and will always be … the difference between right & Left.

  4. 4)
    Savantster said on 7/21/2007 @ 8:18am PT: [Permalink]

    It’s funny, how now, near the end, before the storm blows strong and blood flows in the streets, these ENABLERS, these TRAITORS, these INCOMPETENT FUCKS are starting to say “Hmm.. maybe, as journalists, we should have looked in to some of this stuff at some point?”.

    Fuck you, Chris.. and all the rest of you slime in the Media who were making a living by pandering to these criminals.. these traitors.. these anti-American scum who are taking over the country by setting up every branch to be filled with their cronies and friends so “normal people” no longer have access to the rights and freedoms granted by our Founding Fathers via the Constitution.

    I don’t think we can come back unless our Congress does it’s job and impeaches Dick and Dickless. They [the Congress] has all but said “ok, we’ll just sit here and do nothing while the right-wing crime machine churns our country in to a fascist state where 90% of the citizens are slaves to machine.”. They aren’t doing -crap- to act as a check or balance. The Repukes threatened to remove the ability to filibuster because the Dems wanted to prevent someone who had NO right to be on the Supreme Court from being installed by our Traitor in Chief.. but now they filibuster trying to end this illegal, wasteful, pointless “war” that was started by lies and is costing the tax-payers 100s of billions of dollars? ALL THE REPUKES MUST BE REMOVED from Congress and we must vote in real human beings, average joes who just want to try and make the country better.. we need to stop electing these schmucks that are pandering to the religious zealots and corporate overlords. And we need to start at the local/State levels by getting corporate money OUT of politics, and give ALL candidates “fair and free access to the media”. If normal people can’t afford to “run for office”, then we have no Democracy in this country.

  5. 6)
    JUDGE OF JUDGES said on 7/21/2007 @ 8:36am PT: [Permalink]

    Doctors removed Five democrats were removed from bush’s colon.

    one of them was ben nelson…

  6. 8)
    Floridiot said on 7/21/2007 @ 11:17am PT: [Permalink]

    I don’t think it’s going to be Gooleeani, I think it’s The Acrid Vulva man Ferdi Reagan Thompson

  7. 9)
    kraftysue said on 7/21/2007 @ 12:34pm PT: [Permalink]

    This from the guy that said this week to Judith Miller “You are my hero” You can really be trusted with everybodies secrets.

    You’re all talk, Chris!

  8. 10)
    Dredd said on 7/22/2007 @ 5:13am PT: [Permalink]

    JoJ #3

    So the truth is a desert dune blown in every direction under the sun?

    Never in the same place after a political wind blows?

    I think not.

    That is the one plank of the gadfly party.

    JoJ #6

    Actually the truth is that the colonoscopy results confirmed my prediction: bushie is an asshole.

  9. 11)
    MaryShelley(author) admirer said on 7/22/2007 @ 9:42am PT: [Permalink]

    Prove it, Chris!

    If you mean what you say, Chris, why are people who think like Rivkin frequent guests on your show. Every time I hear him speak, I find myself whistling “Back in the U.S…,Back in the U.S…,Back in the U.S.S.R.!” by the Beatles. His whole mindset is warped by the Cold War, but he’s on the side of totalitarianism! and wants to prop up Bush as the great U.S. ruler by totalitarianism! only he can’t see that he is warped at all. (He fits in perfectly with all the other bushies.) He sounds like he never read our Constitution. He certainly didn’t understand it and its history. He sounds just like today’s neocons. No wonder they have zits like him speak for the Bush regime.

    JoJ#3:
    The truth isn’t right or left, you dolt. But it is easy to see the need for the bushies to be reminded frequently of the definition and characteristics of truth.

  10. 12)
    JUDGE OF JUDGES said on 7/22/2007 @ 10:03am PT: [Permalink]

    MaryShelley(author) admirer
    The truth isn’t right or left, you dolt. But it is easy to see the need for the bushies to be reminded frequently of the definition and characteristics of truth.

    Hmmm… How Naive !
    dolt 267 up, 36 down @ Urban Dictionary

    A mental retard who is clueless not only about current events, but also has the IQ level of a rock. “Dolt” may be the most sophisticated insult in the English language. Dolts commonly populate such stereotypes as jocks, nerds, fruits, bookworms, and dorks.

    The truth plays absolutely no role in the bush / gop master plan.

  11. 13)
    Agent 99 said on 7/22/2007 @ 2:06pm PT: [Permalink]

    MaryShelley(author) admirer

    It’s fine to call Matthews a dolt here, but not so okay calling your fellows on the comments threads that, especially when it’s merely to bring up the right/left vs. right/wrong saw. Your very screen name indicates you already think of others as dolts.

    JoJ

    Yer scaring me with that quoting of the Urban Dictionary thing. “Dolt” is merely another word for “idiot”.

    what moron left ice cream on the stove? fool, idiot, ass, blockhead, dunce, dolt, ignoramus, imbecile, cretin, dullard, simpleton, clod; informal nitwit, halfwit, dope, ninny, nincompoop, chump, dimwit, dingbat, dipstick, goober, coot, goon, dumbo, dummy, ditz, dumdum, fathead, numbskull, numbnuts, dunderhead, thickhead, airhead, flake, lamebrain, zombie, nerd, peabrain, birdbrain, jughead, jerk, donkey, twit, goat, dork, twerp, schmuck, bozo, boob, turkey, schlep, chowderhead, dumbhead, goofball, goof, goofus, galoot, lummox, klutz, putz, schlemiel, sap, meatball, dumb cluck. antonym genius.

    There’s nothing sophisticated about using the word.

  12. 15)
    MaryShelley(author) admirer said on 7/23/2007 @ 12:48pm PT: [Permalink]

    I apologize for calling JoJ a dolt. (It was not Chris Matthews, although I do sometimes disagree with Chris.) I do think there is nothing political about the truth.

    How does my appreciation for an author who wrote a classic novel indicate that I think of others as dolts??? Nay, not so at all…. Only people who try to politize the truth are dolts. If the shoe fits… wear it, if not, don’t be defensive.

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