The shock that the hosts of the show feel about Chris laying it out straight is quite telling. Matthews wasn't playing by the rules. How so? He wasn't supposed to let people know the inside game of politics. Republicans get away with this because of the usual common decency of liberals.
If you want to know why I can say this about Republicans, here's a little thought experiment. Imagine, if you will, liberals who say things as vitriolic and over the top as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, and Glenn Beck do (who's he?). You can't. End of experiment.
Chris Matthews legitimately called out Reince Priebus on the racial aspects of the birther business and the false welfare work-requirement attacks. They are racist, without question.
While I'm at it, let me throw in an audio-based video from 2010 that demonstrates how an Irish politician tells the truth in a media interview. Notice that as Michael Higgins of Ireland offers his opinion in a radio debate with Michael Graham, a tea-party radio personality from Boston, Graham doesn't interrupt him thirty times trying to keep him from making his point. Don't know if this is cultural, but this took place on an Irish radio station. Compare and contrast the political and cultural ideas expressed and the means by which they were expressed. The Irish politician, by the way, is Michael Higgins, who wasn't then but is now President of Ireland. Here he talks about the policy in the U.S., especially the social safety net:
I loved how he ended with celebrating that young people in America are welcome now around the world because Barack Obama's foreign policy is less threatening. I remember living abroad and traveling around Europe in the early 70s and telling folks I was from San Francisco, still then very much thought of as the City of Love. It was wonderful the warmth with which I was greeted. I worried about that after George W. Bush. I'm glad it's getting better again. Time to hit Europe again, especially Ireland.
And certainly time to call out the inherent racism in the policy positions of the Republican Party, not to mention the horrifying lack of empathy toward the dispossessed that the Republican Party represents and is so deservedly called out for by President Michael Graham in this wondrously crafted diatribe.
More of Matthews and Graham, please. Democrats, do it this way.
Update. Can't help including this from George Carlin (h/t Daily Kos) that so suitably belongs in this balanced box set of commentary on our conservative brethren. George, wish you were still here to help us get through this election cycle:
More of Matthews and Graham, please. Democrats, do it this way.
Update. Can't help including this from George Carlin (h/t Daily Kos) that so suitably belongs in this balanced box set of commentary on our conservative brethren. George, wish you were still here to help us get through this election cycle:
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