Tweedy I know you love to revise your own history re: Iraq war...

[ClusterFreak]

...and say that you were always against it. That you differed with Hillary Clinton when she supported it in 2003. But the truth of the matter is in fact the exact opposite of what you continually claim, as you try to bolster your liberal bonafides with your viewers.

So, with a tip of the cap to Will Pitt who posted a FAIR.org article in GD on May 28/08 highlighting all the MSM talking heads who ballyhooed the Iraq war from Day One…here are the entries for Chris Matthews:

"We're all neo-cons now."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)

"We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 5/1/03)

"Why don't the damn Democrats give the president his day? He won today. He did well today."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)

"What's he going to talk about a year from now, the fact that the war went too well and it's over? I mean, don't these things sort of lose their--Isn't there a fresh date on some of these debate points?"
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, speaking about Howard Dean--4/9/03)

************************************************************
For the full FAIR. Org article….click here: www.fair.org/index.php?page=2842, which Will also posted three years ago. The link is still active.

[Scuba]

1. This must be why I never watch him. n/t

[glowing]

2. I remember him cheerleading and loving Bush swagger.

so when he says he was against the wars, I guess he forgets that we have the ability to find video from days back and know he was part of the problem. He did not give good, fair, and balanced commentary or guests. NBC used Generals that were connected to the Penatgon and private contractors who make money off of the war machine racket.

[Major Hogwash]

3. Fuck, he wrote an entire book touting the war and Bush in 2003.

And then he acted surprised when someone called him a conservative so he did his little "hah!" laugh.
He's an opportunist.

[Kingofalldems]

4. Tweety and G. Gordon Liddy salivated over Bush's codpiece

[hulka38]

5. I watched him every night during the run up to Iraq

because I knew he knew it was bullshit. But more times than not Matthews was cheerleading Bush and ripping liberals who questioned the rationale for war. Sometimes the next day he would question Cheney's and Rummy's claims and wonder aloud whether they were lying us into a war for oil. He behaved like a schizophrenic for months. It was both interesting and infuriating viewing. Later, when Fitzgerald was tightening the noose around Libby, Chris admitted that he and his producers were being admonished by Libby after particularly hard shows. That's quite an admission and explains but doesn't justify Matthews' behavior.

[Pirate Smile]

6. I knew he was against it but he didn't put his own opinion out very often.

Usually he had politicians, pundits and foreign policy people on who just spouted their opinions - and almost all of them were for it.

It drove me crazy because, at that time, most of the "Dem" pundit/villager/analysts were also for it so it would be 3/4 people - 2 leaning right, 1(2) leaning left - and all supporting doing it. Most of the time Tweety kept his opinion out of it but the few times he let it slip, it was clear he wasn't for it. The problem was that he did that rarely and there weren't a lot of other folks going on shows arguing the side of the issue.

[Old and In the Way]

7. heh, I told Chris exactly that tonight.

Well, after he mentioned, as an aside, that he was always against the Iraq war - I told him, via the TV set, that he was lying. Matthews is nothing if not a calculating opportunist. He follows the CW until it's safe to revise his opinions. He wasn't sticking his neck out when it might have mattered...he wasn't calling out the Bush administration on the lies during the run-up or even making a case against it. He only started to go negative when the results of this disaster started piling up and there was a growing crowd of media opinions criticizing the invasion/war.

[emcguffie]

8. He was against it.

I remember it quite clearly. He was completely, totally against it -- until it started. Then he switched to support our troops. You know.

He took his show on a college tour, and the Iraq war was the major question -- whether we should go to war or not. And his point of view was that we shouldn't. particularly without a public discussion. So he tried to provide one.