Chris Matthews Lets Ari Fleischer Get Away with Murder

You have to hand one thing to Ari Fleischer. On Wednesday night, he nailed it when he told Chris Matthews, "Chris, do you ever not interrupt your guests, or is that all you'd like to do?"

The rest of what Fleischer said was total Bush-hack nonsense, but Matthews was so busy blustering or so ignorant that he missed the whole thing. They call the Daily Show fake news, but this week Jon Stewart had the hard news, not Hardball.

Two examples: one that Matthews caught 24 hours later and one of which he is blissfully ignorant.

Ari's whole deal was that "George Bush kept us safe." Matthews spent a lot of time blaming the Bush administration for falsely linking Sadaam to 9/11. At the end of the interview, Fleischer said, "after September 11, having been hit once, how could we take a chance that Saddam might not strike again?

"Again?" I jumped out of my chair, but Matthews was so busy talking that he missed it. This was the mother of all Freudian slips.

The next night Matthews devoted a whole segment to it, reciting Fleischer's lame explanation that, "he didn't mean that Saddam Hussein attacked us on 9/11 but instead that Saddam had attacked other countries before and could attack us." Matthews claimed that Fleischer's miscue was "just as I was thanking him for coming on," which was not true. Matthews just was not listening. So a day late, Matthews gummed it to death.

But what really disturbed me, and what was typical Matthews, involved Fleischer's distinction between the intelligence about WMDs being wrong or being intentionally wrong.

This started in typical Matthews style. Fleischer admitted that the WMD intelligence was wrong. Matthews twisted this and said that Fleischer had admitted being dishonest:

MATTHEWS: . . . Do you believe that the administration made an honest case in taking us to war with Iraq? An honest case.

FLEISCHER: Yes. Yes.

MATTHEWS: Even though you corrected the record afterwards and said that they made a dishonest argument that we faced a nuclear threat.

FLEISCHER: Chris, how disingenuous are you? You can just roll back the tape...

MATTHEWS: I'm just quoting you!

FLEISCHER: ... in this interview. Chris, I said we were wrong. I didn't say we were dishonest. Dishonest is your word, Chris Matthews. We were wrong.

After being justly criticized by Fleischer for twisting Ari's words, Matthews then let Fleischer filibuster about how many people were wrong about WMDs.

I guess Matthews has been so busy hyping himself that he has not read about how Cheney and his posse set up a rump intelligence operation, crediting only reports that pointed toward WMDs and castigating anyone, especially at the CIA, who raised a doubt. Has he forgotten about Joe Wilson's report? (Not the brouhaha after, the report itself.) How about the marginalizing within the administration of anyone who disagreed? Not listening to the U.N. inspectors?

I'm sure commenters can add more.

Matthew's job is to be up on these things and point out the B.S. This is his full time job. Instead, he either doesn't know the facts or he is too busy yammering to notice what anyone else says.

Comments

[Mustang Sally]

First Ari and now Dana Perino and Cheney - what is going on here? Why all the Pro-Bush liars all of a sudden this week?

[JRsNana]

It's all they have left. They have GOT to attempt to rewrite history. It's not going to work - but they have got to try.

[Shifted]

Hardball (w/ Chris Matthews) is a platform for the neo-con, reputhugs, 21st century un hooded to come out and have their free for all putting out their lies and poison into the air. I have said it before and i say it a gain; " Chris Matthews is an enabler"

[Dazed By It All]

Matthews thinks he's smart. He likes to hear himself BEING smart. So it comes as no surprise that he was paying more attention to what he was saying, rather than to what his guest had to say.

You don't interrupt Chris, Chris interrupts you.

[realpolitic]

Once Matthews is accused of being partisan he does back off. But it is difficult to interview these ex-Bush stooges who lie with every breath.

[rubinoff]

i hope chris took the hint about 'always' interrupting his guests...d­rives me up a wall. :(
as for ari, he has one heckva nerve for all of his 'spin.' :( ...i didn't realize him to be so mean spirited.

[Fzetmptres1]

I thought that I was the only one mad as h e l l about Matthew's performance that night. I had to turn the channel, could not watch any longer....­.....

[pamelagoodenough]

Fzet, I am with you on this. I was so angry that Matthews did not listen and respond to the lying Fleischer. I write to Matthews and complained, for all the good it will do. Everytime AF opened his mouth it was to tell more lies about Bush. Matthews should have taken him to task. Perhaps Fleischer could go on the Daily Show? Jon Stewart took Cramer apart last week. We need more truth brought to light.

[marbiol]

All this" he said...he said..she said..he said" stuff is so absurd. It has been clear over the past several years --and EVEN NOW-- VERY FEW PEOPLE HAVE BOTHERED TO ACTUALLY READ WHAT THE JOINT RESOLUTION AUTHORIZED--AND WHY!!!

If our elected reps did NOT read it that is WORSE than voting on the stimulus bill without having read it!--since not many people have died yet as a consequence of stimulating the economy!

The Joint Resolution can be read in a few minutes in its entirety!!! I tVERY CLEARLY lays out what Saddam Hussain's regime had done (and had NOT done) and, in essence gave the President the authorization to use miltary force to ENFORCE several UNSC resolutions. That's the bottom line!!

All theother discourse was just window dressing & embellishment-- on all sides of the argument-- I'll bet Chris NEVER read the JR--and maybe Ari didnt eithe for that matter.

Maybe we can get someone to list the objectives of the JR and check off the dates they were met--when all the objectives were met then "mission accomplished" CAN be checked off.

All this post 2003-2004 stuff had nothing to do with meeting the objectives of the JR!!! (If I'm mistaken. perhaps someone can point out where in the JR addresses internecine conflicts--or the injection of al-qaeda-like terrorists into the equation. So that stuff has nothing to do with accomplishing the mission congress authorized the President to undertake.

[jsgaetano]

When the UN weapons inspectors told the Bush administration to put up or shut up on the locations of the phantom WMD, the Bush administration kicked the UN out of Iraq and attacked Baghdad.

As always, when a conservative is told to put up or shut up on their claims... they attack instead. Exactly like a cornered rat.

[cchurch]

i cannot believe all you people are attacking chris matthews like this, first of all it was pretty obviuos that he was not going to stoop to aris low level! he is one the best journalist out there. you all are just dead wrong including stephan kaus. chris is a super smart, well informed man, not a gossip column such as stephen kaus. i watched the whole interview, the only thing outrageous was ari jumping from subject to subject, and making excuses and telling crazy lies.i also watched hardball the next day, and stephen kaus is wrong again! he did not talk about ari the entire show sheesh what a crock.

[longtalldrink]

From what I've always observed in my life "super smart" people do not constantly interrupt someone who is trying to make a point. It is rude behavior, not something a "smart" person wants to be identified with. Ari was a joke on the show but Chris decided to have him on anyway. And also, Chris, why all the neocons on all the time? Gunning for a Fix News position?

[KitChandler]

Have you ever watched how some reporters will ask Obama questions that seemingly go on for minutes? Often times it's a multi-part question.

President Obama listens intently and responds to each part intelligently and without notes. That's what Chris Matthems needs to learn-not only how to talk over people but to LISTEN.

[Jeep]

To Chris: 9/11 HAPPENED ON GEORGE BUSH'S WATCH: please repeat this statement to yourself one thousand times before allowing the next Neocon to come on your show. Thanks ;-)

[Hastings]

It was fun to watch Matthews sputtering while spouting the narrow minded, shortsighted, defeatist, antidemocratic, and racist "Iraq was the wrong war" gibberish of the left.

Say, I've got an idea. Why doesn't Chris go to Iraq this fall and tell the Iraqis this bucket of bs while they are standing in line to vote once again in a free and open election. I am sure they would really appreciate his point of view.

Oh, by the way, I don't think Saddam's name will be on the ballot. No thanks to Mr. Matthews and his ilk.

[jsgaetano]

Stay the Course, Gooper!

The more you guys try claiming you "won" in Iraq, the bigger that gap between your views and reality gets. America is watching, which is why the Republicans can't win elections.

[Hastings]

I did and we are, wining that is.

[twogunmojo]

i asked this down thread..ho­w many times has hardball or msnbc beat fox at anything..­...i like chris mattews but if he ever has a non-partisan thought his brain will explode...­probably because of the "tingle" he gets in his leg....

[kburlz]

I tend to say it's the yammering. I like Hardball, but you're right, he gets so caught up in his own commentary he forgets to listen.

[knosiswar]

He was to busy trying to hear himself in his monitor. Chris missed several opportunities to stick it to him but he was to preoccupied with doing his self-rightous indignation shpill.

[waitforme]

"Matthew's job is to be up on these things and point out the B.S. This is his full time job. Instead, he either doesn't know the facts or he is too busy yammering to notice what anyone else says."

The latter is probably the right choice: He yammers and interrupts so much that I cannot listen to him. It is all-Matthe­ws-all-the­-time. Using his guests as cannon fodder when they can get a word in. I don't know how anyone can stay calm and get back to what they were saying when he has interrupted them ten times -- but most of them do, and he won't let them complete the first sentence even then.

He seems to maybe be afraid of real discourse, it just occurred to me; or why else would someone take over a conversation, an interview, so completely?

Plus, after watching Matthews, when there is no other news on, briefly, over a long period of time, it seems to me his passions and protections -- the side he takes -- wax for the people in power, and that he has little center or principles of his own.

[Oldchef]

Did you notice that when he had Tom deLay on he didn't interrupt, but let him go on and on, spewing his right wing talking points out like technicolor vomit?

[kwinter]

Matthews is always so busy spouting questions in rapid fire succession and interrupting that he doesn't even hear half of the answers.
He could learn a lot from "just a comedian" Jon Stewart, who listens well and is always better prepared.
That was painfully frustrating to watch.