Chris Matthews Wonders If Obama Could Have Handled The Debt Debate More Effectively

Chris Matthews asked on Monday's 'Hardball' if there may have been a more effective way for President Obama to handle the debt ceiling debate. Matthews laid out his commentary on the same night that the GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill to raise the nation's debt ceiling.

In a segment during his show, Matthews pondered a series of open-ended questions:

Is there another way to lead this country than to simply listen to the other side's demands and try to meet them? Is there another way than either buckling to the Republicans or letting the government and the country crash? How does a President like Obama command authority that doesn't come from the obvious levers of power? How does he move a country so that his rivals have to buckle?

Matthews continued by asking, "Is there something missing in this whole thing, some stretch of executive power by Obama, some leadership capacity, that he just simply failed to exploit?"

The segment ended with Matthews implying that Obama did not control the debate about the debt ceiling. Matthews said, "The fact still sits out there for all to see, that through all these months and weeks and day and hours, the team that controlled the ball in this mess did not have the name Barack Obama stitched on its jersey."

WATCH (via MSNBC):

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