<font size=4>Chris Matthews: 9/11 Dick Cheney's Fault
Has anyone ever seen a media hack self-implode the way Chris Matthews has over the past week? First he comes unglued all over John O'Neill and can't keep from interrupting him every time O'Neill says something Matthews can't refute. Next he shouts down Matthew Dowd for supporting George Bush. Last Friday he put on his tinfoil hat and blamed 9/11 not on the terrorists, not on foreign-policy and intelligence failures, but on one man -- the left's favorite example of eeeeeeeevil Republicanism, Vice President Dick Cheney:
MATTHEWS: <font color=blue>MSNBC‘s Felix Schein is on the campaign trail with John Kerry up in Portland, Oregon. And MSNBC‘s Priya David has been on the campaign trail with Vice President Dick Cheney. Let me go to Priya, sitting with me right now. Priya, what is this argument over the word <font color=green>“sensitive”<font color=blue>? What‘s wrong with that?
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PRIYA DAVID, MSNBC POLITICAL REPORTER: <font color=blue>Well, according to John Kerry, nothing. He released a statement today...
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MATTHEWS: <font color=blue>Well, according to anybody, what‘s it mean?
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DAVID: ... <font color=blue>saying, you know, Don‘t worry about it...
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MATTHEWS: <font color=blue>What‘s the word choice?
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DAVID: <font color=blue>Well, you know, what they‘re trying to do is frame that John Kerry is weak. That‘s the message that they‘ve had all along.
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MATTHEWS: <font color=blue>OK, let‘s get some...
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DAVID: <font color=blue>It‘s a very typical message.
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MATTHEWS: <font color=blue>... straight—Dick Cheney is
probably the man most responsible for the fact we‘ve had
troops in Saudi Arabia for 10 years. That‘s what drove the
terrorists to attack the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon. They were angry that their own holy lands were
besmirched—basically, dumped on by the United States for
10 years.
That sensitivity might have saved us a horror, knowing how
angry those people would be about us putting our troops,
10,000 troops in the holy land near Mecca and Medina. Why
is it stupid to be sensitive to those kinds of insults to
a country?<font color=black>
Don't you think that it's possible that the man most
responsible for having troops in Saudi Arabia for ten
years might have been the president which had them in
place for eight of them -- Bill Clinton? Or perhaps the
man who they were designed to contain -- Saddam Hussein?
Dick Cheney was the Secretary of Defense when American
troops arrived in Saudi Arabia as part of the coalition
the first Bush put together to force Iraq out of Kuwait.
That would have been in late 1990. Cheney was defense
secretary for two years after that. Cheney again enters
the picture in January 2001 as Vice-President in January
2001, and less than eight months later, we are attacked on
9/11. That adds up to a little less than three years of
involvement.
On the other hand, those troops -- which were supposed to ensure Saddam's compliance with the terms of the cease-fire and the variety of UNSC resolutions -- sat there for eight years under the auspices of Bill Clinton while Saddam defied the world and stuffed his pockets. They should have been used in 1998 to invade Iraq as soon as Saddam kicked the inspectors out, the most egregious (though far from only) violation of the cease-fire and UNSC resolutions.
I've long since stopped watching Hardball because Matthews had descended into lunacy. Thankfully, CNBC's other viewer, CQ reader Wolff, pointed this one out to me. |
