Matthews continued.
MATTHEWS: This half-hour on HARDBALL, Dick Cavett on John Kerry‘s past as a war hero and war protesters. Plus, just one week until the Republicans take over Manhattan—Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison on what‘s in store for the Republican National Convention.
But, first, let‘s check in with the MSNBC News Desk.
(NEWS BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
Before we go to Dick Cavett, we want to get some final thoughts from Doug Brinkley and Stanley Karnow.
Let me go to Doug Brinkley on a hot point on this program.
Doug, there was a woman on the show the other night, Michelle Malkin or something, who was discussing in rather loose terms the idea that maybe John Kerry had purposely wounded himself to win a Purple Heart. Where would she get such an idea?
BRINKLEY: Well, from the Internet, from talk radio. This is a right-wing August takedown on John Kerry, and rumors, accusations, innuendoes flying. And that‘s just how gutter politics is played sometimes in America. I feel it is a completely irresponsible comment and she needs to apologize for making it. There‘s no evidence that says John Kerry ever shot himself.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Do you want to say something?
BUCHANAN: Yes, I do want to say something. Chris, I saw the show you did with Malkin. And there was a misconnection there. She said...
MATTHEWS: No, there wasn‘t. I asked her a dozen times to clarify what she was saying.
BUCHANAN: She said—was it a self-inflicted wound? And she said
yes. And you were saying, was it purposefully done by Kerry? She should
have said, no, it was the
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Why didn‘t she say it when I gave her 12 times to do that?
BUCHANAN: Well, it was...
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Twelve times.
BUCHANAN: Well, look, I mean...
MATTHEWS: Just a minute, Pat.
BUCHANAN: You can argue that with Ms. Malkin. But what she was
saying was right from the book that it was a self-inflicted wound, probably
by a grenade that hit the rocks in front of Kerry.
MATTHEWS: Right. Of course we all know that kind of thing happens in war. The question is, was it purposely—did he purposefully shoot himself or not? That was the question that was being suggested by that discussion.
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: I saw her and I do not believe she said it was purposefully
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Watch the tape.
BUCHANAN: All right. Let‘s get tape.
MATTHEWS: I‘ll watch it again.
BUCHANAN: Go to the videotape.
MATTHEWS: Let‘s go. I watched it 12 times, Pat.
Let me ask you this, Stanley.
This question of the war, what is it about the anger of the troops toward Kerry? What is that about, do you think?
KARNOW: It is only an anger of a handful of guys, right? It is a movement. It‘s a politically inspired movement. As I said, listen, these guys, all the guys that served in Vietnam deserve credit.
They didn‘t make the war. They fought the war. The politicians made the war.
MATTHEWS: Right.
KARNOW: And these guys come back. It‘s very hard for us as Americans, with this unbroken record of victories everywhere, to admit that we lost a war.
MATTHEWS: Right.
KARNOW: And we lost a war. These guys didn‘t lose the war. They deserve credit. Everybody does on both sides, Kerry, his critics.
MATTHEWS: Right.
KARNOW: All the names on the wall.
MATTHEWS: But the anger level is so strong. It‘s so strong.
KARNOW: I mean, of course. But this is a political season. And these guys, as you know...
MATTHEWS: OK.
KARNOW: Politically motivated. They‘re being supported by...
MATTHEWS: Well, who ain‘t? Anyway, thank you, Doug Brinkley. Thank you, Stanley Karnow, sir. Thanks for being on.
Pat Buchanan is staying with us.
On June 30, 1971, Dick Cavett hosted a show featuring a debate between John Kerry, who represented Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and John O‘Neill, who was with Vietnam Veterans For a Just Peace.
Dick, did you ever think you would be talking about this 30 years later?
DICK CAVETT, TALK SHOW HOST: Certainly not. I wasn‘t even sure I would be talking about it 10 years later. But it was a dreadful time. Almost every show you did, whether it was with guys like that or with Lucille Ball, something erupted about the war, either in the audience or guests on stage or somebody marching out. George Jessel got furious and took of.
And that kind of thing was happening all the time. But no. And now, when I do see that show—I just reviewed it today, listening to it over a phone—phrases come out to haunt you, like Geneva Convention, treatment of prisoners, how did we get in. And one that I noted down because it is goose-flesh-making. John Kerry said, “We‘re still committed to some phantom idea of victory.”
MATTHEWS: Yes. What did you think of John Kerry?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Did you think John Kerry was a conflicted young veteran or he was a harsh war critic and thought the war was—I hate to use the word because it‘s used so often these days—evil?
CAVETT: Do I have any other choices?
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Tell me what you made of him.
CAVETT: Well, I thought he was obviously very intelligent and probably from a slightly higher class in society than I was, as the son of schoolteachers in Nebraska.
MATTHEWS: Well, he talked like a Brit, didn‘t he?
(LAUGHTER)
CAVETT: Yes. I must say that O‘Neill refrained—I wasn‘t sure he was going to—from pointing out that Kerry pronounced ask “ask,” and flask “flask.”
MATTHEWS: Right.
CAVETT: But on his side, Kerry
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Let‘s take a listen. We have got the tape. And you know we have to run the tape. Here it is, John Kerry and John O‘Neill going at it a third of a century ago on your show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN O‘NEILL, VIETNAM VETERAN: The biggest question that we‘re going to have to deal with is the moral question of war crimes. There‘s quite a difference between coming back to this country and putting on a sack and saying, confessing, well, I‘ve committed war crime, and running for the Congress of the United States from Massachusetts and saying, well, all three million of us committed war crime.
And I suggest that that is the question that Mr. Kerry and I should be talking about, because that‘s precisely and exactly what he said.
CAVETT: Well, let‘s talk about that.
Did you see war crimes committed and—how do you want to talk about that?
JOHN KERRY, VIETNAM VETERAN: Well, I‘ve often talked about this subject. I personally didn‘t see personal atrocities, in the sense that I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that.
However, I did take part in free fire zones. I did take part in harassment interdiction fire. I did take part in search and destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these, I find out later on, these acts are contrary to the Hague and Geneva Conventions and to the laws of warfare. So, in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the application of the Nuremberg principles, is in fact guilty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: So, Dick, who was the one who sort of came out the best in that exchange, given all the responses you got to your program?
CAVETT: Well, I couldn‘t tell for sure. I thought that, at that point, O‘Neill showed restraint by not—well, let me leave that for later.
I can‘t say who won, but I did notice one thing, that the audience—and this is very rare in a studio audience—were leaning forward. And unless they‘re suffering from asthma or something, you don‘t see whole rows of people leaning forward listening so acutely. I don‘t know if this is a hint. The first letter I opened after the show said, “Dear Dick, you little sawed-off, faggot, communist shrimp.”
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: That was the nice part, huh?
(CROSSTALK)
CAVETT: I wrote back, “I‘m not sawed-off,” but I didn‘t know what else to do with it. But it was from Texas, by the way. I‘ll just throw that in.
MATTHEWS: So the passions were hot.
(CROSSTALK)
CAVETT: Say again?
MATTHEWS: The passions were hot, especially then, not just now.
CAVETT: They were. And I would not have been at all surprised if John Kerry had leaned over to O‘Neill and called him a bunch backed toad.
(LAUGHTER)
CAVETT: But he didn‘t. He was nice all the way. They both were fairly nice all the way. And I couldn‘t help wondering, what if this same conversation took place in a living room? Which are the theatrical aspects of this?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Where did you first hear of John O‘Neill? How did he leap forward as sort of an alternative, a bete noire of John Kerry?
(LAUGHTER)
CAVETT: I looked in the bete noire catalogue and there he was.
I don‘t really know. He was on an earlier show of mine, as you can tell from watching this whole show through. And my staff had gotten together some Vietnam veterans. And it got stunning mail and high ratings, which surprised the network. But I did not know that John O‘Neill had been talent-scouted by the Nixon White House and had sat in the chamber with the president and Haldeman, who somebody told me on a tape said, when Nixon said, I like this guy, let me have a picture taken with him, and Haldeman says, no, no, no, we don‘t want it to look that close.
MATTHEWS: We‘ll get back from Pat Buchanan‘s view of that whole thing.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: He was an observer as—at least an observer of that situation.
We‘ll be right back with Dick Cavett and Pat Buchanan in a moment.
And later, a preview of next week‘s Republican Convention with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
And for the latest news on the battle for the White House, sign up for HARDBALL‘s daily e-mail briefing. Just log on to our Web site, HARDBALL.MSNBC.com.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: More with Dick Cavett and Pat Buchanan on John Kerry‘s war record and protester past. And still ahead, a look at next week‘s Republican Convention—when HARDBALL returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: We‘re back with Dick Cavett and Pat Buchanan.
Dick, it is great having you on the show. We caught you drinking something there. Let me ask you this. Live television. It‘s wonderful.
CAVETT: That‘s all right. I need a glass of gin to get...
MATTHEWS: You had the greatest show on television. And I absolutely loved your show because you had great debates between Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer and William F. Buckley. It was a highly intellectual show for broadcast television in any era. Why do you think we‘re still fighting about it now?
CAVETT: Still fighting about?
MATTHEWS: The thing we were fighting about in ‘71, the Vietnam War.
CAVETT: Oh, gosh, I wish I had the wisdom of the ages to—I think that‘s Lincoln‘s phrase—to answer that clearly. It doesn‘t seem like we changed very much. And when you look back at this thing and think, God, we did all this 30 years ago and Kerry did all those things he supposedly did, and a scant 30 years later, a book comes out about it.
Has anything changed? Have we learned anything? Are we still having atrocities and still having debates about them? It doesn‘t seem that we belong in the fast learners‘ category.
MATTHEWS: Is this about gotcha journalism? Is this about catching a guy with a story that‘s not consistent? Is it that kind of politics? Or is it about a legitimate debate over rite of passage? Did you show courage as a young man or a young woman in a way that would justify leadership later on in life? Is it that kind of justified argument. Or is it the petty argument over what you said or didn‘t say at a particular time?
CAVETT: Well, again, I hate to let you down by saying I wish I knew. But it does strike me so awfully bizarre that all of these things have festered or been in a safe deposit box, many of them apparently for 30 years. And now they come out under the banner—I wonder who lettered the banner—of patriotism.
And I think the most infuriating fact for me then and now is: How dare you criticize? It helps the enemy. Well, it also helps the enemy to be—I can‘t even—my anger has fuzzed me up.
MATTHEWS: Well, that‘s been back again.
CAVETT: I can‘t tell you how much I hate that.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I don‘t agree with that argument. I don‘t think certainly
· if you don‘t debate a war before it starts and you don‘t debate a war when it is beginning, when do you debate it? Afterwards? It seems like in a democracy you ought to debate foreign policy or else what the hell is a democracy? That‘s my view. That‘s why I have this show.
(CROSSTALK)
CAVETT: I know. Who was around—how many people were in the room when Tonkin Gulf, a phrase our younger viewers might need a footnote on.
MATTHEWS: Right.
CAVETT: When the Tonkin Gulf so-called event happened, so-called caused the war or justified it? We can probably guess at the answer? Did anyone ever investigate the fact to see that there is a Tonkin Gulf?
MATTHEWS: Right. I know. Well, the question is whether anybody shot at us, too. Thank you very much, Dick Cavett, Thank you.
Last thought, Pat?
(CROSSTALK)
CAVETT: Say, can I ask you one thing, Chris?
MATTHEWS: Yes. Yes. Dick, you first. Go ahead. You can.
CAVETT: Chris, I‘m embarrassed—I‘m embarrassed with Pat here, because, on an old “CROSSFIRE,” I called him a moral and intellectual thug. And I felt bad for years because I was—I had him confused with Robert Novak |
