August 21, 2004

Keeping Hardball Clean

TAM asks and someone delivers. Ed Moltzen offers up the 04.27.04 Hardball where Chris Matthews lets John Kerry spout out about President Bush's National Guard record:

MATTHEWS: What went out, it basically tracks what you did the other day on “Good Morning America.” And the question your staff put out, under your name, is, is Bush telling the truth, President Bush, when he said he had no special privileges or favoritism in jumping 150 places to get in the Air Guard in Texas?

What do you think about that? Is that something you care about? You want to know the truth?

KERRY: He ought to answer that question.

MATTHEWS: Is it accountable—should the president be accountable for skipping that—that physical when he was in the military?

KERRY: It‘s up to—it‘s up to Americans to decide.

MATTHEWS: Should he prove that he was in the Guard and actively involved in the Guard when he was out of town, he was in Alabama?

KERRY: Chris, as I—as I said, I‘ve never begrudged people the choice they made.

MATTHEWS: But your statement today asked for particular information.

KERRY: But once you—but once you‘ve made a choice, I think you have an obligation to fulfill the choice you‘ve made.

MATTHEWS: Is it relevant that you served in combat and faced enemy fire and the president of the United States did not? Is that a relevant fact, when picking a commander in chief for the next four years?

KERRY: Again, it‘s up to Americans to decide.

I'm still not done. Here's some innuendo about Bush and Cheney testifying befor the Sep. 11 committee:

KERRY: Well, everybody bought into the intelligence. How—what bothers me about this administration is they‘ve even fought the effort to get to the bottom of why the intelligence was bad.

I mean, when Roosevelt was president and Pearl Harbor took place, it was almost instantaneous that he appointed a commission and said, “We‘ve got to know exactly what happened.”

In the case of this administration, not only did they fight against it, they‘ve stonewalled it. They wanted to terminate it early. And now, for some unknown, unbelievable reason, the president of the United States actually has to testify with the vice president at his side. I don‘t get it.

MATTHEWS: Do you think he‘s—he‘s afraid that his testimony won‘t jive with the vice president‘s?

KERRY: You‘ll have to ask them what the real reason is. I noticed in his press conference that he certainly didn‘t answer that question.

MATTHEWS: I mean, they‘re not the Menendez brothers. I mean, they don‘t have some major crime to hang—hang up. You were a prosecutor. You just brought me into an area of great opportunity here.

If you had two witnesses, two material witnesses, you had two, even defendants, and they said, and they were accused of operating together in some sort of theft or whatever, and they said, “Can we testify together?” What would you have said as a prosecutor?

KERRY: Well, first of all, I don‘t like the analogy you‘re making to the president and vice president.

MATTHEWS: Well, I make the analogy, but generally, in terms of human nature, do you think people have good reason for wanting to testify together?

KERRY: Fundamentally, I think you always want people to testify on their own two feet, standing alone. And obviously, you want to be able to see what the different views are...

MATTHEWS: But he says he never makes mistakes. So why would he be afraid to do it alone?

KERRY: Ask him.

Are any of these accusations any worse than what Michelle Malkin said? My how Matthews keeps Hardball clean. It's so clean the mud's still dripping off it.