by Chris Matthews
We lost Ed McMahon last night. The country knew him as Johnny Carson's sidekick on "The Tonight Show" where night after night, he opened with that trademark - "Heeere's Johnny!"
Talk about an iconic bit of Americana. I first saw Ed riding around on the hood of a car. That's what he did every night in the commercials growing up in Philadelphia: a grown man in suit with his butt on the hood of a brand new automobile. That was our own Ed McMahon in his nightly advertisement of McCafferty Ford up on the boulevard in Langhorne, Pa.
Ed had a more humble beginning in show business. He was the clown on "The Big Top," the big circus show that came out of Philadelphia on national television back in the 1950s. It was all part of the work a person does to break his or her way into "the business" on which you set your heart.
Ed had fought for his country in both World War II and Korea. He was once on "Hardball" with Sen. John Glenn and he told us about it and the lesson he'd learned back then.
"Col. Glenn and I, World War II and Korea, we flew in both places, fought in both places. The advice is the same. Do what you are trained to do. Look out for your comrades, the guys next to you. Take care of the guy that's right beside you. In the military flying element, you have a wing man.... and you would think as much about the wing man as any other person in life. That was your closest, closest possible buddy. And anything you do, whatever it is, in a tank or on the ground, you respect the guy beside you and you do your job." (Click here to watch the January 2005 appearance.)
Ed McMahon's dream, which he reached, was a big-time TV announcer's job - where he could get into the act - his pot at the end of the rainbow was working as "wing man," as he put it, for Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show."
I think his job there was more important than people figured. Ed McMahon, regular guy, was our connection with that witty, cool, aloof Johnny Carson who could be very charming but also very distant. Ed McMahon was our connection. If Carson could hang out with a guy like Ed - who was, for many of us, a guy like us, he might just hang out (if the opportunity ever arose) with that big "us" out there.
It's sort of the job Joe Biden has now - with Barack Obama. Anyway, that's a different story.
Good for Ed. He got where he wanted to get. That's not bad in any life. And so tonight, let's say good night to the man who made "The Tonight Show" what it was for all those legendary years.
Watch the complete video:
by Chris Matthews
As people who watch Hardball - and you are the good people - know, I have extended a serious tribute over time to men and women who have had the moxie to stand up for their rights.
How can I give that coveted Hardball Award to anyone on this planet this week but the people in the streets of Tehran, the hundreds of thousands who have stood out there and demanded that their votes are counted and counted fully.
Whether their cause is women's rights, greater freedoms or a freer dialogue with the outside world, this crowd has refused to sit by and accept the results of a presidential election they say was rigged.
You can see the crowd there, almost all young adults, flooding the streets and Internet airwarves with signs in English and French. Their audience is the world stage and they've got a rallying cry that's forced 'EVERYONE' to take notice:
"I do believe that something has happened in Iran where there is a questioning of the kinds of antagonistic postures towards the international community that have taken place in the past, and that there are people who want to see greater openness and greater debate and want to see greater democracy." - Barack Obama
Of course, theirs isn't a cause without dangers. At least 10 protestors have already died. Today, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected calls for a new election and warned of a harsh crackdown if the rallies go on. He said,"Street challenge is not acceptable.
Well, after that tough speech, Iranians took to their rooftops today crying "God is Great," in apparent defiance of the Ayatollah and his attempts to quell the voices of the demostrations.
So here's what I say. I say President Obama may well be right in not taking sides in Iran. But we can and, I believe, I should.
Tonight I extend the Hardball Award to those men and women on the steeets and now on the rooftoops, those who continue fight for their vote. They've proven that Democracy's got some 'REAL' appeal to people who have long been denied a say in their government.
Following is a rush transcript of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on tonight's "Hardball with Chris Matthews." Sen. Kerry discusses the protests in Iran and President Obama's stance on them, saying "this is an Iranian moment, not an American moment, and we need to have the discipline, the restraint, the maturity to stand back from this as the Iranians proceed."
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Senator Kerry, John McCain, your colleague, has been critical of the president for not speaking out and joining the protests in the streets of Tehran. What's your view?
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: My view is that the president has clearly spoken out. He spoke in Cairo as clearly as any president ever has about the prospects for democracy, for the possibilities of a different future. And I think he's been very, very clear. But for the president to step into the middle of what the Iranians appear to be handling for themselves would be a mistake, because it would give to the hardliners the ability to be able to use the president and the West as an excuse.
We've seen what hard-line rhetoric has gotten us over the last eight years, Chris. It's created an Iran that's more powerful in the region, an Iran that's been more reluctant to engage with the rest of the world. The president has opened up new possibilities. I think even the elections in Lebanon a week ago showed the results that come from a different kind of diplomacy. And we need to let the president pursue that.
MATTHEWS: Do you think we're kidding anyone, though -- don't they know, on the Ahmadinejad side over there, the government side and the ayatollahs' side -- that we're rooting for the opposition? Don't they...
KERRY: They don't have any...
MATTHEWS: Don't they...
KERRY: They don't have any illusions about it, but that's very different from overt activities that they can then turn around. CONTINUED >>
by Chris Matthews
It was a year ago tomorrow that Tim Russert died at NBC News headquarters in Washington. He died on the job that Friday preparing yet again a broadcast of his remarkable, newsmaking, pacesetting Meet the Press.
I think about Tim every day each day I arrive at work, but especially on Fridays, which remind me of him and his enormous place here in our work and lives.
To those who trusted him and learned from him on the air,Tim was a strong partner in understanding news and public affairs in the old strict sense. What are the facts, sir? How could you say this but also this? Why could you say this and "do" this? What exactly is your decision, sir?
To those who worked with him closer in, Tim was a charismatic figure, a leader, a standard, someone very hard to beat. And when he slowed down from his hard-driving work "very" good company. He's been missed.
Watch the tribute below.
by Chris Matthews
Tomorrow, on the sixty-fifth anniversary of D-Day, President Obama has a pair of tough acts to follow - his own speech yesterday and one given a quarter century ago.
I remember getting up that morning in 1984 to catch President Reagan at Normandy. It was a real "morning in America" speech. I believe that Reagan's ability to connect with World War II was a reason for his enormous popularity. Here he was on the bluffs of France saying something very good about America: how we liberated Europe
That's the heart of it, the reason Reagan was popular, Roosevelt was popular, Jack Kennedy was popular, and Barack Obama is popular. Don't tear us down. Don't make us feel like victims or the angry guys or the worried guys. Make us feel American!
I think the President's speech yesterday was the reason we Americans elected him. It was grand. It was positive, hopeful. It said to the world: if you're a good guy you've got nothing to fear from us. If you've got national aspirations, if you want to be respected as a people, if you want to treated as an equal people in the world, we're on your side. If you're an aggressor, if you want to hold down another people, if you're driven by a predatory ideology, if you're out to hurt America, look out!
We Americans are like that rattlesnake on our first flag: "Don't tread on us." But what I liked about the President's speech in Cairo was that it showed a complete humility. What he did was rob from the enemy - those who want to destroy us - their main case: the belief that only by extremism can the east reach equality of dignity with the west.
The question now is whether the president we elected and spoke for us so grandly yesterday can carry out the great vision he just gave to the world. If he can, he will be honoring what happened on D-Day sixty-five years ago tomorrow. He will be delivering the world once again from evil.
Watch the complete video below.
On Wednesday, Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., joined Hardball via the phone to discuss FBI wiretaps which reveal him talking with Rod Blagojevich’s brother about the possibility of throwing a fundraiser for the former Illinois governor at the same time he was lobbying for the vacant Senate seat.
Watch the entire interview below:
Firefighter Frank Ricci of New Haven, Connecticut qualified for a promotion after scoring high on an exam but when too few minorities qualified for promotions, the city scrapped the exam and promoted no one. Now Ricci is suing the city of New Haven and his case is pending before the Supreme Court. Ricci and his attorney Karen Torre, discussed the case on Thursday with Chris Matthews.
Watch the entire video below.
On Monday, Chris Matthews paid tribute to former Congressman Jack Kemp who passed away on Saturday. Watch the video below.
by Chris Matthews
The unspoken story of the last hundred days is the one about America itself.
This is a protean country; It changes with conditions. It grows when situations develop. It has a remarkable - I would say exceptional - ability to meet a crisis, one that separates us all from the other countries of the world.
Look at how we do things. We face a crisis. We make a decision. We set a new direction. Look at how definitive we are at this: The Great Depression came along. We dumped a president who couldn't deal with it. We picked one who could. We let him do what he was elected to do: Take action!
We did it again in 1980. Dealt a hand of high inflation, high interest rates -- both in the double digits, with the added humiliation of the Iranian hostage crisis, we discarded one president and selected another. We gave that new president pretty much a free hand to make his changes.
We did it again in 2008. Faced with a deepening recession, we picked a new president, again like the two I mentioned before -- Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan -- men who would normally not be at the top of our list. We elected Barack Obama.
The pattern is deep and understandable -- that is, if you understand this country. Faced with a crisis, we made a big decision. We dumped our previous notions of who should be our president - picked the extraordinary candidate and gave the new president the backing he needs to set the new direction.
America is not good at certain things. We are not great at long-range planning. This is not the land of long novels, classical music, or other such disciplines that require long-term commitments and vision. We are terrible, for example, at dealing with the problem of long-term debt or facing the economic projections on such programs as Social Security and Medicare.
What we're great at -- I would argue - is turning on a dime. Faced with a crisis, whether it's Pearl Harbor or 9/11 or a deepening recession, we move! We do it!
We make big changes and don't look back.
The big reality of this period in American history, in fact right now, is that nobody is sitting around, rubbing their hands and saying, "Gee, I wish we still had Bush," or "Gee, why did we pick an African-American president?"
No, the American character is to make the big decision and go with it. See if the new guy can do what he said he could do.
That's the question for the next 100 days and the 100 days after that. America is a great country for a couple of great reasons. One, every group that's ever come here does better than where they came from. Two -- just as this is the country where you can become not just what but who you want to be -- the country is able, especially when things are tough, to make the big move, to accept the need for change, yes, to rise to the occasion.
It got heated when Pat Buchanan and Lawrence O'Donnell discussed the flap over Obama's scheduled commencement address at the University of Notre Dame.
