September 2008 - Posts
by Chris Matthews
Sometimes I see the appeal of the parliamentary system where a government that has failed is no longer the government. We have a presidential system is which is on the clock. The president serves out his tour of duty regardless of his political effectiveness.
And there, on Wednesday night, we saw the president almost like a flashback. It was like, “Is this the present? Is he still president? Is he somebody playing him on 'Saturday Night Live' that we‘re watching?”
It didn‘t seem right, the president’s speech. I don‘t know if it's the words he used during his speech - they jumped out at you, but look at the scare words: “serious financial crisis," "panic," "rescue," "serious recession.” Presidents don‘t usually use words like that because they rattle people, especially older voters. You wonder if people are running to their ATM machines right now and making plans to go to the bank and withdraw the cash tomorrow. It’s a very kind of difficult speech for people to hear.
We are talking about $700 billion on the proposed bail out. The only other thing in our budget that reaches that level is the bill for the war in Iraq. And this will be approved as quickly. It will be approved under the gun and it will be approved under the threat, “If you don‘t do this now you‘re bringing our country down.”
By the way, they‘re voting on it right as they go away for a recess before an election. Sound familiar? The same thing happened in 2002. Congress is being asked to vote without thinking. They‘re going to look at a package (and it was a paragraph long when we got a first look at this thing), giving the Secretary of the Treasury unlimited powers to spend $700 billion. “And you‘ll get some of it back, we can‘t tell you how much.”
It's again a check without limit and again a Congress running a check and it‘s not telling you where the money is going to.
It is a tricky time, with the war and especially with the economy. People usually look at current conditions when they decide how to vote. Every time we do that these days, people reach for that default button and they say, “We‘re changing parties.”
John McCain is in trouble every time conditions prevail. And that‘s when he pulls a razzle-dazzle. McCain calls this move when he sees the voter going back to the default button.
“Fire Chris Cox!” “Bring in Gov. Palin!" “Call off the first night of the Republican convention!” Anything that changes the situation away from that default button where people naturally say, “When one administration fails, when one party fails, you try the other one.”
We saw it again when he called Wednesday night calling for a delay of the debates, “I‘m not going to the debates.”
That‘s true north politically and every time McCain sees our compass going to that, he goes, “Shake the compass up. Don‘t let them see that. That arrow points to the Democrats.”
How would you like eight years of razzle-dazzle?
I think people like predictability and pattern and they like to see a philosophy carried out. They like to see some sort of, well, he used the word himself, “mission.” Are we going to extend the role or expand the role of the public sector? Are we going to reclaim the balance this country once had between public and private enterprise? Will we bring back the role that government has always played in energy development, in transportation, in education, in regulation? Are we going to regain the balance we had before the ‘80s? That is a pattern and that is, in fact, a mission. I think that‘s Barack Obama's mission.
What‘s McCain's? So far, razzle-dazzle.
Chris Matthews offered this analysis on MSNBC, following coverage of the president's primetime speech. Watch the complete video.
by Rachel Maddow
Sen. McCain has suspended his presidential campaign and is threatening to skip Friday‘s presidential debate to work on the Wall Street bailout bill. Is this a self-sacrificing manifestation of his “country first” program? A self-aggrandizing political move to try to take the reins of leadership on economy from Barack Obama? Both? Neither?
No matter where you come down on it, Wednesday's dramatic action appears to be another tile in the McCain campaign mosaic of over-the-top reactions to lots and lots of different situations. When Russia was invading Georgia, McCain rushed in, “We‘re all Georgians, let‘s rumble with Russia!”
As Hurricane Gustav bored down on New Orleans, he partially canceled the Republican convention. When Barack Obama fared well at his convention, McCain‘s response was to throw the ultimate Hail Mary pass and choose Sarah Palin, an inexperienced governor, even though his entire campaign was built around criticizing his opponent‘s inexperience.
Economy in chaos? Wall Street in turmoil? McCain now says, “Let‘s fire the chairman of the SEC,” in the middle of the crisis. And now that there‘s a big proposed Wall Street bailout plan, McCain has out-Hail Maryed himself. Suspend the campaign, postpone the debate. This crisis-first pattern may be what this week moved conservative columnist George Will to question Sen. McCain‘s temperament and judgment.
While the financial crisis is undoubtedly grave, the only real change in affairs since Tuesday is the new information that his poll numbers are being driven by concerns over the economy to heretofore unseen lows.
New polls out today show John McCain trailing Obama in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. So is that the strategy here, try to use an economic crisis as an excuse to hit the reset button to take a time-out from the campaign because the campaign is going poorly?
But there's a talking-points memo about how campaign volunteers can campaign on having suspended your campaign. It was presumably mistakenly e-mailed to reporters by a McCain spokesperson Wednesday.
For his part, Sen. Obama pushed back hard on the suggestion from John McCain that they ought to delay the debate, saying "It‘s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess. And I think that it is going to be part of the president‘s job to deal with more than one thing at once."
Your move, Sen. McCain.
This commentary aired on the Rachel Maddow show, as Rachel turned to Chris Matthews for his take on the news of the day. Watch the complete video.
by Chris Matthews
Today has been a day of reflection throughout our country, a truce between candidates. There were tributes and prayers at Ground zero Zn downtown Manhattan. Barack Obama and John McCain, both at Ground Zero today, agreed to share the stage at Columbia to talk about national service.
I think it's good that September 11 is shifting, if slowly, from a day for grief to a call for patriotic action, from touching sorrow to tough commitment.
John F. Kennedy, who said many wonderful things, said that "our problems are man-made -- therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable and we believe they can do it again."
I think both presidential candidates are committed to this proposition. Obama and McCain both are committed to encouraging and expanding national service among our people.
In that, we're lucky.
Neither the Democrat or the Republican is trying to buy us with easy promises of fat new tax returns or fat pork or other federal bennies flying forth from Washington. No. Both want to ask Americans to give, to help, to serve. Both "get it."
"Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country."
That's still, especially in these years after terrorism hit us at home and hit us bad, a great way to look at things. The biggest failure coming out of 9/11 has been the failure of our leaders to enlist as many of us as possible in the healing work of helping our country.
The two great memories I hold dear from the hell of seven years back was that look on the firefighter racing up the stairs of the World Trade Tower past the scared faces racing down. "It's my job."
And, yes, too, the picture I treasure of those passengers on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania, knowing the trouble they were in, fighting their way into the cockpit as the killers charted their way here to Washington, this capital of freedom. Let's never, any of us forget, that the only victims of 9/11 who knew what they were up against did us so proud.
Watch the complete video of Matthews' commentary.
by Chris Matthews
Think about how people twenty years from now might look back at this 2008 election. The energy crunch has grown to cripple the economy. We're moving product on old railroads and gas-guzzling trucks. The air is clogged with pollution again from fossil fuels because it's all we have.
India, China, Russia, Brazil are grabbing and outbidding us for resources; our failed education system has cost us our innovative edge. We can't compete. We've fallen back to a second-rate power.
And the young people twenty years from now, and the older folks who can remember it will look back at this fateful election of 2008 that set the course for the century and see videotapes of us arguing about lipstick.
Lipstick.
This game that's being played is not an insult of a candidate. It's an insult to the intelligence of our democracy, which is really all we have, each of us, to decide and build the future.
Our only escape is to force ourselves, against all the distractions, to think through the hearts and minds of those young people who will have to live in the world we are now deciding who's to build, who's to lead us to.
Watch the complete video of Chris taking Republican strategist John Feehery to task on why this debate is being discussed.
