Chris Matthews
by Chris Matthews
Earlier this month, I took two weeks off from the show and Kathleen and I traveled to South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland where I had spent two years back in the 1960s helping develop small business enterprise as a volunteer in the U.S. Peace Corps.
We got a fabulous chance to see the historic efforts some very good people are making to save the amazing wildlife of Africa. I've got to give a real shout-out to Greg Carr, an American who is working and investing so hard to rebuild the great Gorongosa Game Park in Mozambique. He is working with the government of that country to bring back that country's precious resource.
I also want to pay tribute to Ted Reilly, who's spent his whole life in Swaziland. His father fought in the Boer War and he's now helping King Mswati to build-up and protect that beautiful little country's wildlife.
I've got to praise King Mswati for having the strength and vision to mean it when he bans poaching. Zero tolerance! No bail. No breaks...you kill, you go to jail. We've had too many elephants and rhinos killed in that part of the world.
I can't overlook the work of today's Peace Corps volunteers in Swaziland to deal with the HIV-AIDs challenge. They're up against some real challenges but I was very happy for the chance to meet with them.
Three cheers again to King Mswati for inviting the Peace Corps into his country and backing up their volunteer efforts. It makes me proud to have those young Americans over there working to meet a horror that affects Africa so greatly.
It was an incredible two weeks. I came very close to some amazing animals. In the very midst of the most wonderful scenery in the world. I was lucky to be in Africa as a young man and lucky to have returned there many times with my family since.
I hope to spend the rest of my life keeping in touch with the beauty and challenges of this wondrous continent.
Watch the complete video below.
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.
By Chris Matthews
President Obama held his much anticipated press conference Tuesday and delivered his most pronounced message since taking office. He wants to be a president who does more than muddle through. He wants to be a transformative president on the model of Roosevelt and Reagan. He wants to do big things.
Tuesday's press conference showed he that he's president for celebrity or popularity. He was saying "I'm not going to be Bill Clinton and do school uniforms and family home leave, I'm going to do big stuff. Dick Morris is not advising me. I'm here to do business like the big guys, like Reagan and Roosevelt and maybe Lincoln. I'm going to be an important president or I'm not going to be a good one."
The president stressed the urgency of getting Congress to pass his budget. I found it odd that no one asked the big question: How is he going to do it? Will President Obama will use that special budget procedure that allows him to win his budget through the Congress on just 50 votes plus that of the vice president?
There are only two ways to pass bills: You get them through the budget procedure that allows you to do it with 50 votes or you wait around and try to get 60 which he‘ll never get. Wasn't that a good question that never got asked?
I think President Obama has a very coherent plan: He is going to force the United States Senate to vote up or down on his budget. He's not going to let them walk away and do it piecemeal. He's going to wrap up energy, health care and education into one big casino style vote for Congress to take or leave. It looks to me like he is to insist that they take it up as a reconciliation matter where they only require 50 votes to do it. I think he's going to jam it. I think what we're seeing here day after day is this push.
I think last night's speech was about President Obama saying, "I'm not here just to get by. I'm not just here to get through the business cycle. I'm going to change the American economy to compete in the future."
by Chris Matthews
We, Americans, live in the time of our presidents. As Franklin Roosevelt was to the 1930s and '40s, as Ike was to the '50s, Jack Kennedy to the '60s and Reagan was to '80s, Barack Obama will be to the oncoming 2010s. Like his predecessors he will give his name to our era. His will be the spirit that stirs the country.
Barack marked the instance of this new era late last night in Chicago. "Because of what we did on 'this' day, in 'this' election, at 'this' defining moment, change has come to America."
We awoke this morning to this new time, the time of Barack Obama and with it to the first crackle of his new leadership: the rustle of imminent high level appointments, the willingness to serve among the top ranks of available talent, all this heralding the arrival in Washington of a disciplined public service, of crisp, informed public action and, yes, more clearly than ever of, by and for the people.
Watch Barack Obama's complete speech.
On Thursday's Hardball, Chris Matthews had a discussion about President Bush all but accusing Sen. Barack Obama of appeasement for wanting to talk to enemies of the United States. Conservative radio talk show host Kevin James and Chris Matthews then had a disagreement about what constituted appeasement. Chris Matthews had the following to say on Friday:
"Look, I'm a student of history, especially of the late 1930s when the world didn't stand up to Hitler and my hero Winston Churchill saw all the hell coming and couldn't stop it. The catastrophe of the 1930s was thinking that Hitler would be satisfied with the gift of bite-sized countries. The evidence suggests he wanted war to avenge World War I and to dominate Europe. He also had his heart set on extermination of the Jewish people. The horror of appeasement was not in talking to him and letting him yammer. It was giving him countries - like Czechoslavakia in 1938.
Anyway, perhaps it's little surprise that our Big Number tonight is the number of times my guest - demanding we not repeat the appeasement of the 1930s - failed to tell me what that appeasement actually was. 'What did Neville Chamberlain do?' I kept asking to no avail. The number? 24! 24 times I tried to get an answer out of our guest!
Anyway, we do like Kevin James and hope he’ll be back on Hardball again."
This video from Thursday's Hardball is getting traction on other news shows and on the blogosphere. For those who missed it, take a look.
Chris Matthews fondly looks back on his first trip to Israel while remembering the founding of the state of Israel nearly 60 years ago.
"The first time I visited that incredible country was in 1971, when it was still in the afterglow of its wondrous victory against all sides in the Six Day War. I remember sitting in a restaurant. It was really more of a bar as an older fellow, who'd had a few, loudly proclaimed his pride in a group of soldiers who'd just entered the room. How exciting to be in such a little country that had just taken on such tough odds and won!!
Being a movie buff, I spent a lot of time in movie theaters in Israel, where everybody's a movie buff, and looking down at the Uzi lying on the seat next to me that had been brought along by the young woman member of the IDF, sitting near me. Talk about a self-reliant country where some guy's date is carrying an automatic weapon along for the night.
Yes, I've been back a trio of times since and have loved the mix of the old and the new, the mix of the three great religious sites side by side in the Old City of Jerusalem where I loved visiting the old Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I feel at home there and have nothing but joy and good will and Shalom to wish to this great and gutsy country on its anniversary.
On Tuesday's post-Indiana and North Carolina primary coverage, Chris Matthews ranted about talk show host Rush Limbaugh's plea to conservatives and Republicans to vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton in an attempt to prolong the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination between her and Sen. Barack Obama. Here's what Chris had to say:
"I have to offer a Keith-style special comment on that. Anyone who voted to screw up the political system of this country with the purpose of mischief should carry that with them the rest their lives. What a ridiculous way to use the vote for which people fought and died, to use that vote to make mischief. I hope you're proud of yourself."
Hardball's Chris Matthews takes a look at some interesting Decision 2008 topics and shares his thoughts.
The Clintons’ recipe for success
The Clinton campaign has had a tough time managing former president Bill Clinton in this election. He was supposed to be the secret weapon but against whom? Sen. Barack Obama or his own wife? His gaffes, outbursts, and misstatements have dogged the Clinton campaign since the beginning.
But as we head into the final days of the Pennsylvania primary, Sen. Hillary Clinton is once again trying to use the Bill Clinton years to her advantage. On Thursday, at a Philadelphia dinner yesterday she said:
"Sometimes during this campaign my opponent criticizes the 90s and criticizes what my husband did. And that's fair. But when I hear him criticizing the 90s, I keep wondering what part he didn't like, the peace or the prosperity, because I liked both."
Unfortunately it wasn't "just" the peace and prosperity. It was also the Clinton sitcom. The Clintons assume memory loss on the part of the voters. That's a secret to their success.
President for a term?
The wondrous Peggy Noonan has an interesting suggestion for John McCain on Friday. She wrote in her Wall Street Journal column,
“It seems to me it would be a brilliant thing for him to announce he means to be a one-term president, that he means to have a clean, serious, one-term presidency in which he will do things those under pressure of re-election do not and cannot do."
Peggy Noonan says voters in the middle would love it because you get a good man, and Obama gets time to grow. The problem is that one-term presidents are almost lame ducks to begin with.
Clinton needs the popular vote
In order to have any shot at the Democratic nomination at this point, Clinton needs to beat Obama in the overall popular vote. Right now, she trails Obama by over 700,000 votes, not including Florida and Michigan.
If she were to win the overall popular vote, Clinton might be able to make a case for superdelegates to back her. But in order for that to happen, she first needs a major win in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. How much does she need to win by, in my estimation?
At least 200,000 votes! A 200,000 vote win in Pennsylvania to begin the uphill battle of winning the popular vote. Watch video.
