ballsy, Chris! I'm so sick of the bs argument.. " we were safe after 9/11'.. and no one ever dares say exactly what chris said...BUT WERE ATTACKED ON YOUR WATCH
tbhull
· 8 months ago
Can a person be more repugnant than the surely small cocked Ari Fleischer?
What a disgusting and hideous example of the human form Ari represents.
Ari, standing alone, would give credence to somone pushing abortion rights as late as the 194th trimester.
devlzadvocate
· 8 months ago
Just when I think I wanna kick him in the butt for having Delay on too many times (does Delay get on cuz CM's bro is a PA GOPer?), he goes and kicks some Ari ass. I watched the 7 pm repeat just for shits and giggles. AF is the biggest LIAR imaginable. Why do the republics even have to remake the Bushoover image if it is so wonderful to begin with?
larz69
· 8 months ago
He still thinks Saddam had something to do with 9/11? I know smarter 4 year olds
Reason0Politics1
· 8 months ago
ya.. he tried that spin too..f'n scumbag
JustAGuy
· 8 months ago
It is, indeed, great that Matthews called Fleischer on his bullshit. But I can't help wondering how much better off we'd all be if Matthews had the guts to challenge the Bush Administration's bullshit 7 fucking YEARS ago when it could have done some good.
Late isn't always better than never, especially if you happen to be one of the unlucky dead.
-S
devlzadvocate
· 8 months ago
I recall that he questioned the moves to war at the time, but not aggressively.
devlzadvocate
· 8 months ago
Can somebody please refresh my memory? When AF was on, he said the Saddam lied about having WMD's. That's the story I've hear for years that motivated the war, but my recollection is different. I recall that he said he DIDN'T have WMD's. If he said he said he didn't have them, how can they say he did say he had them. Or is my memory failing me?
PatD
· 8 months ago
The big twist they apply to that factual shortcoming is that :
Saddam retained the "intent" to reconstitute a nuclear program.
To support that claim the right cites the 500 tons of yellowcake at Tuwaitha and that old piece of equipment they found buried in an Iraqi physicists' yard.
They never bother to explain how they got it wrong with those aluminum tubes they asserted were "only suitable for gas centrifuges". A neo-con mole in the CIA kept pushing that one despite the State Depts' INR opinion to the contrary.
Both Kay and Duelfer debunked the WMD claims but their reports mentioned various pieces of industrial equipment which could conceivably be adapted to weapon programs. Nothing tangible just bits and pieces they could hang their disinfo on.
TomJoad
· 8 months ago
As a person totally against the war during the PR buildup and after, this is what I recall...
1) Saddam was playing a game. The Bush folk afterwards all said "why would he lie and say he had them?" well...he didn't but he also didn't say clearly that he didn't have them. It was a "wink, wink" thing...and the reason was obvious to me even then. Iraq is surrounded by enemy states. Iran especially. It would be like someone sticking up a gas station with finger in pocket pretending he had a gun, and his partner (the US) during the robbery says "hey...we said NO guns, you don't have a gun do you?" He didn't want to be seen as "defenseless".
2) The US lied. The biggest one was the "he kicked out the inspectors". When there was a time when inspectors were out of Iraq, the US produced a "white paper" (summer of 2002) naming specific sites that were producing bio and other "illegal" weapons. The US thought they could just say that, but lo and behold, the inspectors DID get back in and were asking for only a "few months" to be done verifying. They checked out those sites named, and...nope...no WMD and no sign (which would have been impossible to fake) that those places were in use at all for decades.
3) it went under the radar that "Saddam is our enemy". He hated the Bushes, yes, but there has been NO proof at all that he had plans against the US. He was dangerous, for sure, but he wouldn't have attacked (nor given any help to terrorists) the US under any circumstances. He even asked the US, and thought he had a green light to invade Kuwait.
4) Honestly, we couldn't go by WHAT he said. IF he said he did, or said he didn't, but there was every indication that he didn't, he cooperated, and the inspectors pleaded to be able to come to a conclusion...one that would have put a stop on war plans, and that is why they were ordered out by the US, just before invasion.
MarvyT
· 8 months ago
Please don't use titles like "Tweety's making me hot". I almost shot hot coffee thru my nose when I saw that!
Mike_in_the_Tundra
· 8 months ago
Yeah, sometimes he really does it for me.
missime
· 8 months ago
Was it a shrill coming up your leg?
PatD
· 8 months ago
Ari ran on and on, over and over. On the way he misstated the nuke capability of Libya, Syria and Iraq, asserted Ahmedinejad was the dictator of Iran( the ayatollah might have another view on that) and constantly misrepresented the "record job creation" the bush/CHENY administration. Tweety tried to respond, I suppose, but really seemed to let stuff go unchallenged. Fleischer just ran a fire hose of disinfo at Matthews, frequently talking over him. The hubris is simply stunning. I cannot believe these people are from the same planet as me, let alone the same country.
Lolis
· 8 months ago
Wow, Tweety did good.
Jason
· 8 months ago
OMG and we get to listen to the babbling of the Bushies again! For the record I do believe it has been determined Sadaam did not do 911 or am I wrong so how could he "do it again"
MyVoice
· 8 months ago
Did the anthrax attacks after 9/11 that killed Americans not count as another attack? Kept us safe my a$$.
lost_nacf_gop
· 8 months ago
Yeah, but to GOPers the anthrax attacks weren't "terrorism" since they targeted Dems and Journos - to the GOP that's just good ol homegrown ethnic cleansing.
Gawker
· 8 months ago
DC snipers (as mentioned above) are also not considered terrorism. Only those who lived here will tell you that it was. Bob and weave while filling your car with gas or crouch behind your car while putting the groceries away. I was scared, especially when my car broke down on 95. No one wants to be a target. Mathews did well here, but he and the rest need to do better. They need to shut this (lies and distortions) down as soon as it happens, point it out for what it is and expose and ridicule those who do it.
notoriousq
· 8 months ago
We dont have to worry about sadam anymore? Sadam was never a real threat to us and of course we don't have to worry about him because he's dead. The one to concern ourselves with is Osama bin forgotten. Fortunately, I think we have a president that will remedy that.
stymie
· 8 months ago
wake up & die right, you bought into the Bush's govrnmt's conspircy theory and sadly so has our president.
Bryan Joseph Blumberg
· 8 months ago
"but after september 11th, having been hit once, how can we take a chance that Saddam might not strike again?"
Ari confuses me. In order for Saddam to strike AGAIN, he would have had to have struck before. When did he strike before? Does he still think that September 11th was a Saddam strike? I thought that the 9/11 Commission determined that Saddam had nothing to do with it.
Steve_in_CNJ
· 8 months ago
matthews was obviously distracted during that reply. normally he would have pounced. fleischer has told that lie so many times that he probably believes it himself.
missime
· 8 months ago
I caught that too and I was surprised that Matthews didn't catch up on it. Or ... He could have been disgusted enough with Ari because he wasn't getting any answers to his questions, just rambling from Ari about Saddam over and over.
jerryCA
· 8 months ago
I winced at the "Tweety making me hot". Yuck! I stopped watching Hardball a couple of years ago when he suck up to Bush and constantly brow beat the Dems. I mean Tweety literally had a love affair with Bush.
AdrianBrowne
· 8 months ago
The Rehabilitation of the Bush Legacy will be as big a flop as Ari's last project, Freedom's Watch.
tlsintx
· 8 months ago
fuckin a, chris matthews.
the American people are still tired of bushco's lies.
DeppFan
· 8 months ago
*sigh* I need a ciggie.
DeppFan
· 8 months ago
He had me at "leave it better than when you found it."
DeppFan
· 8 months ago
After several listens ... I can't believe Ari Fleischer, after 8 years of the hell that Administration put us through, continues to answer a question on the ECONOMY by invoking 9/11 and then Saddam - two things that have nothing to do with the economy, or each other. Some things never change. Go.The.Fuck.AWAY.
wmforr
· 8 months ago
Actually, although Ari clearly doesn't think this way, there is a very close connection.
President Bush's father's business partner's son Osama did not attack the WTC with the intent of "killing Americans". The specific target was chosen--twice--because he wanted to plunge our economy into chaos.
GWB, clever fellow that he is, realized that he could thwart his childhood buddy Osama by removing that incentive. Thus he has destroyed our economy himself. See? No more threat. Mission, as they say, accomplished.
lost_nacf_gop
· 8 months ago
Ari no recuerdo el Antrax! Que Lastima, perrito de Abusto!
lost_nacf_gop
· 8 months ago
oops, I meant "recuerda"
Blackacre
· 8 months ago
It's simple If you want to give Bush credit for stopping attacks, he has to take the blame for not stopping attacks.
moreleesafer
· 8 months ago
I have to admit that I never found Tweety sexy at all. After that....I'm adding him to the spank bank rotation.
I may even let him in on a fantasy three-way with me and Keith Olbermann.
jimkhm
· 8 months ago
I have to admit I am proud of Chris Matthews for saying it, and sticking to his guns on both the economy, and 9/11. There is no way on earth they can deny it happened on their watch, no matter how much they want to revise history.
People in the Sun
· 8 months ago
Here's what happened. For years, Matthews was only interested in the game of politics. The consequences of decisions didn't interest him. I remember, when Giuliani declared his run for President, Matthews asked one of his advisers who would win in a street fight, Giuliani or Ahmadinejad, and that the perception of Americans about this question would determine who would be the next President. I mean, the man was completely detached.
Maybe it was Keith Olbermann's rise, or Rachel Maddow's, or maybe it's his own future political ambitions, but suddenly Matthews does something with that brain of his.
1st Republic 14th Star
· 8 months ago
So you see how it works -- if we AREN'T attacked, Bush gets the credit. If we ARE attacked, "how dare you" start talking about who was president when?
Here's the thing -- you KNOW that Ari fLIEscher and his fellow Republicans WOULD blame Obama if the US gets attacked during Obama's presidency. How do you know? because that's what the GOP did when the World Trade Center was attacked the first time, and when the courthouse in Oklahoma City was attacked -- they blamed Clinton.
Matthews was a Bush lackey during the entire period from 2000 through 2009. he also LOATHES the Clintons -- I'm convinced that Hillary Clinton turned him down for a date when they worked in the US House in the 1970s. Nothing else explains dislike so passionate except that it's covering up like. For me, Chris Matthews recent sane comments don't make up for his previous record of Bush enabling.
boloboffin
· 8 months ago
I have to admit that Tweety lost me when he said "we don't put up with that kind of thinking in this country anymore." Fodder for rightwingers screaming about thought crimes and Fairness doctrine. But to be fair to Tweety, he'd just heard the "How dare you," line from Mr. "Watch what you think and watch what you say" himself.
And dagnabbit, the ANTHRAX MAILINGS happened after 9/11. And what about the Capital Snipers? And how about all those other Al Qaeda attacks in other countries? "Well, Bush kept us safe, sorry London, sorry Madrid." Goodbye, Ari. Don't let the door hit you.
Judas Peckerwood
· 8 months ago
Hell, how about all of the people Bush killed with his bogus war in Iraq ... all the people who died because of the toxins he allowed to be pumped into our air by dirty coal-burning power plants ... all of the people who were sickened and died from tainted food because he gutted the inspection and enforcement authority of the FDA and the USDA ... and on and on. Bush has FAR more American deaths on his head than Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Ted Bundy combined.
bbock
· 8 months ago
Actually I think we need to not settle the fairness doctrine. Everyone on the left knows it's bullshit. But it has the great advantage of being red meat that sends the right into a tizzy every time it's raised. We can repeatedly distract them with it. Keep them off balanced and off-focus. If they're busy chasing red herrings they won't be able to pull their shit together enough to cause us problems.
don
· 8 months ago
tingle up my leg
cole3244
· 8 months ago
tweety is just flapping the same way the political wind is blowing as is always the case with him, he only wants to be seen as relevant to the popular crowd of the moment, nothing more nothing less. tweety is not a leader but a follower and an opportunist, the worst kind of media whore which is in ample supply today in america. don't blink he will change his tune before you can say fascism.
cowboyneok
· 8 months ago
You aren't talking about, Chris "I voted for Michael Steele" Matthews, are you?
PeteWa
· 8 months ago
Ari is a sack of shit. Or to put it another way, a Republican.
YesWeDid
· 8 months ago
What a smug liar he is. Goodbye Ari, you just became irrelevant.
Deano
· 8 months ago
Ari Fleischer is still promoting the lie that Saddam was behind the 9/11 attacks and then has the gall to say we are better off without Saddam around to attack us again! But Saddam didn't attack us in the first place. Still using the same slanderous talking points. Utterly shameless.
mark
· 8 months ago
First Fletcher about made me vomit, then I think a weekly reminder of how HIDEOUS and ODIOUS the last eight years, really were, will bump Obama's ratings up to 99% approval.
bbock
· 8 months ago
And yes, if someone now hits the US, we will say it happened under President Obama's watch. The buck stops at the desk of the president, unless he's George W. Bush. Then it was Clinton's fault. Except the economy which they say is Obama's fault. Fleischer is a lying sack of shit who needs to be pilloried and banned from polite, reasonable company. Let him appear in World Nut Daily and Faux Views.
lark83
· 8 months ago
Kick butt, kick butt, kick butt. I like it.
dula
· 8 months ago
When is somebody in the MSM gonna come out tell it like it is: We are NOT better off with Saddam Gone. He wasn't a threat to us. Most Iraqis have said that even they are NOT better off with Saddam gone. Before, they had to only worry about him, now they have to worry that their neighbors will try and kill them. The Iraq War helped bankrupt the Nation. Filthy Neocons raided the US Treasury in the cover of the chaos. Iraq distracted us from the real danger in Afganistan. Ari, along with the other Neocon traitors, needs to have his throat slit on national TV and be gutted like the pig that he is. In fact, I am surprised that nobody in the military families that have lost loved ones in vain in Iraq haven't taken the law into their own hands.
cowboyneok
· 8 months ago
THANK YOU! EXACTLY...
EarthquakeWeather
· 8 months ago
Yeah well, nice pushback except it would have been better if Mr. Hardball would have said, "Sadaam DIDN'T ATTACK US, ASS FACE!" I can't believe that went un-rebutted, and even worse that it was even said.
cowboyneok
· 8 months ago
I was thinking the same thing!
I'm just getting caught up on my in-box and blogs from working and saw this. I thought, "NOTE TO MEDIA: IT IS OKAY TO BRING UP OSAMA BIN LADEN when discussing 9-11!!!" Did Matthews mention the name OSAMA BIN LADEN once?!!? Sure, Tweety is trying but the media fails time and again to bring up the real culprit when Bush Apologists start in on the whole "Saddam hitting us again" crap!
cereal
· 8 months ago
oh SNAP!
Rob Mule
· 8 months ago
Yeah, yeah...A few minor dust-ups but, in the main, I thought Tweety's interview was pretty flaccid with the grotesque Ari. Too bad our born-again liberal didn't mention Ari's liar's tactic of never shutting up during questioning. The allegedly balanced style of the media's fake interrogation on matters of obvious fact has been an important igniter for the pyre of media self-immolation.
acknight
· 8 months ago
.... How dare you point out what actually happened? HOW DARE YOU? ...
progressive homeschooler
· 8 months ago
Matthews said "We don't like that thinking anymore in this country". While I'm glad he called Ari on the bs, the fact is Tweety twists with the political winds.
grandpajohn
· 8 months ago
If Matthews really was concerned about this, he would stop giving any face time to these irrelevant lying sacks of shit to spread their filthy lies..
Blow Me, I'm Irish!
· 8 months ago
Screw Chris Matthews.
Now that Ari Goebbels and his Nazi Regime strolled away from their 8 year reign of terror and dictatorship, NOW Matthews wants to show how tough he is?
Where was Tweety and the rest of our "free press" while these fuckers were destroying our nation?
On his knees like a prison bitch, worshipping Chimpy's codpiece.
Ba'al
· 8 months ago
Listen closely and it is clear that Fleischer is still making the claim that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11.
These guys are human garbage.
doggril
· 8 months ago
Ba'al- It's not necessary to listen closely at all. That lying piece o' crap was pretty up-front in his effort to link Saddam and 9/11. It was nice, for a change, to see Tweety call one of these guys out on their amazingly audacious lies. But, yeah, too little, and waaaay too late.
paulbe
· 8 months ago
Of all the Israeli fifth columnists operating in and around the dying American body politic, Fleischer is the most disgusting of them all. Rahm is a close second.
annatopia
· 8 months ago
"saddam attacking again"?!?!? did anyone else catch that? fliescher implied that saddam was responsible for 9-11! for fuck's sake, he cannot be serious with this revisionist crap!
cwazycajun
· 8 months ago
Damm this guy is sitting there lookin like a 13 yr old seeing his first tit matthwes could have pushed him harder on his pure bullshyt but then if he would have done that his droolfest with tom delay would have been over... and he cant have that now can he??
Johnny
· 8 months ago
Did that ass hat say Obama's lucky Sadaam can't strike AGAIN? He never struck in the FIRST place you f'king piece of shit!
5280Petro
· 8 months ago
Ummmmm....Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. What the heck is he talking about?!?!?
NorthCalGal
· 8 months ago
Is there any kind of contact info for Tweety? The MSNBC website only shows a blog area (with no comments). He needs to be corrected on this "oversight" of letting Ari get away with the Saddam can no longer attack us meme.
Anon
· 8 months ago
Anyone who has worked with Ari Fleischer knows he is, oh, shall we say -- ethically challenged. Very ethically challenged. I could care less about what he thinks or says.
BillESQ
· 8 months ago
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?
The “We weren’t attacked after September 11th” argument would only hold water if George W. Bush took office on September 12th. He didn’t. He took office 9 months earlier. It happened on his watch. Period.
Now, you can argue for weeks as to whether it was a lack of leadership and a letting down our guard that allowed these attacks to take place, or whether there was simply no way we could have known such an attack was coming (a difficult argument to make given Richard Clarke’s comments, the memo that August warning of al-Qaida’s intentions and the fact that Bush had spent over half of his presidency on vacation prior to 9/11). But the fact is that George W. Bush was in charge when these attacks happened. There is NO WAY around that. So for that reason alone, he MUST assume at least some of the responsibility/fault.
You simply cannot have it both ways. You cannot take credit for the lack of attacks during one part of your presidency, and not assume responsibility for attacks that happened during another part of your presidency. It just doesn’t work like that.
Ari doesn’t get this…at least when it comes to HIS former boss. The point is well made in the article: If, God forbid, we are attacked under the Obama administration, conservatives and Republicans of Ari’s ilk would fall over each other trying to sling blame upon Mr. Obama, having completely forgotten their earlier, faux indignation, “how dare you” defense of Bush under identical circumstances. (Intellectual honestly, meanwhile, would force Democrats to concede that at least SOME responsibility must rest with Mr. Obama.)
I had a chance to catch the full exchange over at ThinkProgress. I think Matthews did well in this exchange, but allowed two things to take place which softened the impact of his point. One: He let the exchange degenerate into “Dueling Heads,” where two people talk over each other, neither listening to the other and the viewership unable to make out anything either is saying. I, for one, cannot stand that. Two: He let Ari bring up Paul Begala and James Carville when he challenged Ari on not abiding by his own standards. Huh? What in God’s name do THEY have to do with anything right now with respect to this issue? Pure red-herring, and it shows that Ari was cornered.
Matthews should have pounded Ari on this, but instead he let him go and let Ari prattle on. As it turns out, this wasn’t all THAT bad, since in his prattling he brought up the discredited “Saddam attacked us on 9/11″ argument and thus made himself look like a fool. But Matthews missed an opportunity to truly hammer Ari into the ground. His closing line made up for it to an extent, but it could have been so much better.
whomod
· 8 months ago
I tried to twitter Ari Fleisher but alas, he's not registered on Twitter. So I forwarded a nasty twitter to Karl Rove in hopes that he'll forward it.
Called Ari a lying sack of feces and a liar for suggesting Sadaam can't attack us AGAIN.
notsleeping
· 8 months ago
How stupid does Ari think we are? Chris may have missed his sly attempt to re-link 9/11 and Saddam - but I DIDN'T!!
truebluecoondog
· 8 months ago
EXACTLY what I was thinking. How could he let that GO?
All Comments
What a disgusting and hideous example of the human form Ari represents.
Ari, standing alone, would give credence to somone pushing abortion rights as late as the 194th trimester.
Late isn't always better than never, especially if you happen to be one of the unlucky dead.
-S
Saddam retained the "intent" to reconstitute a nuclear program.
To support that claim the right cites the 500 tons of yellowcake at Tuwaitha and that old piece of equipment they found buried in an Iraqi physicists' yard.
They never bother to explain how they got it wrong with those aluminum tubes they asserted were "only suitable for gas centrifuges". A neo-con mole in the CIA kept pushing that one despite the State Depts' INR opinion to the contrary.
Both Kay and Duelfer debunked the WMD claims but their reports mentioned various pieces of industrial equipment which could conceivably be adapted to weapon programs. Nothing tangible just bits and pieces they could hang their disinfo on.
1) Saddam was playing a game. The Bush folk afterwards all said "why would he lie and say he had them?" well...he didn't but he also didn't say clearly that he didn't have them. It was a "wink, wink" thing...and the reason was obvious to me even then. Iraq is surrounded by enemy states. Iran especially. It would be like someone sticking up a gas station with finger in pocket pretending he had a gun, and his partner (the US) during the robbery says "hey...we said NO guns, you don't have a gun do you?" He didn't want to be seen as "defenseless".
2) The US lied. The biggest one was the "he kicked out the inspectors". When there was a time when inspectors were out of Iraq, the US produced a "white paper" (summer of 2002) naming specific sites that were producing bio and other "illegal" weapons. The US thought they could just say that, but lo and behold, the inspectors DID get back in and were asking for only a "few months" to be done verifying. They checked out those sites named, and...nope...no WMD and no sign (which would have been impossible to fake) that those places were in use at all for decades.
3) it went under the radar that "Saddam is our enemy". He hated the Bushes, yes, but there has been NO proof at all that he had plans against the US. He was dangerous, for sure, but he wouldn't have attacked (nor given any help to terrorists) the US under any circumstances. He even asked the US, and thought he had a green light to invade Kuwait.
4) Honestly, we couldn't go by WHAT he said. IF he said he did, or said he didn't, but there was every indication that he didn't, he cooperated, and the inspectors pleaded to be able to come to a conclusion...one that would have put a stop on war plans, and that is why they were ordered out by the US, just before invasion.
Mathews did well here, but he and the rest need to do better. They need to shut this (lies and distortions) down as soon as it happens, point it out for what it is and expose and ridicule those who do it.
Sadam was
never a real threat to us
and
of course we don't have to worry about him because he's dead.
The one to concern ourselves with is Osama bin forgotten.
Fortunately, I think we have a president that will remedy that.
Ari confuses me. In order for Saddam to strike AGAIN, he would have had to have struck before. When did he strike before? Does he still think that September 11th was a Saddam strike? I thought that the 9/11 Commission determined that Saddam had nothing to do with it.
the American people are still tired of bushco's lies.
I need a ciggie.
Some things never change.
Go.The.Fuck.AWAY.
President Bush's father's business partner's son Osama did not attack the WTC with the intent of "killing Americans". The specific target was chosen--twice--because he wanted to plunge our economy into chaos.
GWB, clever fellow that he is, realized that he could thwart his childhood buddy Osama by removing that incentive. Thus he has destroyed our economy himself. See? No more threat. Mission, as they say, accomplished.
I may even let him in on a fantasy three-way with me and Keith Olbermann.
Maybe it was Keith Olbermann's rise, or Rachel Maddow's, or maybe it's his own future political ambitions, but suddenly Matthews does something with that brain of his.
Here's the thing -- you KNOW that Ari fLIEscher and his fellow Republicans WOULD blame Obama if the US gets attacked during Obama's presidency. How do you know? because that's what the GOP did when the World Trade Center was attacked the first time, and when the courthouse in Oklahoma City was attacked -- they blamed Clinton.
Matthews was a Bush lackey during the entire period from 2000 through 2009. he also LOATHES the Clintons -- I'm convinced that Hillary Clinton turned him down for a date when they worked in the US House in the 1970s. Nothing else explains dislike so passionate except that it's covering up like. For me, Chris Matthews recent sane comments don't make up for his previous record of Bush enabling.
And dagnabbit, the ANTHRAX MAILINGS happened after 9/11. And what about the Capital Snipers? And how about all those other Al Qaeda attacks in other countries? "Well, Bush kept us safe, sorry London, sorry Madrid." Goodbye, Ari. Don't let the door hit you.
Or to put it another way, a Republican.
We are NOT better off with Saddam Gone. He wasn't a threat to us. Most Iraqis have said that even they are NOT better off with Saddam gone. Before, they had to only worry about him, now they have to worry that their neighbors will try and kill them.
The Iraq War helped bankrupt the Nation. Filthy Neocons raided the US Treasury in the cover of the chaos.
Iraq distracted us from the real danger in Afganistan.
Ari, along with the other Neocon traitors, needs to have his throat slit on national TV and be gutted like the pig that he is. In fact, I am surprised that nobody in the military families that have lost loved ones in vain in Iraq haven't taken the law into their own hands.
I'm just getting caught up on my in-box and blogs from working and saw this. I thought, "NOTE TO MEDIA: IT IS OKAY TO BRING UP OSAMA BIN LADEN when discussing 9-11!!!" Did Matthews mention the name OSAMA BIN LADEN once?!!? Sure, Tweety is trying but the media fails time and again to bring up the real culprit when Bush Apologists start in on the whole "Saddam hitting us again" crap!
Too bad our born-again liberal didn't mention Ari's liar's tactic of never shutting up during questioning.
The allegedly balanced style of the media's fake interrogation on matters of obvious fact has been an important igniter for the pyre of media self-immolation.
Now that Ari Goebbels and his Nazi Regime strolled away from their 8 year reign of terror and dictatorship, NOW Matthews wants to show how tough he is?
Where was Tweety and the rest of our "free press" while these fuckers were destroying our nation?
On his knees like a prison bitch, worshipping Chimpy's codpiece.
These guys are human garbage.
It was nice, for a change, to see Tweety call one of these guys out on their amazingly audacious lies. But, yeah, too little, and waaaay too late.
He never struck in the FIRST place you f'king piece of shit!
The “We weren’t attacked after September 11th” argument would only hold water if George W. Bush took office on September 12th. He didn’t. He took office 9 months earlier. It happened on his watch. Period.
Now, you can argue for weeks as to whether it was a lack of leadership and a letting down our guard that allowed these attacks to take place, or whether there was simply no way we could have known such an attack was coming (a difficult argument to make given Richard Clarke’s comments, the memo that August warning of al-Qaida’s intentions and the fact that Bush had spent over half of his presidency on vacation prior to 9/11). But the fact is that George W. Bush was in charge when these attacks happened. There is NO WAY around that. So for that reason alone, he MUST assume at least some of the responsibility/fault.
You simply cannot have it both ways. You cannot take credit for the lack of attacks during one part of your presidency, and not assume responsibility for attacks that happened during another part of your presidency. It just doesn’t work like that.
Ari doesn’t get this…at least when it comes to HIS former boss. The point is well made in the article: If, God forbid, we are attacked under the Obama administration, conservatives and Republicans of Ari’s ilk would fall over each other trying to sling blame upon Mr. Obama, having completely forgotten their earlier, faux indignation, “how dare you” defense of Bush under identical circumstances. (Intellectual honestly, meanwhile, would force Democrats to concede that at least SOME responsibility must rest with Mr. Obama.)
I had a chance to catch the full exchange over at ThinkProgress. I think Matthews did well in this exchange, but allowed two things to take place which softened the impact of his point. One: He let the exchange degenerate into “Dueling Heads,” where two people talk over each other, neither listening to the other and the viewership unable to make out anything either is saying. I, for one, cannot stand that. Two: He let Ari bring up Paul Begala and James Carville when he challenged Ari on not abiding by his own standards. Huh? What in God’s name do THEY have to do with anything right now with respect to this issue? Pure red-herring, and it shows that Ari was cornered.
Matthews should have pounded Ari on this, but instead he let him go and let Ari prattle on. As it turns out, this wasn’t all THAT bad, since in his prattling he brought up the discredited “Saddam attacked us on 9/11″ argument and thus made himself look like a fool. But Matthews missed an opportunity to truly hammer Ari into the ground. His closing line made up for it to an extent, but it could have been so much better.
Called Ari a lying sack of feces and a liar for suggesting Sadaam can't attack us AGAIN.