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Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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November 22, 2005
Chris Matthews and Liberal Articles of Self Delusion
Chris Matthews is a swell fellow. On a personality level, he seems like he'd be a loyal friend, good neighbor, and someone who would be fun to go out with for drinks. Further, he's a smart fellow who knows a lot about politics and the machinations of government from the inside and out.
Yet he ends up talking frequently like a blithering idiot. He knows when he's doing it too, cause he saves his most prime foolishness for places other than in front of Hardball cameras.
For example, consider some of his reported remarks made 11-20-2005 to political science students at the University of Toronto. From the Edmonton Sun:
The period between 9-11 and Iraq was not a good time for America. There wasn't a robust discussion of what we were doing.
For starters, "there wasn't a robust discussion" is an utterly ridiculous thing to say. It's just not even vaguely or arguably an even half reasonable thing to say. We jawboned this thing for over a year. We had a very clear vote in Congress right before having a big ol' election, giving the public plent of opportunity to turn the bums out if they didn't like their votes. This is a particularly silly claim for Chris Matthews to make, as he had that robust discussion going on his show every night.
Right here's the money quote, a central tenet of liberal condescension:
If we stop trying to figure out the other side, we've given up. The person on the other side is not evil. They just have a different perspective. The smartest people understand the enemy's point of view, because they understand what's driving them.
Right here is THE biggest place where Matthews and other liberal types make their most crucial mistake. This is a critical article of faith, simply refusing to believe in evil.
No Mr Matthews, it's not that we aren't trying to understand the minds of our enemies. It's that we've pretty well figured some of them out, and they are in fact wicked and evil, and need to be put down like vicious stray pit bull mutts. Some of our opposition consists of at least half reasonable folks with whom we can try to work- but many of them are malicious and sadistic. They like to hurt people, and the only thing that will work is death therapy.
Frankly, this is an OBVIOUS point. There are certainly reasonable arguments about how worthwhile it was to go after these particular schmucks in Iraq as we did. Exact targets and techniques are surely debatable. But describing radical Islam as simply "a different perspective" is utterly ridiculous.
Why would anyone say something like "the person on the other side is not evil" when talking about the likes of Saddam Hussein? That's not just an unsupported claim, but one flying directly in the face of TONS of evidence of which Chris Matthews and everyone else is highly aware.
At some point, this is just willful dishonesty. Yes, I'm sure Chris Matthews has talked himself into believing it, but that does not make it any less dishonest. That just means that he's lying to himself.
As Robert Heinlein noted, self-deception is the root of all evil.
posted by Al at 11/22/2005 12:58:00 AM
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