Letting It Slip

by digby


I don't know if this is purposeful or simply an felicitous accident, but it's weird either way:

A GENTLEMAN’S WORDS DISAPPEAR: It begins to seem that Chris Matthews’ words have perhaps been disappeared. As we noted yesterday, Matthews offered an unusual recollection of his late colleague, Tim Russert, on Friday evening’s Countdown. In particular, he recalled a conversation he had with Russert as the U.S. prepared for war with Iraq. “It may be tricky to say this,” Matthews said, knuckling to his lack of impulse control. “And I’ll say it.”

Matthews’ statement was “tricky” that night because it wasn’t a silly novel. Perhaps for that reason, it almost begins to seem that Matthews’ words have been officially disappeared.

Due to the miracle of the net, you can still watch what Matthews said, and we recommend that you do so. (Just click here. The comments about Iraq start about 1:10 in.) But the transcript of this 8 PM hour seems to have disappeared. It’s absent at MSNBC.com (this transcript is from Friday afternoon’s coverage). It’s also absent at Nexis. At Nexis, an MSNBC transcript is posted for Friday’s 7 PM hour. The next hour doesn’t appear.

Matthews’ comment was worth considering. We’ll let you know if it ever appears

The comment was extremely worth considering. As Somerby points out there, Matthews has poor impulse control and he blurted this out at an inappropriate time (and in a stupid way.) But he was probably telling the truth. Russert was like the 'average patriotic American" in that he believed that we had to invade Iraq because Saddam might have the bomb.

The problem, of course, is that he wasn't the average American patriot. He was the Washington Bureau Chief for NBC News!

Russert told Bill Moyers that he wishes somebody had picked up the phone to tell him that the administration was lying. Don't we all. But one could have hop[ed that the Washington bureau chief for NBC news would have at least realized that invading a middle eastern country on the "hunch" that they had a nuclear bomb might have some repercussions. Particularly after inspectors found nothing. Millions of the rest of us smelled a rat. You'd think the greatest newsman the world has ever known would have been a little bit skeptical.

But hey, maybe Matthews was talking crazy again. It wouldn't be the first time. But there's an awful lot of evidence that he wasn't. Scrubbing his comment from the transcript (if that's what happened) isn't going to change things.


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