Matthews on Abramoff scandal: "[D]on't you have to be a real ideologue, a real partisan to believe that one party's more crooked than the other?"
MSNBC host Chris Matthews asked "[D]on't you have to be a real ideologue, a real partisan to believe that one party's more crooked than the other?"
During a discussion of the Jack Abramoff scandal on the January 11 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews asked Cook Political Report editor and publisher Charlie Cook: "Charlie, don't you have to be a real ideologue, a real partisan to believe that one party's more crooked than the other? In terms of -- not in terms of ideas or of philosophy, but taking cash home with you and stuff like that?" Cook responded: "Yes, but the thing is, I think the country's more ideological in that sense, more partisan in that sense, than it's ever been before."
Earlier in the discussion, Matthews had asked Rothenberg Political Report editor and publisher Stuart Rothenberg: "Will the stink of Abramoff ... hurt both parties, or is this primarily a Republican problem?" Rothenberg responded that "right now, it's primarily a Republican problem." Rothenberg noted that Republicans "have much greater vulnerability," adding that "the high-profile members of Congress who are mentioned as under the microscope at the moment are virtually all Republicans."
At least one prominent conservative has asserted that efforts to label the Abramoff scandal as anything other than Republican were "misdirect[ed]." In his January 10 column, subtitled "It's the Republicans, stupid," National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote that the Abramoff scandal "is, in its essence, a Republican scandal, and any attempt to portray it otherwise is a misdirection." Lowry added:
From the January 11 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: Will the stink of Abramoff, as we assume it's going to, lead to more indictment, or indictments, I should say? Is this going to hurt both parties, or is this primarily a Republican problem?
ROTHENBERG: Well, right now it's primarily a Republican problem. They have much greater vulnerability; the high-profile members of Congress who are mentioned as under the microscope at the moment are virtually all Republicans. [Rep.] Tom DeLay [R-TX], [Rep.] Bob Ney [R-OH], [Sen.] Conrad Burns [R-MT], [Rep.] John Doolittle [R-CA].
MATTHEWS: [Rep.] J.D. Hayworth [R-AZ] is on that list, too.
ROTHENBERG: There are some Democrats involved, but at the moment, the focus is on the Republicans.
MATTHEWS: Can you go down, as a member of Congress, because you took some money from a lobbyist, even if it's for campaign expenses?
ROTHENBERG: You can go down if the public desires change and if the Republicans are tagged with corruption. The Democrats have done a nice job talking for months about the Republican quote-unquote "culture of corruption." And if voters want change, you can go down if you just take a campaign contribution.
MATTHEWS: Charlie, don't you have to be a real ideologue, a real partisan to believe that one party's more crooked than the other? In terms of -- not in terms of ideas or of philosophy, but taking cash home with you and stuff like that?
COOK: Yes, but the thing is, I think the country's more ideological in that sense, more partisan in that sense, than it's ever been before.
MATTHEWS: So Republicans think Democrats are crooks and the other way around?
COOK: Right, yeah. I mean, today, that's part of the problem we have today, is today nobody's wrong, they're evil.
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History shows and will continue to show that the party in power is the more corrupt party.
Since republicans are in power, it shows Tweety was wrong, and MMFA's point is valid. If you are agreeing then good for you.
In order to be corrupt, one must abuse power. To abuse power one must have it. Dems still have some power but there is little or no indication that they are abusing it. No Dem has even gone under investigation that I know of since Bush took office. Republicans have had to look overseas to find corrupt liberals.
The only way to compare the parties in terms of corruption is to look at what happens in the times that either are in power. Looking at that alone, Republicans have shown to be more corrupt. Matthews is wrong.
can have your own opinions, but not your own facts. Moynihan.
"Don't you have to be a real ideologue, a real partisan to believe that one party's more crooked than the other?"
Hardly--you'd have to be a real ideologue, a real partisan to believe otherwise!
Matthews is. MMFA has solidly established this fact over the past year - and of course keeping the light on him is important - but is this comment really that far out of line? The guy is a columnist who moves fast and sets up his guests with bait to get the juices flowin' and tongues flappin'. ...Like Linda Richman tossing out a topic... . Yes, you could say that he 'took' the position implied by the question thus attempting to soften the criticisms falling on the Republicans at the moment. And yes, he's got an agenda of his own that can leak out into the open - but this one? No big deal...
Let's not forget Mathews was a part of the corrupt system he seems to defend or, at least, minimize it's importance.
I love watching Chris Matthews tippy-toeing up to the party line...
Do you have to be an idealogue to believe one party's more corrupt than the other? No, I think you pretty much just have to be paying attention.
Or partisian? Nope. That doesn't work, either. I don't belong to either party and the view to the right from where I'm sitting is pretty ugly.
It's a wonderful technique for spreading hatred, though... all this "your party's just as corrupt as my party and if you don't agree, I'll call you names" media hype.
"Both Sides Do It, So It's Ok!"
Thank you, Matthews, for pointing out yet again the dangers of false balance.
Because both sides have corrupt people, we can't point out when one side is being truely blatant and overwhelmingly corrupt.
People still claim this bastard is a liberal Democrat?
how L. Bent Bozo ripped him for being a wild-eyed liberal - check out "News Busters" (a fascinating name for that website, by the way - says more about their goals then they intended).
Well, Matthews does appear to be trying out for the "Fair and Balanced" crowd. I was thinking back to Abscam and the uproar it caused the Democrats were in power then, but I believe some Repub.s were caught also. Until the same happens in this scandal then yes the republican party is more corrupt than the Democratic. But I think Tea Pot Dome, Watergate, Iran-Contra and the best part of Bush2's administration have already proved this.
I guess since Chris gets it from both sides, he prolly thinks he's being "fair and balanced" (God, will we ever be able to use those 2 words in the same way again?).
So in his mind, if Brent the Bozo gives him hell, and Media Matters gives him hell, it's all the same.
In my mind, the entire DC News operation has been corrupted by BushCo and esp. Plame. Except David Gregory and David Schuster. God help them.
You do have to be pretty partisan to believe that one party is more corrupt than the other. However, you have to be utterly blind to believe that in this particular case the corruption does not appear to be concentrated heavily -- if not exclusively -- in only one party.
Matthews is using a popular rhetorical strategy: make a statement that is generally true when considering many cases, then apply it to a specific case as if it must then be true. It is the fallacy of the average. On average, the parties are about equally corrupt, so they must always be equally corrupt.
His statement has a sheen of logical appeal: after all, we all know both parties are corrupt, so why let the Dems pin this all on the Reps? Well, because in this case that seems to be where all the guilt lies.
-mid
You would have to be stupid to think that.
the party that taps the leading lobbyist graft collector to write the new lobbyist graft collection rules, isn't corrupt.
Damn cat.
Abramoff gave no money directly to Democrats, yet the Republicans and the media feel they must make the Democrats apart of this scandal just to seem fair. Blaming the Democrats is obviously the Republicans strategy of defense. Some how they must make the Democrats responsible for what they have did with Abramoff and the media is more than willing to keep things "fair and balanced" so they don't have to put their bias to the fire. This is getting old and I am sure MMFA has a full time job just keeping up with the assumptions associated with this. Too say you have to be an ideologue to believe this is a one party dynamic is not true statement. In actual fact, answer the questions, and be truthful, who has been the most caught being dishonest and I am sure you will see that it is at least a 80/20 percent frequency rate in favor of the Republicans. They lie, steel, and cheat; they only come clean when they know they can't get out of their dilemma. Mr. Nay would be the most recent victim of this example.
says a lot in your post. That would be, I think, like me saying my pay does not come directly from the company I work for because the CEO doesn't hand me the cash, rather it is an exchange between banks. So if a contribution comes from someone related to Lobbyist #1, it really doesn't come from Lobbyist #1. Some R's are deep in this pile of do-do. At the same time, if the majorities in Congress were reversed, there would undoubtedly be some D's deep in the pile. Power (and the love of money) corrupts!!!! It has destroyed democracies in the past and, I fear, is on the way to delivering a mortal blow to this one, unless we the people demand more accountability from our elected officials on both sides of the aisle.
A deliciously false analogy.
Congratulations.
We can all play the six degrees of seperation to Kevin Bacon game but if we just look at the FACTS THIS particular scandal is pretty much a republican scandal.
The only people under investigation are Republicans. Only republicans have been indicted. Jack Abramoff is also a Republican and only gave contributions to Republicans. He clearly wanted to help and give Republicans more power.
From this Chris Matthews draws the conclusion that a partisan would believe there is a difference in twisted acts between the parties.
Always remember who owns the media, Corporate America. When things get tight, the commentators speak for the owners. Only Air America can speak their mind.
They admit there is corruption in our political system, but they really don't seem concerned that the corruption is destroying the foundation of our democracy. They talk about corruption about as casually as talking about a football game. In addition, Matthew's puts spin on this with the attitude "Yeah there is corruption, but they all do it. Oh well."
should be publically funded elections. However, what it will most likely be is new regulations that will make it harder for challengers in the political system while allowing those in office to hide their "contributions" in darker and darker holes.
Since this site is about how the news media reports on current events we should focus on what Chris says about the issues. Since his job is to be a "news analyst" and ask the questions his listeners would ask, I can only conclude that he views his listening audience as wanting to live in some kind of alternate reality. He does a clear disservice to those Republicans who care about their party and also care about honesty. Pretending that such criminal activity is somehow not (currently) tied to the Republican party will, in the long run, hurt the party. Current reliable polls indicate that voters will not tolerate lawmakers that take bribes.
Perhaps Chris believes that the only news source for most voters is his own program?
...."[D]on't you have to be a real ideologue, a real partisan to believe that one party's more crooked than the other?"
No, actually all you have to do is have the ability to read the newspaper or the internet to know that the GOP has quite a few people in trouble with the law.
[and i think this one is going to be big]...was watergate. you had a complete corruption of power by the nixon administration. he was using the fbi and irs to go after his political enemies, he knew all about the breakin, his attorney general and most of his top aides went to jail, and the icing on the cake, his vice president had to resign because he was indicted for taking bribes as governor of maryland. bill clinton? he lied about sex.
Perhaps he was asking the question because it was a question someone might think of and so he was providing them with responses these folks might give if asked such a question. I only mention this because I see journalists do this sometimes, ask a question that they aren't personally wondering about, but realize that it's a question ppl. "out there" might have contrived, and so they want to deal with that. Don't we see demagogues do this, although with a nefarious twist? They ask a question as if they personally were asking, but really they are just asking what they know their enemies would ask and in this way they are responding to their enemies challenges.
--its all about which one has the sexiest codpiece, eh chris?