1998: Matthews proposed censure of Clinton, demanded historical footnote; 2006: Matthews questions if censure of Bush is "even legal or not"
SUMMARY: Chris Matthews claimed that "there's a big question about whether it's even legal or not in the Senate" to censure President Bush, as Sen. Russ Feingold recently proposed, over Bush's authorization of warrantless domestic surveillance. But Matthews said something very different about the issue of censure in the context of former President Bill Clinton, at that time taking credit for first promoting the idea of censuring Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky controversy: "I'm not bragging, but I believe I was the first person to talk about the notion of censure because nobody else talked about it."
During the March 15 broadcast of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews claimed during an interview with Democratic adviser Howard Wolfson that "there's a big question about whether it's even legal or not in the Senate" to censure President Bush, as Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) recently proposed, over Bush's authorization of warrantless domestic surveillance, in apparent violation of the 1978 Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA). But Matthews said something very different about the issue of censure in the context of former President Bill Clinton, at that time taking credit for first promoting the idea of censuring Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky controversy. On the December 30, 1998, year-end review edition of Hardball, then broadcast on CNBC, Matthews said: "I'm not bragging, but I believe I was the first person to talk about the notion of censure because nobody else talked about it."
In fact, as Matthews reminded viewers during the 1998 wrap-up, he proposed the notion of censuring Clinton during an interview with then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) that aired in March of that year. Matthews asked Lott, "Why don't you just pass ... a vote to censure [Clinton] if he does something wrong instead of impeach him? Isn't there a middle ground?" Lott responded: "Well, that -- that is -- yeah. Yeah. Sure." Matthews also asked, "Is that legal?" Lott responded: "That is an option, yes." After playing a clip of his interview with Lott, Matthews asked American University history professor Allan Lichtman, who is currently a Democratic candidate for a U.S. Senate seat for Maryland, "Do I get a page in the history books for that or a footnote maybe?" Lichtman assured Matthews that there was precedent -- President Andrew Johnson was censured by the Senate before being impeached by the House in 1868. Lichtman then lauded Matthews's political acumen: "Chris, you know your history, and you're a prophet all at the same time." Matthews replied, "Thank you very much."
From the March 15 broadcast of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: Russ Feingold, the United States senator from Wisconsin, has called for the censure -- that means something short of impeachment, there's a big question whether it's even legal or not in the Senate -- of President Bush over the issue of his use of the National Security Agency to intercept electronic communications between here and other countries but involving Americans. Is that a big enough issue or misbehavior or misconduct to warrant a formal censure by the Senate?
From the December 30, 1998, broadcast of CNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: Let's talk about censure because it seems to be so much in the air as we go to -- through the holidays this year and on to the new year. I believe -- I'm not bragging, but I believe I was the first person to talk about the notion of censure because nobody else had talked about it. I did it in an interview here on Hardball with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott way back in March.
[begin video clip]
LOTT: I do think he needs to go -- get this thing behind him somehow or other, and the best way to do it is, tell the truth. Now, if there is no problem there, then it'll be over. If there are some problems there, then he and we will have to decide how to deal with it. When I say "we," I mean the American people.
MATTHEWS: Why don't you just pass a -- a vote to censure him if he does something wrong instead of impeach him? Isn't there a middle ground?
LOTT: Well, that -- that is -- yeah. Yeah. Sure.
MATTHEWS: Can't you pass a resolution that says, "We don't like the way he behaved with this woman?"
LOTT: Sure.
MATTHEWS: We're certainly not gonna kick him out of office for it, but we want to express our view.
LOTT: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: Is that legal?
LOTT: That is an option, yes.
[end video clip]
MATTHEWS: Allan Lichtman of American University: Do I get a page in the history books for that or a footnote maybe?
LICHTMAN: You -- you -- you sure do. It'll -- it'll only be a footnote, Chris, but --
MATTHEWS: I'll take it.
LICHTMAN: -- the senator was absolutely right. There's plenty of precedent for censuring a president. No one has talked about this, but Andrew Johnson, the guy who was impeached, was actually also censured. He was censured by the Senate before he was impeached by the House, and the Senate quite explicitly said, "He broke the law and he -- and he violated the Constitution," so the precedent is there. And that was never expunged the way the censure of Andy Jackson back in 1834 was expunged. Chris, you know your history, and you're a prophet all at the same time.
MATTHEWS: Thank you very much.
Why is violating the constitution legal while Oval Office oral is a felony? Can any Republican bobble head or Bush loyalist explain that to me?
Clinton wasn't impeached for getting a blowjob; he was impeached for lying about it under oath, which is a felony. Why is that concept so hard for liberals to understand?
I thought Clinton should have been censured just as I think Bush should be also. For breaking the law.
Happy?
Marshmallow Matthews was sure it was legal to censure Clinton for getting a BJ but unsure its legal to censure Bush for illegal wiretaps?
Hey Marshmallow just because Gee Dubya makes you feel towel snappy and all warm and tingly inside doesn't mean law doesn't apply to him.
I remember how you Rethuglicans, so brimming with righteous indignation, spent years and millions of taxpayer dollars investigating anything and everything related to Clinton. Give me six years and tens of millions of dollars to investigate Bush, and I will give you a hell of a lot more than revelations of a BJ. Oh, and by the way, authorizing illegal wiretaps is a felony. Why is it so hard for you conservatives to understand that one?
The difference is that that question (about having sex in the oval office) would never be asked of King George. I can just see the FBI trying to get a DNA sample from Mr Bush to prove that he had an affair and to humiliate him in front of his family and the world.
Lying about a BJ
Lying to got to war so that your rich buddies can profit from it with the blood of our wonderful young soldiers
Yeah, That's the same.
you fool. clinton was being questioned about a civil matter regarding a real estate deal.
Kennith Starr abused that situation to ask him questions that were IN NO WAY germain to the case he was investigating.
How about I put you under oath the next time you have a traffic violation and I ask you how many times you've masturbated in your whole life, and then when you don't answer the question i'll have you held in contempt of court.
What a lie. Clinton was never accussed of lying under oath. There's no lie that you conservatives won't repeat OVER AND OVER AND OVER.
Lying under oath is called PERJURY, and is prosecutable. If he had done it, you know that Star and the rest of the Repugs would have prosecuted him over it, even if they had only a little evidence to support it. NEVER HAPPENED. NO LYING UNDER OATH.
LOT'S OF LYING, HOWEVER, BY A POSTER ON THIS SITE.
Clinton should never even have been censured. But Bush should be impeached.
He was indicted for lying under oath during a Grand Jury investigation. Of course you won't mention the fact that that testimony is *supposed* to stay sealed, and *somehow* was leaked. Hmmmm.
You "felony is a serious crime for a DEMOCRAT" people consistently also fail to mention that after 6 YEARS of an Independent Investigation (you know, that thing that the Rethugs won't allow for THEIR boyz now) and 50 million of OUR dollars later, the REPUBLICAN Senate couldn't convict him.
Look, a CRIME is a CRIME. You people were just beside yourselves when it appeared that Clinton broke the law and lied, and honestly, so was I.
Why is Bush NOT HELD TO THE SAME STANDARDS? Where's your outrage now? A CRIME is a CRIME, and NO ONE is supposed to be above the law, remember? Just because you have a "R" (or a "D", for that matter) by your name and so does the person who is accused of the crime, DOESN'T MEAN that they should get away with it!! PEOPLE are more important than a PARTY.
WAKE UP!
The problem with that statement is that Clinton was never even charged with perjury. That was another myth brought to you by the Clinton witch hunt media.
In order for Clinton to have committed the crime of perjury, he would have had to lie about something material to his case. For example, if he claimed he was never in the room with Paula Jones, but evidence was presented proving he was, that would be perjury. If you lie about something unrelated to the case, like say, an unrelated affair with a different woman, you will not be charged with perjury.
So, essentially, Matthews advocated Clinton's censure without the existence of a criminal conviction for any crime, yet now he opposes a censure of Bush because the legality of the warrantless wire-tapping is still in question (according to Matthews it's in question).
First a correction, Lott is from Mississippi not Tennessee!
How do these pundits, commentators and such make statements like these when they should know that their past statements are on record! Matthews, O'Reilley, Limburger, er, Limbaugh have their shows recorded for whatever use then forget what they said.
Must be a short term(as in presidential terms) memory problem!
Of course. Thanks for the heads-up; we've fixed it.
I wish Mr. Matthews would just move over to Fox News already. He's confusing viewers who think Hardball is the lead-in to Hannity and Colmes but see the MSNBC logo in the corner of their screen.
Is it just me or is Matthews rising the level of Bill O'Reilly as being a parody of oneself?
blowjob; he was impeached for lying about it under oath, which is a felony. Why is that concept so hard for liberals to understand?" - Ubermiester
INCORRECT.
Clinton did not lie under oath to the grand jury, which is why he was acquitted in the Senate. He lied to the american people when said to the press, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman . . . Monica Lewinsky . . ." which may be reprehensible but unfortunately is not illegal {or else Bush would have long ago been been impeached, tried, and removed.}
And sorry, Tweety: as I stated in another thread, you were NOT the first person to propose a censure of Clinton; Sen. Diane Feinstein {D-CA} proposed a censure resolution that had {by her estimate} the support of 40 of the 45 democrats then in the Senate, as well as 15 GOP Senators . . . it never came to a vote, however, because Majority Leader Lott was hell bent on getting the impeachment vote . . .
remember it that way. He definitely lied under oath. He just didn't commit perjury, mainly because of a technicality of the law. He also had his law license suspended and paid a fine for his lies.
I don't remember it that way.
Sssshhhocking...
I wonder what else about the Clinton administration you don't remember as happening the way it did.
MJH is right. I looked it up. Kenneth Starr was of the opinion that Clinton had lied under oath, and said as much in his report (which, as another poster pointed out, cost us millions and netted us nothing of substance). Congress disagreed with Starr, and acquitted Clinton.
Facts, brother. Facts.
leatherhelmet doesn't BELIEVE in facts. They get in the way of his worldview, you see.
"Don't confuddle me wif de facts!"
He did lie while under oath.
It was not perjury because it was not a material matter in a court case. He lied in a deposition that was for a potential court case that never made it to court. MJH was not really much more correct than ubermeister or Leatherhelmet.
Unless it's testimony that is relevant to an actual court case, it cannot be perjury.
If it's not perjury, it can't be a felony.
It was a lie, though, and he did voluntarily give up his law license and pay a fine to settle the issue.
So, no, ubermeister, Clinton was not impeached for a felony.
Why is it that right-wingers can't get it right? Could it be that it's more successful to deceive, than it would be to act honestly?
And why do other people not get it right?
Because so many lies were told about it that it's hard sometimes to remember exactly what is right.
Clinton lied about marital infidelity. It was not a felony. It was wrong. But not a felony.
Bush began a campaign that violated laws passed by our Congress that prevent wiretapping of American citizens without an effort to secure warrants justifying those wiretaps. That action on the part of Bush is a felony.
For setting the record straight. Are you a lawyer by any chance?
If there had been the slightest chance of prosecuting him for perjury, they would have done so. There was no technicality. I listened to the testimony. He was given a definition, and he followed it.
Again, if had been the slightest chance of perjury, Star would have prosecuted him even if he knew they were going to lose. NO PROSECUTION. NO LIE.
I'm tired of this distortion.
Thanks for setting the record straight. I marvel at the effectiveness of the "librul media" in distorting the actual issues, so much that even those who pay attention are confused.
Tweety is just one more dime store fraud. He's an empty talking head in love with the sound of his own voice. I wonder how many lies he told to get the soft jobs he has held. A hard day of real work would probably do him in. Put him out in a strong wind and maybe he will blow away. Would that that could happen to all the Neocons including their boss and his oval office rug.
This was my reaction to his article on March 14, 2006:
Thanks for the reply. However, you shouldn't rely on opinion polls on NSA do not back your claim. Example: A Harris poll conducted in Mid-January found that most Americans (granted, within the margin of error) believe that Bush's handling of the wiretapping program was NOT LEGITIMATE. [link to www.harrisinteractive.com] . A *CNN//USA Today//Gallup Poll asked the question in February: **"Based on what you have heard or read, do you think George W. Bush definitely broke the law, probably broke the law, probably did not break the law, or definitely did not break the law? 49% said he did break the law, while 47 said he did not. [link to www.cnn.com] Even if you show me 2 or 3 polls in which a slight majority viewed the program as legal, my two polls balance yours out. In conclusion, Americans are evenly divided on the issue, and therefore a call to censure would not give Bush an advantage. As you can see you make it seem as if Feingold's move would boost sympathy towards Bush somehow. You base it on the simplicity that "democrats were not very happy about the move" while Republicans were. **Be more analytical next time, and do not assume your readers don't read polls.*
McAuliff, Michael wrote:
> Hi Andric, > > Thanks for reading and thanks for writing. I always appreciate it. > Unfortunately we never have room to cite everything we know, but we > highlighted the Republicans, and especially those in the White House, > because they were very happy with the move. Democrats were not. The > reason is the NSA spying program has not gotten much traction with the > public, and indeed, the opinion polls bear that out. We've written about > that in the past, but didn't really have room this time. > > And again, thanks for reading, > > Cheers > Michael > > -----Original Message----- > From: Andric Perez [mailto:andricperez@optonline.net] Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 7:50 PM > To: McAuliff, Michael > Subject: You didn't explain why Feingold's move "helped" Bush > > You did not cite any poll or public reaction to Senator Feingold's call for censure. You merely repeated what several Republicans said about the > > issue. Your article title looks like an opinion piece. It was terrible. Today Mr. Feingold declared that Democrats were cowards for not standing > > up to Bush. With this being a more radical mve than the censure call, would you say it helps Bush too? Let's wait and see the next polls.
$44 million was spent on the investigation into whether Clinton had had a sexual relationship while in office........
$4.3 million was spent on how, why, and who perpetrated the single most terrible day in American history......9/11 (this only after Bush and friends decided that the public wouldn't be happy if one wasn't done.........and he at first apponited H. Kissinger to be the lead investigator......and we all know the pathetic attempt at the Commission was just that..... PATHETIC!!)
Now that's what I call doing your job!!
So......for all you right-wingers out there that claim to love America while we liberals somehow don't........you best remember that the boys you defend now are all guilty of this travesty from then (Clinton) and now (9/11)!!
Calling all true-blue truth telling Americans.......
Help me out here......I'm on the right track here with the Clinton/9/11 comparrision.......lets bring more truth out there and compare the relatively few lies of Clinton to the vast many of Bush!
I call it........Compare the evils of Clinton to the evils of Bush.... in no specific order.......
We could run a commercial, featuring Clinton's famous finger-wagging "I did not have sex with that woman" followed by any number of Bush whoppers. The problem is, which Bush lie would we feature? The famous "mission accomplished" scene comes to mind, or any of his "Dark and gathering threat" speeches leading up to the war. The bottom line, of course, is which lie hurt us the most? Clinton's lie about sex, or Bush's lies about everything else?
I know Chris has gone of the deep end on several occasions lately, but I think he's referring to wiretapping, and whether THAT'S illegal. Not whether the censure motion is legal.
If nobody has officially said that wiretapping is illegal, then this censure motion is to chastise the President for what? Legally fighting the war on terror? As Democrats, we need to push for an investigation to prove that Bush is breaking the law. We all KNOW he's broken the law, but there's no judgement that's been ruled by anybody except sidelined academic legal opinions.
Of course, Republicans won't investigate the legality of the wiretapping for exactly that reason. It invites criticism (and criminal charges) against the President.
But I haven't listened to the whole segment, so I can't really comment more than that. It's just from what I've read here.
Um...Gonzales got his chance to explain the legal reasoning behind the intrusion. He failed. Anyone with a whit of common sense can see that the Administration has adhered once again to its "It's better to beg for forgiveness, then ask for permission" policy. And yet, according to you, we shouldn't censure until the Supreme Court comes down on this? Ridiculous.
Any one mind explining how the entire Jones case was ever allowed in the first place. I Seem to remember in my high school civics class that the President was immune to civilian courts while in office in order to protect the office itself. That Congress was the President's Court for crimes in office. Civil Siuts would hold over till after he left office. Our Founding Farthers rightly believed that allowing the president to be sued or charged would place dangerous distractions and would prevent him from executing the duties of the office affectively. And that it would also open the President up to politically motivated attacks that were meant to undermine his Presidency.
I was taught this long before Clinton was Pres. So either my High School Civics Book was wrong or someone allowed an unlawful suit. What ever the case, The book's argument was right. The Jones law suit had no legal grounds- yet was politically used to undermine the Clinton Presidency. HUM! Can Someone who was educated before this whole trashing of our contitution help me out here. Prior to the Repbulicans rewrite was the president immune to civilian courts while in office.