Matthews let Lott absolve Frist of scheduling Senate's gay-marriage debate
SUMMARY: Chris Matthews allowed Sen. Trent Lott to suggest that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist did not make the decision to have the Senate consider the Marriage Protection Amendment during an election year, because Frist "[doesn't] control totally what the schedule might be." In fact, Frist publicly stated in mid-May that Senate debate on the proposed amendment would occur in early June, and then moved to have the Senate consider the motion on the first day it was in session in June. At the conclusion of the interview, Matthews told Lott, "I'm getting to like you too much."
On the June 6 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews allowed Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) to suggest that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) did not make the decision to have the Senate consider the Marriage Protection Amendment during an election year, because Frist "[doesn't] control totally what the schedule might be." In fact, Frist publicly stated in mid-May that Senate debate on the proposed amendment, which would create a federal constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, would occur in early June, and then moved to have the Senate consider the motion on the first day it was in session in June.
Specifically, on the May 14 broadcast of CNN's Late Edition, Frist told host Wolf Blitzer that the debate would take place "[s]ometime in early June." Frist also expressed support for the amendment during the interview, stating that "we've seen activist judges overturning state by state ... laws defining marriage between a man and a woman," and "that is why we need an amendment to come to the floor of the United States Senate to define marriage as that union between one man and one woman." Frist exercised his prerogative as majority leader to bring up the constitutional amendment on May 26, the last day the Senate was in session in May. As a result, the Senate took up the legislation the next day it was in session, June 5.
Additionally, Matthews's interview with Lott marked the latest instance in which he lavished praise on a Republican. At the conclusion of the interview, he told Lott, "I'm getting to like you too much." As Media Matters for America has documented, Matthews has repeatedly used similarly effusive language to praise other notable Republicans, such as President Bush (here, here, here, here, and here), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) (here, here, and here), former Bush administration Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, and House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH).
From the June 6 edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: Thank you, David.
Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi is running for re-election and has no major primary challenger today. He's the former Senate majority leader, and he might be looking to get back into the leadership one of these days.
[...]
MATTHEWS: Do you think it's Karl Rove pushing for an election issue?
LOTT: You know --
MATTHEWS: He's been pretty busy lately.
LOTT: -- I wouldn't put it past him.
MATTHEWS: Right.
LOTT: But in the defense of the leader, Bill Frist, scheduling it now, sometime even as the leader of the Senate, you don't control totally what the schedule may be. Events cause you to have to take something off. Then you've got to put it back on, and with good reason.
[...]
MATTHEWS: I'm just amazed by the -- younger kids are much more turned off to abortion than people my age, but, for some reason, they are shifting on this. Maybe because it's been legal.
LOTT: You know, Chris, we've been through this. You've been through this. When I was in college, I was a little more liberal myself. I remembered arguing this very point, this question of abortion with my own kids, particularly my daughter, who couldn't understand why I would be opposed to that. And then one day she became a young professional woman, and then she became a mother, and now she's much more pro-life than even I am.
MATTHEWS: Yeah, yeah.
LOTT: Life has changed her. You know the old argument: When you're young, if you're not liberal, there's something wrong with your heart. And when you're older, if you're 60 and you're still liberal, there's something wrong with your mind.
And I do think life teaches you lessons, and sometimes they take you the other way. Sometimes you learn by the difficulties of life that maybe you were too high and mighty, and maybe you were too profound and --
[crosstalk]
MATTHEWS: I'm getting to like you too much. Anyway, Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, who is going to be renominated tonight by his party, I'm sure.
From the May 14 edition of CNN's Late Edition:
BLITZER: When are you going to introduce on the floor of the Senate legislation that would ban same-sex marriage?
FRIST: Sometime in early June, in early June. We're going to finish -- the Senate plans will be that we will go through immigration. I'm going to do my best to bring the [Brett] Kavanaugh nomination to the floor of the Senate. And then we have a break at Memorial Day. And very soon after that we will take the proposed amendment on having marriage be defined as a union between a man and a woman.
[...]
BLITZER: What do you say to the vice president [Dick Cheney] and Lynne Cheney, when you look them in the eye and you say, "I want to ban same-sex marriage," knowing that their daughter clearly supports same-sex marriage?
FRIST: Yeah. I basically say, Mr. Vice President, right now, marriage is under attack in this country, and we've seen activist judges overturning state by state law, where state legislatures have passed laws defining marriage between a man and a woman, and that's it. And that is being overturned by a handful of activist judges around the country. And that is why we need an amendment to come to the floor of the United States Senate to define marriage as that union between one man and one woman.
were it not for the seriousness of other things permeating the real news...........like the SS number and personal data was stolen that includes all information of every active duty member of the armed forces in the US. Even I can figure out you do not take a laptop home with all that information. Who cares what marriage is defined as. Don't we have a national security issue to spend valuable representation time on ? Come November I am going to pull the lever and fire everyone of those wasting property ( includes time on the payroll )
matthews' endless girly crushes on top republican leaders? "i'm getting to like you too much"?
See, Matthews was liberal for a few months in the '70s, so he needs to crush on conservatives for a few more years before things are balanced out again.
And the whole media is liberal anyway. I know because so many conservatives on TV keep telling me.
"I'm getting to like you too much."
You two should consider getting married then.
The failure of the Amendment today is a victory over a ridiculous political tactic of distraction; not only did the Amendment fail, but so did the tactic; the political backers of this Amendment, such as Mr. Frist (despite what Mr. Lott is here cited as saying, as Mr. Frist's apologist), they had hoped for more distractionary mileage from this nonsense than they got; a distraction they had hoped to run with for as much as two weeks, but which ran out of gas before the close of business on the first Wednesday.
Why did it run out of gas? Why did this tactic, and the Amendment, fail?
Whose victory is this?
Is this the victory of a diligent and watchful Press, keeping the pressure on our legislators and administrators of government, that they should cease and desisit such nonsensical public relations work as this, and return to the serious work of performing the functions of government?
Don't make laugh; the Press would have more than loved to run with this nonsense for two weeks or more; they more than facilitate the administration's and the Republican Congressional leadership's public relations work, they personify it.
Is this the victory of a diligent and watchful Congressional minority?
As laughable as that may sound, in part it is true. They didn't react "knee-jerkishly"; a very good sign of things to come, I hope.
Who does this leave to claim a watchful diligence in these matters, who does this leave as victors over a failed public relations campaign of political distraction?
The American People, the very targets of this distractionary tactic.
As another item published here this day, at MMFA, informs us, the American People didn't go for it; asked by pollsters not the leading question of what they thought about "gay marriage", but simply what they thought were the important political concerns to them in this political season, the single most common response was "Iraq"; and as for "gay marriage", it was of so little concern to the American People right now, as to register no mention at all by those pollsters in their reports.
A Victory of Common Sense over nonsense; a Victory of Policy over politics; a Victory of Diligence to Duty, over a distraction from the same...
A Victory for the American People, and for the True Agents of their interests...
(The Press? Don't make me laugh)
A True Agent of the American People's interests, Media Matters for America.
Everybody take a bow (even the Congressional minority)...
And then get the heck back to work, on the matter of bringing our Sons and Daughters home alive from the senseless death (without any National Security concern whatsoever) that Iraq has become...
...and Congressional Ethics, and the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the FALSE or FALSIFIED 'pre-invasion intelligence', and...
You know the agenda by now; you know the American People's true political concerns right now.
I really hope this is over. If it is, they only got a few days worth of distraction from their Iraq fiasco. How many American soldiers died while our "leaders" were conducting a circle jerk over this NON threat to society?
Will be that they were forced to do this by liberals. A Troglodyte poster has already floated it on another thread.