Matthews on description of Giuliani as a "street-corner conservative": "It works for me"

On the September 11 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, Republican strategist John Feehery asserted that Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani proved on 9-11 "that he was a street-corner conservative, a guy who would go and would help people through their hard times," to which host Chris Matthews replied: "Street-corner conservative sounds a little ethnic, a little gritty, a little big city. It works for me." In the past six months, Matthews has also heaped praise on other Republican presidential contenders, including Fred Thompson (who has, according to Matthews, "movie star" looks and a "daddy" image), Mitt Romney ("Everything about him is perfect ... the tie always tied"), and John McCain ("who goes his own way and is very much the maverick"). As Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald noted, Matthews also asked, regarding Thompson: "Can you smell the English Leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man's shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of -- a little bit of cigar smoke?"

Moreover, Matthews has repeatedly lauded Giuliani for being "on the street" after the September 11 terrorist attacks. On the June 12 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Matthews called Giuliani "the ultimate street politician," adding, "He was there on the curb when 9-11 struck. He had soot on his face." He also called Giuliani a "street fighter" and described him as "somebody who's clear and present and right there answering our questions" and who "gives us the awful truth." On the February 7 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning, Matthews called Giuliani "the kind of gutsy, street-corner politician we all grew up with" who "stood on the corner during the fire and told us what was going on."

However, on the September 11 edition of Hardball and in these earlier instances, Matthews did not note the reason Giuliani was on the "street corner" after the terrorist attacks, which Air America president Mark Green brought up earlier in the September segment -- Giuliani "located the emergency command center in the World Trade Center complex after it had been attacked" in 1993. As Media Matters for America has noted, authors Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins wrote in their book Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11 (HarperCollins, 2006) that when Giuliani heard about the disaster, his original destination was his "much-ballyhooed command center" in the World Trade Center complex (Page 6). According to Barrett and Collins, then-New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, "who was waiting to meet [Giuliani], decided it was too dangerous to bring the mayor up to the command center [Giuliani] had so carefully and expensively built" (Page 340).

From the September 11 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Let me start right now with Mark. What do you make of Rudy Giuliani as a hero?

MARK GREEN (president, Air America Radio): He's not a hero of 9-11. John Kennedy, John Kerry, John McCain are authentic heroes because they volunteered to serve their country under fire and were wounded. Rudy Giuliani was a politician with a fine instinct toward opportunism and grandeur who did rise to the occasion on 9-11.

I saw him up close as a public official that day and thereafter. And he was commiserating, courageous, eloquent, and strong. But his provable failures before and after 9-11 undermine any hero status he may have had. For seven years, he let the radios of the fire and police departments not speak to each other, which, tragically, led to so many firefighter deaths that day. And he located the emergency command center in the World Trade Center complex after it had been attacked --

MATTHEWS: Right.

GREEN: -- in '93, for example. And he tried to use the 9-11 catastrophe right after to extend his term or overturn term limits, which was a -- which was a -- a self-benefit that I found unseemly and political.

[...]

MATTHEWS: Does Rudy Giuliani deserve to win the presidency on the basis of people looking at him as the iconic hero of 9-11? Is that a fair case?

JOHN FEEHERY (Republican strategist): I think it's a fair case to say he was the iconic leader of 9-11, who led the city before and after. I like Rudy Giuliani because he cut taxes and he cut crime. And then, when he showed up at 9-11, he proved that he was a street-corner conservative, a guy who would go and help people through their hard times.

MATTHEWS: A street-corner conservative, that's the line. It sounds more winning than -- what was that thing we used to hear from President Bush? What was that?

FEEHERY: Compassionate conservative.

MATTHEWS: Compassionate conservative. I don't think that sold too well. But this one might. Street-corner conservative sounds a little ethnic, a little gritty, a little big city. It works for me.