Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Laura Ingraham Knocks Out Chris Matthews on 'Hardball'
NewsBusters.org ^ | Geoffrey Dickens

Posted on 09/20/2007 7:08:04 PM PDT by SandRat

Sticking and moving like a prize fighter, talk show host and author Laura Ingraham, outnumbered in a three against one fight, took out not only "Hardball" host Chris Matthews but his colleague David Shuster and NBC News political director Chuck Todd, as well.

View video here. (courtesy NB contributor Mark Finkelstein)

On Thursday night's "Hardball" Ingraham took Matthews to task for his outrageous claims about the Iraq war being about oil as she threw his past bias in his face: "What? What? Chris are, were you the one, the other night, correct me if I'm wrong, who said that we should hang Exxon and Mobil signs at, at Arlington National Cemetery?" Then Ingraham slapped down Matthews about his pessimistic view on the war: "Chris, I'm different from [where] you are on this. I actually have hope that goodness will prevail."

However, Ingraham didn’t pull any punches when it came to Shuster or Todd. The Power to the People author not only called Todd out on his "conventional wisdom" about the GOP presidential candidates but after a typically slanted report from Shuster, Ingraham sarcastically noted: "First of all let me say my life is not complete without a David Shuster report on President Bush because those reports are always completely unbiased and completely just objective...So I love those. I love those."

The following is a blow-by-blow account of the exchanges as they occurred on the September 20 edition of MSNBC's "Hardball":

ROUND 1

Chris Matthews: "Laura, did the President find the sweet spot today by going after Moveon.org, in other words, this war is hard to sell but is it easier for him to trash Moveon.org in its ad making fun of Petraeus?"

Laura Ingraham: "First of all let me say my life is not complete without a David Shuster report on President Bush because those reports are always completely unbiased and completely just objective."

Matthews: "As, as you are yourself Laura-"

Ingraham: "So I love those. I love those."

Matthews: "-equal, equally, equally, symmetric in your judgments."

ROUND 2

Chuck Todd, NBC News political director, talking about the anti-David Petraeus Moveon.org ad: "What's been interesting, though, with this is that all the Republican presidentials jumped on this and used this as a way of ducking of having to actually deal with the policy debate last week."

Ingraham: "Well I think they did deal with the policy debate. You, you guys-"

Todd: "I think what's amazing. Well they didn't, but you had-"

Ingraham: "That's, that's the conventional wisdom in Washington Chuck. That is ridiculous."

Todd: "Okay, c'mon. They did. Rudy-"

Ingraham: "The Republicans have been talking about the surge."

Todd: "Rudy created a straw man."

Ingraham: "They've been talking about what's working and not working frankly in Iraq and, and the fact that Moveon.org stepped in it, once again, and made fools of themselves in front of the national media and for the public at large, which condemns what they do, give me a break."

Matthews: "Okay Laura you made my point. It's easier to trash the Moveon.org than it is to defend this war, right?"

Ingraham: "What? What? Chris are, were you the one, the other night, correct me if I'm wrong, who said that we should hang Exxon and Mobil signs at, at Arlington National Cemetery?"

Matthews: "Yeah but-"

Ingraham: "Did you say that?"

Matthews: "-I think we should start reminding everybody that if this war is about oil, as Alan Greenspan pointed out the other day-"

Ingraham: "Yeah."

Matthews: "-and many people, other people have. If it is about oil why are the oil companies making such huge windfall profits at the cost of what we're putting into this war. Yes, that's a legitimate charge."

Ingraham: "Well first of all Alan Greenspan, Alan Greenspan has, Alan Greenspan, as you know Chris, has stepped away from the way that book was marketed and he said the Bush administration, he doesn't believe they thought the war was about oil. He's making a comment about reality."

Matthews: "Well let me tell ya, I went back and read the book on the air and I will do it again. The book stands for itself. He is trying to cozy up with his former allies and colleagues but clearly Alan Greenspan spent years writing this book. He wrote what he believes. He said the war was obviously about oil."

Ingraham: "Right, well earth-shattering conclusions like Republicans are spending too much money. Of course, you know we've only been saying that for about 10 years in, in conservative politics. Of course they're been spending too much money! Of course there's a lot of shenanigans going on, on Capitol Hill."

Matthews: "Right."

Ingraham: "Take it from someone who's out there selling a book. I mean the way press material sometimes written doesn't always necessarily reflect what the real sentiment is of the book."

Matthews: "No, I'm not going by the PR, I'm going by the text of the book, I read it, it's still in there Laura, you oughta read it. It's on I think, [page] 232."

Ingraham: "Yeah I did read it Chris! He did not say that the Bush administration got into the war on Iraq because of oil and if you think he did then go to the times he's been interviewed where he doesn't say that."

Matthews: "He said, well we'll get the text. We'll, we'll get the book, we'll get the book and read it aloud in a moment when we get-"

Ingraham: "Thank you. Please do."

Matthews: "No you don't have to thank me because we read it and we will, Laura, we read the book verbatim here and we'll do it again."

Ingraham: "Excellent."

Matthews: "You know it's hard to do it after you make it into an order, Laura."

ROUND 3

Ingraham on Iraq: "Chris, I'm different from [where] you are on this. I actually have hope that goodness will prevail."

Matthews: "No, but when do you hope it will happen? When do you expect it will happen? When will this war look like a smart decision by the United States, in the interests of the United States, to invade Iraq? When will it look good?"

Ingraham: "When America, when America, maybe gets a little more united behind the idea that we're trying to do

Matthews: "No when will it, objectively, look like this was the smart move for America?"

Ingraham: "-we're trying to do something very liberal in Iraq."

Matthews: "When will it look like the smart move?"

Ingraham: "Chris we know where you are on this, you think it's a disaster and it's never gonna get better. Okay? We know that's where you are and I, and I respect that, that's what you think."

Matthews: "Let me, let me read you the quote, by the way, let me read the Alan Greenspan quote from this book."

Ingraham: "Okay, here we go."

Matthews: "‘I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows, the Iraq war is largely about oil.'"

Ingraham: "Did he say that George Bush believed when he went in the war was about oil?"

Matthews: "No he just, he's just, he's just said the Iraq war is largely about oil."

Ingraham: "Is, he, he has since commented that he doesn't believe

the administration went into Iraq for oil, as many times on this show, I believe, different people have implicated."

Matthews: "What does it mean-"

Ingraham: "That's no the case."

Matthews: "But what does it, what does it mean to say the Iraq war was largely about oil? What could that mean?"

Ingraham: "I don't care, I really frankly don't care what Alan Greenspan is writing."

Matthews: "Okay."

Ingraham: "Alan Greenspan is not a national security expert last time I checked-"

Matthews: "Okay that's a fair-"

Ingraham: "-he was keeping rates too low in 2004."

Matthews: "-that's a critique but it's not a denial. Laura, you're always welcome but it was the quote, directly from Al."

Ingraham referring to Chris' brother, Pennsylvania Republican Jim Matthews: "I like your brother, I like your brother better than you are right now."

Matthews: "Laura, you know it's hard to face the truth."

Ingraham: "Yeah, right. Good, good try."

—Geoffrey Dickens is the senior news analyst at the Media Research Center.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: chrismatthews; hardball; ko; lauraingraham; powertothepeople
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-55 last
To: SandRat
Laura Ingraham: "First of all let me say my life is not complete without a David Shuster report on President Bush because those reports are always completely unbiased and completely just objective."

Matthews: "As, as you are yourself Laura-"

Yes Chrissy, but you miss an important point... Laura is a political commentator. David Shuster is supposed to be "a new reporter." Or a "journalist." There's supposed to be a big difference: Not that there is any more.

Mark

41 posted on 09/20/2007 9:11:24 PM PDT by MarkL (Listen, Strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SandRat

Mathews is a partisan, left wing douche bag.

No one should go on his show (which is unfit for FreeSpeech Television)...


42 posted on 09/20/2007 9:14:34 PM PDT by Tzimisce (How Would Mohammed Vote? Hillary for President! www.dndorks.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SandRat
Pretty sad when Laura has the least amount of Estrogen of anybody on the set.

Pray for W and Our Troops

43 posted on 09/20/2007 9:26:03 PM PDT by bray (Think "Betray U.S." Think Democrat)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SandRat

bookmark


44 posted on 09/20/2007 9:40:10 PM PDT by GOP Poet
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: basil; ProtectOurFreedom
basil: The thing about shows like this is the guests know that they better talk fast, or they will be talked over by the host. BOR does this all the time.

ProtectOurFreedom: How anybody can watch those vacuous shout-fests between rude and bullying know-nothings is beyond me.

I am happy to say that I have had the cable unplugged for more than a year to eliminate some of the rubbish in my life. And BOR was absolutely among the worst. He used to really drive me nuts when he would start huffing and puffing about the "Factor investigative team" working on some story as if he ever went into anymore depth than the tabloid headlines. He is only a cut above Jerry Springer. (Of course, he is sometimes useful in riling up sheeple who would not know what is going on in the world were it not for his sort.)

45 posted on 09/20/2007 11:45:07 PM PDT by SergeiRachmaninov
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: SandRat

Watching the video shows Mathews won the camera with his long drawn out responses imped to give his research crew time to find the book passage, and kept his spittle to a minimum while feigning patience, but collectively Laura won the exchange.

Mow jumping into the mindset of a touchy feely koolade drinker, with a nod to all of Mathews 12 viewers, winning the camera is all that matters.


46 posted on 09/21/2007 12:03:13 AM PDT by JoeSixPack1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SandRat

I watched this interview and the best part was watching Matthews snarl at his off-screen assistants after Laura goaded him into reading Greenspan’s direct quote from his book. It was great television!! Matthews was clearly agitated that Laura forced him into reading directly from the book. He didn’t want to do it, clearly.

Unlike most Hardball guests, Laura didn’t let Chris get away with making a false allegation. Greenspan did not write that Bush admitted he went to war over oil, as Matthews charged. And, after the book’s PR machine tried to sell the idea that Greenspan accused Bush of going to war over oil, Greenspan issued a statement correcting that false impression. Laura told Matthews he knew that to be the case.

I loved seeing Matthews taken to the mat. It doesn’t happen often.

I loved Laura going after David Schuster too. Most of the time, Matthews presents Schuster’s long winded reports and no one gets the chance to rebut them with facts, or even criticize his accuracy.

Laura is hawking a book, doing a great job of it too, even going into the Hardball snakepit. I think POWER TO THE PEOPLE is still top ten. LOL as I imagine how that irritates the helloutta Matthews


47 posted on 09/21/2007 12:10:17 AM PDT by YaYa123
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: YaYa123
She missed the ball !

Greenspan told Bush the war "should be about oil" and Bush rejected this !

Go read what Greenspan said on Fox yesterday and he said the President rejected his notion that the war on Iraq should be about oil and Greenspan told him he could make a good case on going to war for oil but said Bush told him that's not the correct reason..

48 posted on 09/21/2007 12:38:27 AM PDT by america-rules
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: america-rules

and still another smack-down for Chris Matthews.

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2007/09/18/abc-trumpets-greenspans-bush-went-war-oil-ignores-his-real-view

Laura really flustered Matthews when she told him he knew he was misrepresenting what Greenspan said.


49 posted on 09/21/2007 1:25:29 AM PDT by YaYa123
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: america-rules

I like this one too:

http://americanelephant.wordpress.com/2007/09/19/how-liberals-get-their-tiny-little-brains-so-packed-full-of-lies/

Greenspan Corrects Record, Slams Democrats
Two days ago, it was reported that Alan Greenspan said in his new book that, “the Iraq War is largely about oil.” Within hours the story had been picked up by news and bloggers around the world. Liberal websites were beside themselves with glee! “See! Greenspans says Bush went to war for oil!…Its all for oil!”

By Wednesday, a Google search returned 1,310,000 hits on the story.

Now we find out that Greenspan’s views were misrepresented:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Clarifying a controversial comment in his new memoir, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said he told the White House before the Iraq war that removing Saddam Hussein was “essential” to secure world oil supplies, according to an interview published on Monday.

Greenspan, who wrote in his memoir that “the Iraq War is largely about oil,” said in a Washington Post interview that while securing global oil supplies was “not the administration’s motive,” he had presented the White House before the 2003 invasion with the case for why removing the then-Iraqi leader was important for the global economy.

“I was not saying that that’s the administration’s motive,”


50 posted on 09/21/2007 1:49:17 AM PDT by YaYa123
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: SandRat

Are the autographed Chris Matthews drool cups being offered on Ebay yet?


51 posted on 09/21/2007 4:11:29 AM PDT by vietvet67
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Republican Wildcat; SergeiRachmaninov
>>>What points did Matthews even have?<<<

Nothing new...war for oil, illegal war, civil war etc.

Laura, God bless her spirit and pluck, fought back admirably but ineffectively in refuting the standard Democrat talking points on the war.

As Sergi said in reply to my post: "Laura struggled to try to make a very subtle distinction between whether the war was "about" oil or whether it was "started over oil." She was not very successful, IMO.

Net, net; its very difficult to advance a "thinking man's" argument in the midst of a bunch of screaming liberals!! Matthews knows that - its very difficult for a conservative to come out lookking good in that environment.

Why we participate is beyond me.....ABC,NBC,CBS,CNN...all stack the deck, and we walk in like lemmings.

52 posted on 09/21/2007 10:03:02 AM PDT by HardStarboard (Take No Prisoners - We're Out of Qurans)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: gusopol3
fairly factless on both sides I’d say.

Exactly. If we're holding this up as an example of superior conservative talking points on the Iraq issue, we've got nothing.

53 posted on 09/21/2007 10:11:53 AM PDT by Mr. Jeeves ("Wise men don't need to debate; men who need to debate are not wise." -- Tao Te Ching)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: vietvet67

Not that I know of but I think the anti-DROOL bibs are.


54 posted on 09/21/2007 4:32:22 PM PDT by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: SandRat
On the Today Show last week, NBC threw David (I don't look like Belzer!) Gregory against Laura. She made pansy fodder out of him.

Now MSNBC throws this weak-kneed trio of shoe tappers against our gal.

What do they have to do over at 30 Rock/Secaucus to put some manly men on their news shows? A human sacrifice to the Cult of Cthulu and raising John Chancellor from the dead?

A double-whammy for y'all.

Laura Ingraham signs book at the Hannity Freedom Concert on 9-11-07 while Ann Coulter chats it up in the the background.

55 posted on 09/21/2007 5:50:27 PM PDT by Darth Republican (Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-55 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson