That's right. Chris and Howard were both tipped off to what Ron would be doing vis -a vis Bush in his speech. Ron works at MSNBC and I think the tipoff was the reason that Fineman was even there at that point in time. Otherwise, there would be no point, it was so late, the ceremony was already over before he got on the air.
It killed them to have to say the positive an dtrue things about President Reagan and his administration--all week long. So, they had to find a way to twist it to attack GW Bush.
It is interesting that they were in league with Ron Reagan in this, they were clearly tipped off and who know if they did not have some other role.
I am sure we have not seen the last of Ron Reagan commenting on our present president.
I am hopeful that in mourning his father, Ron Jr. had better things to do than tip off the ego-centric host of a low rated cable news program that he was going to bash a man who not hours before eulogized his father with dignity and grace. But if Ron, Jr. really is the hard core leftist that he appears, I would not be surprised.
You are 100% correct in your assumption. Chris Matthews could hardly contain himself when telling the audience that they should stick around for Ron's speech because (paraphrasing) "you can never tell what he might have in store since he didn't always follow his father politically blah blah blah.." But Chris's little charade, that he could only guess what would be said, was transparent. Chris is a lousy liar and it was obvious that he was alerted to a Bush slam by his MSNBC cohort, Ron Jr. I'm amazed at the naivety shown by so many who can't, or won't, see the reality of the situation.