I want to like Chris Matthews, I really do. He’s a bit grouchy with his guests and I like that, and he’s not even grouchy in that obnoxious way Bill O’Reilly is. The Right claims he’s a liberal, and if so, he’s the worst liberal ever. Here’s the latest example: yesterday, he claimed that W “glimmers” with a “sunny nobility.” My cat, Sammy Davis Jr, glimmers with a sunny nobility after he’s had a meal and has licked himself in anticipation of his 22nd nap of the day. W doesn’t glisten, and while I’ll give him “Sunny” in the way that mentally challenged people are often cheery, the callus on my big toe is more noble than that little near-miss of a Cyclops from Texas.
Mathew’s gushing came during a discussion on Hardball with Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley of the effects on the Bush administration of the investigation into the leak of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Here’s the transcript:
BLANKLEY: Well, there are bad and there are worse. First of all, I think that perjury proven beyond a reasonable doubt is a serious felony. I thought that seven years ago about Clinton.[note from Lablogda: Let it go!]And I will think it this week, if that charge comes down and if the evidence supports it against Republican officials. But I think that the real question the White House and the president, personally, has to decide, presumably in the next several days, is how they're going to respond to whatever does come out, presuming it's not going to be a total clearance. And in that regard, I think the president would be ill-advised to try to minimize anything. I think he needs to make a clean break and set his administration looking forward and not get defensive. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. The evidence is either going to be there or not. And if he continues to try to defend what is something which will be, you know, indefensible, if in fact there are indictments -- is going to be a mistake, and it will drag him down. Whathe needs to do is put together some new staff, admit whatever mistakes have to be admitted, and start moving forward. He's got three years left in his administration, and it's important for him and for the country that he be functional.
MATTHEWS: You know, Tony, there is in the past, it's not always there, but sometimes it glimmers with this man, our president, that kind of sunny nobility. How does he bring it back, because it hasn't been apparent for a while now?
