Chris Matthews: Useful Idiot

Tonight's Hardball show takes the pile. Matthews has “Jimmy” Baker and Lee Hamilton on to talk about the Iraq Study Group, the administration's latest machination to save face in the midst of a hellish, murderous, unwinnable war.

Matthews asked Baker what he thought of the National Intelligence Estimate that concluded that the the Iraq war had become a recruiting and training tool for al Qaeda, that the war has caused more terrorism that it will ever prevent. A reasonable question.

MATTHEWS: OK. What do you make of the National Intelligence Estimate that we are creating more terrorists over there than we‘re killing?

BAKER: Well, I don‘t know because I haven‘t seen it, and I‘m not privy to the intelligence. We have access to what we want, provided it‘s not too far up the food chain in terms of classification. I haven‘t seen that NIE, and so I really can‘t comment on it.

Baker's horseshit answer was the same that Cheney, Rice, Snow and almost every administration official has used: I didn't read it. Baker, the head of the Iraq Study Group, didn't read the NIE on Iraq? “I didn't read it.” What the fuck has he been doing the last 6 months. The NIE was reported in the Washington Post, Google News, Yahoo News, Captain Kangaroo News and every other news source this side of Kazakhstan. Even some middling gynecologist in Kalamazoo has read the conclusions to the report.... but good ol' boy “Jimmy” Baker hasn't read it? Bull- fucking- shit! “I didn't read it.” Liar.

The worst of it is that Matthews grunted affirmation and went on to the next question. That is journalistic malpractice, plain and simple. How in God's name can you allow this sumbitch to play you like that? Chris, why do you even bother to have a show, to get up in the morning, to write down all those clever little questions in your spiral notebook? What's the point? Really? You're not that cute, so cut the crap.

Matthews, you are a tool of the highest degree. I would expect such conversational fellatio by Chris Wallace, Shep Smith, Steve Doocey or even Geraldo. The fact is that the situation has been deteriorating in Iraq ever since April 2003 and the administration has gone through all the stages addiction: ignore the problem, deny the problem and now bargaining. “We'll do something about it as soon as the election is over.”

Chris, I'll be blunt: our soldiers are being killed. You and the rest of the media enablers have been complicit in this debacle from day fucking one. Hundreds of thousands of Iraq civilians have been killed, maimed, orphaned and widowed. You, my friend, should know better. When you have one of these vultures, these bloodsuckers who profit from war and pretend to be concerned, on your show you have to verbally wring their necks. You must hold them accountable.

At some point these administration criminals will be called to account for their deceit and their ignorance, and history will look back to see who stood up to them when a difference could be made. Where were you, Mr. Matthews? Sipping champagne and sampling tea biscuits with “Jimmy”? Shameful.

You are not a journalist, you are a sell-out and an embarassment.