Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think

Chris Matthews

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9780743242042
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Chris Matthews has been playing "hardball" since the day he was born. From his first political run-in in the first grade to his years working as presidential speechwriter for Jimmy Carter and top aide to Tip O'Neill, Matthews grew up loving his country and dreaming of his chance to protect it. As one of the most honest, brash, and in-your-face journalists on TV, he has finally gotten the chance. The host of television's Hardball and bestselling author of such classics as Hardball and Kennedy & Nixon, Matthews is a political cop who insists on the truth and nothing but. In this latest work, Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, Chris Matthews is at his brilliant, blunt, bulldogged best.
From the Cold War to the Clinton years, Matthews gives the straight-up account of what it means to be an American. Matthews tells us about his "God and Country" Catholic school education in Philadelphia complete with Cold War air-raid drills and his early enthusiasm for politics. He shares with us his life's adventures: two years in Africa with the Peace Corps, the challenge of running for Congress in his twenties, and his three decades deep in the "belly of the beast" of American politics.
Matthews has made his name as a razor-sharp journalist who cross-examines the politicians in Washington and takes on the Los Angeles and New York elite who view America's heartland as "fly-over country."
In Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, Matthews rallies those who "work hard and play by the rules" and celebrates the wisdom learned from a U.S. Capitol policeman more than twenty years ago, "The little man loves his country, because it's all he's got." A hard-to-categorize maverick with an uncool love for his country, Matthews gives an irreverent look at who we are and whom we trust to lead us.

CHAPTER ONE

An American Attitude

George W. Bush

Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Few presidents are given the historic duty to lead America through a crisis like the World Trade Center horror. Not since Vietnam had the country felt so violated. Not since World War II had we felt such resolve. We wanted orders and we looked to one man to give them.

In the days following September 11, 2001, George W. Bush displayed a presidential command that warmed his supporters and impressed even his nastiest critics. Championing America’s ardor, he launched a global campaign against terrorism.

“Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom,” he told the Congress and the country. “Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.”

In Bush, the country discovered it had a young leader rising to the occasion, an easy-going Prince Hal transformed by instinct and circumstance into a warrior King Henry. A president who once suffered daily questions about his legitimacy now commanded the backing of nine in ten Americans. No president in modern time had captured such overwhelming loyalty in a matter of such historic peril.

It was not the first time Bush displayed an unexpected audacity. In 1994, he took on Texas governor Ann Richards when she was a national icon, and beat her. When he saw the TV networks prematurely calling Florida for Al Gore in 2000, he invited the national cameras into the family hotel suite. There, in the presence of the former president and first lady, parents George and Barbara, he scolded the press into backing down. “The people actually counting the votes have come to a different perspective,” he told the country, especially those supporters in the western states still heading to the polls. “I’m pretty darn upbeat about things.”

Had events gone a little differently that night, George W. Bush could have been barbecued by the media for hiding behind Daddy and Mommy. It was such a personal call on his part that I credit him with bold leadership. With that single risky performance he changed the election night’s dynamic. Instead of being seen as a loser the morning after and throughout the five weeks of recounts and legal arguments, the man hunkered down on his Texas farm seemed to most Americans like the winner.

So we knew Bush had nerve. What we wondered about was how much depth there was to the guy. Was he more cerebral than he seemed? Was he a sneaky “grind” who went off and studied things when nobody was looking? Did he possess some special instinct for leadership, some unexplained knack for calling the shots under pressure?

Like so many others, I carried this conflicted view of George W. Bush right into the World Trade Center and Pentagon crisis. Remember what I said after that third presidential debate with Al Gore? I said Bush was “not prepared to be president in many ways.” I still think that was a fair assessment. There were things this son of a president didn’t know, didn’t have the curiosity to learn. At times it seemed that others, led by Vice President Cheney, were calling the shots.

One reason for this perception may be Bush’s executive style. As a manager, he follows the “hidden hand” pattern of President Eisenhower. Like Ike, he has filled his cabinet with CEOs and governors. Like Ike, he invested in each cabinet member. Look at the way Bush handled the Chinese government’s retention of the downed EP3 reconnaissance plane. He left it to Colin Powell to use the language and cultural expertise of the State Department to find the right words to appease Beijing. Then, once the crewmen were home, he let Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld defend the honor, performance, and morale of the military by telling the world that our guys were right, the Chinese fighter pilot was wrong.

But for many months in 2001 the new presidency seemed to stall. With an entire country ready to know and like him, Bush clung to familiar company, familiar geography, familiar thinking. He acted as if the only Republicans were southern Republicans. Why did he spend so much time down on his Texas ranch when he could have been forging new alliances that could give him a clear majority in 2004? “I’m amongst friends in Texas,” he said, in explaining his month-long trip home in August 2001. But couldn’t he have been making friends up in places like the Philly suburbs, near where I grew up?

I have to admit that during that August vacation in Texas, Bush managed to pull a head-fake on the American press corps. Under the cover of a four-week vacation, he delivered a prime-time speech on stem cell research that won a 70 percent approval rating. Even more successful were his Jimmy Carter-like house building with Habitat for Humanity and his Ronald Reagan-like brush clearing in the Rockies. Those who denigrate such vivid imagery as “form over function” ignore how this Yale-educated cowboy got his job.

I noticed something else about George W. He was operating at a 180 degree angle from his father. The forty-first president raised taxes; the forty-third couldn’t wait to lower them. Forty-one emphasized foreign policy; forty-three began his presidency with a narrow focus on the home front. The father kept remote from the religious right. The son has kept this particular alliance fresh.

HERE’S WHAT I REALLY THINK: Every time you lower the bar on this fellow, the easier it becomes for him to clear it.

When he spoke to the nation about stem cells, for example, President George W. Bush admitted right up front that such issues are not solvable by brainpower alone. Good people disagree on the subject. Nobody’s necessarily right, nobody’s necessarily been proven wrong. We’re all in this together, trying to square our religious views with our medical hopes, our deepest human values with our scientific potential.

Before the World Trade Center and Pentagon tragedies, however, Bush had failed to project a clear sense of national purpose. There was no music to his presidency. I’m talking about that optimistic cadence that has lifted the nation in the past. I’m talking about an American mission.

On September 11, 2001, that mission was thrust upon him. Through instinct and compassion, he stood in the rubble of the World Trade Center and forged an almost sacramental bond with the American people. Surrounded by New York firemen, he seemed exactly where he belonged.

“I will not forget this wound to our country, or those who inflicted it,” he told the country later. “I will not yield. I will not rest. I will not relent in waging this struggle for the freedom and security of the American people.” As no president before he united the American people on a course of both purpose and peril.

Whether success for the country and greatness for the president will follow depends on history not yet written.

It was October 18, 2000, the morning after the third and final Gore-Bush debate. I was invited on the Today show to offer my political analysis of who had won. Gore had already declared his previous night’s performance to be his “Goldilocks” debate: “The first was too hot. The second was too cool. The third was just right.” And his fairy-tale verdict had gone unchallenged by the media. Until Matt Lauer asked me what I thought.

Here’s what I said: “I think Gore was more aggressive last night, and if you look at the polls, he won on a couple of points. But clearly the interesting question again is, Who do you like? Bush won.”

Matt Lauer leaped on me like a cougar from a tree: “Let’s be honest here, you’ve been saying that all along. Al Gore irritates you.”

Me: “The public has been saying that too.”

Matt (a second time): “Al Gore irritates you.”

Me (again): “The public has been saying that too.”

Matt: “But you just don’t like Al Gore’s style, and it’s very hard for you to look past it.”

Me: “No, no. I think the interesting thing is—I’ve been studying this election for about a year now—the economy should get the incumbent elected. Gore should win. The issue agenda—prescription drugs and those kinds of issues—are all working for the incumbent administration. So what’s stopping the American people? There’s some tissue rejection there about Al Gore, something that stops them from saying, ‘Okay . . . Gore.’ I think the American people have a problem with him.”

Matt: “So let’s be clear. . .”

Me: “They may resolve it. They may say he’s better than the other guy.”

Matt: “But the American people also haven’t taken to George W. Bush.”

Me: “That’s true, because he’s not prepared to be president in many ways.”

Matt: “Well, that’s a pretty bold statement you just said.”

Me: “I think there’s a problem between a guy they know who loves government too much and a guy who doesn’t know government too much. And they have to choose between two very incomplete candidates. This is not the heavyweight championship here.”

Matt Lauer’s resistance to my verdict confirmed what I had suspected walking into 30 Rockefeller Plaza that morning. The media cognoscenti had made their call: Gore had not only won, he had cleaned Bush’s clock! For Matt certainly was not alone in his thinking. The New York Times ruled that the Democratic candidate “dominated” the debate. Its lead editorial called Gore the “aggressor and pace-setter” of the evening who “seemed to throw Mr. Bush off balance.” The Washington Post’s Tom Shales, the top TV columnist in the country, called it Gore’s “best performance.” Times columnist William Safire, a conservative, agreed that Gore “came on strong.” Soon, the internal buzz at NBC was that I had been expressing opinion rather than analysis. The implication was that I was being biased. How could anyone who had declared that George W. had “won” that debate not be?

I’ll tell you how.

Right after Gore’s “Goldilocks” performance, pollster Frank Luntz, who MSNBC had hired for the 2000 election, met with thirty-six “undecided” voters. Thirty of those thirty-six “liked” George Bush better than his rival. A Gallup Poll taken immediately after the debate found that slightly more people (46 to 44 percent) judged Gore the better debater. But, by 60 to 31 percent—two to one!—they said Bush was more “likeable.” By the same two-to-one ratio, the public judged Gore to be the “unfair” debater. Bush also was viewed as more “believable” than Gore.

Watching the night before, I, too, thought Gore had turned in his best performance. But after seeing the reactions from the Luntz focus group and the Gallup Poll I realized that Gore’s reflexive arrogance, which I had witnessed personally so many times before, was now, after three primetime exposures, turning off the heartland voter. Matt was right. Gore’s negative campaigning had long irritated me. The polling now told me it was also irritating much of the country.

The reason Bush is the president today is simple: When millions of voters saw Al Gore campaigning and in the debates, they took away an impression of negativity and condescension. They decided that they would have to go with the unproven, as Gore would say, “risky” alternative. The debate audience preferred the notion of having a guy in the White House who often spoke English as if it were his second language to one who spoke to us as if English were our second language.

In turned out that George W. Bush “won” that debate even more decisively than, forty years earlier, Jack Kennedy had beaten Richard Nixon. The proof was in the polls. Gore led Bush by 47 to 44 percent in the Gallup during the thirty days prior to the debates. He fell behind Bush 47 to 43 percent in the fifteen days after.

The Gore people had thought their man’s performance in the third debate would be the deal maker. With the strong economy at his back, the Democratic vice-president would overtake the rival he and much of the media dismissed as a know-nothing frat boy and go on to score a clear-cut victory in November.

They were wrong. The candidate with the undeniable bragging rights on the economic front tripped over his own I-know-best personality. The debates for which Gore had lusted ended up giving Bush the momentum. Had the Texas governor not suffered a pair of postdebate stumbles—an out-of-the-past leak of an old driving-under-the-influence charge and a lamebrained claim that Social Security was not a federal program—he would have ridden that Big Mo right through to election day.

Instead, Bush lost the popular vote, needed the intervention of the Supreme Court to win in the Electoral College, and inherited a country that would remain as politically divided as it had shown itself that first week in November 2000.

HERE’S WHAT I REALLY THINK: Al Gore lost one presidential election and may well lose another because of who he is and who we are. I think there’s such a thing as an American attitude. It manifests itself in the candidates we like and in those we don’t. Just as a human being possesses a soul as well as a body, this country has a spirit as well as a geography. You’re ill-advised to tread on us, our self-respect, or our Social Security.

Above all, we Americans are an optimistic, democratic people. We will forgive just about everything from our politicians but condescension. Al Gore did worse than lie to us. He talked down to us.

He’s not alone. The Democrats don’t have a monopoly on this crap. What about Dick Cheney cooking...