If you can get MSNBC’s Chris Matthews to deviate from the liberal talking points or take a break from his Michele Bachmann obsession, he has demonstrated he can say something insightful.
On Friday’s “Morning Joe,” the left-leaning host of “Hardball” went on something of a rant about how President Barack Obama’s State Department has handled the turmoil in Egypt, specifically its treatment of Egyptian Hosni Mubarak, a longtime U.S. ally.
“Well, we should have known this,” Matthews said. “And my second point of view about this, in friendship, you ought to know what’s going on. He’s 83 in May, I believe. He’s getting old. We should have prepared this 10, 20 years ago. In friendship, where was the State Department? Don’t we have hundreds of people sitting over there in Foggy Bottom with no other job except to know what’s going on in Egypt, with no other job but to know the culture and politics in that country and to understand the potential leaders and factions that might offset the Muslim Brotherhood? What are they doing?”
He also cast blame on the public face the administration had put forward with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He explained she hasn’t given Americans anything new from what we don’t already know and no sense of a direction in American policy with Egypt.
“I watched Secretary Clinton today,” Matthews said. “I don’t get anything. I don’t see anything except two and two are four. I keep waiting for five. Show me you’ve done your jobs over there and I just wish in our friendship, we should have been smart and I think we don’t have a plan B. I mean, the guy’s almost 83. Where was our plan?”
Watch:
According to Matthews, there are a bunch of Middle Eastern leaders wanting their oldest child to be their successor, as is the case with Mubark and his son Gamal – something that should have been easy to pick up on.
“His plan was Gamal,” Matthews said. “I was talking to Secretary [Colin] Powell a while ago,” he continued. “I hope it wasn’t off the record because he said it rather clearly. I said, what do you think of Mubarak? He said, he’s like every other leader in the world over there. All they want their oldest kid to be their successor, whether it’s Sadi Kadafi or Bashar Assaad. They call themselves Bathist monarchists, whatever Islamists. It all comes down to the same thing. They want their oldest kid to replace them.”
And thus without a plan in place, Matthews admitted his disappointment.
“And what was our plan for transition for our friend?” Matthews said. “Did we ever talk them about it, did we ever encourage him? That’s my view, character and planning and I don’t see us — I feel shame about this. I feel ashamed as an American, the way we’re doing this. I know he has the change. I know we’re for democracy, but the way we’ve handled it is not the way a friend handles the matter. We’re not handling it as Americans should handle a matter like this. I don’t feel right about it.”
And he went after Obama as well, who on occasion stimulated certain anatomical features of Matthews, for being “transactional,” something he finds “chilling.”
“And Barack Obama, as much I support him in many ways, there is a transactional quality to the guy that is chilling,” Matthews said. “I believe in relationships. I think we all do. Relationship politics is what we were brought up with in this country. You treat your friends a certain way. You’re loyal to them. And when they’re wrong, you try to be with them. You try to stick with them, as the great old line was, ‘I don’t need you when I’m right.’ You’ve got to help out people when they’re in trouble and all I see is transaction here and who are we going to get the next deal with? And by the way, we don’t have a plan for the next deal, so we’re not even good at transactions let alone relationships. What are we good at here? That’s what I keep asking. What have we done as leaders and friends? Nothing except watch. That’s all we do now.”