With enemies like this. Does Barack Obama love having Rush Limbaugh and the rest out there berating him? Are the likes of Rush-bo, Beck and the "birthers" the best friends Barack Obama could have?
Never-ending war. When attacking Barack Obama's a full-time enterprise, is the White House smart to fight back? Are they feeding the jackals?
And finally, golden oldies. Are Republicans headed toward doing what they always do, picking a presidential nominee from the laundry hamper of the last convention? Or could the far right take control?
Hi, I'm Chris Matthews. Welcome to the show.
Kathleen Parker's a Washington Post columnist, Dan Rather's Global Correspondent for HDNet, Helene Cooper covers the White House for The New York Times, and Andrew Sullivan is a Senior Editor of The Atlantic.
First up: The Obama White House is going to war footing. They're now hitting back at the nonstop assault from the right. If it seems like the stuff hurled in Barack Obama's direction is a bit different from what past presidents have endured, that's right. In fact, historians say that up through the first George Bush presidents enjoyed a wide consensus of basic legitimacy—except for lapses during Watergate, of course. Despite President Obama's sweep last November, his opponents have ramped up dissent to a level many think is unprecedented in its tone and reach. What's different from past presidencies? Why the deep Obama heat? Well, there's much more conservative talk radio out there, and cable TV. There's a mushrooming number of wingnut blogs. And to state the obvious, he's the first African-American president.
Dan, they're fighting back. What do you make of their strategy, the White House?
Mr. DAN RATHER (HDNet Global Correspondent): Well, first of all, I think it's been very effective. And they take the attitude, `Nobody gets a no-risk shot at our president. You take a shot, we're going to shoot back.' Strikes me as sound strategy. The Republicans have masterful message discipline; the question is whether it's the right message discipline. They are right on the verge of cornering themselves as a distinct minority party, and the things you listed are all factors. And let's don't duck or dodge around it, a lot of it is this is the first American of African heritage...
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. RATHER: ...to come to the presidency. That's part of it, but only a part of it. The rise of cable, all the things you mentioned.
MATTHEWS: Do you think there's any evidence, or you've seen any evidence you could report of a correlation or a—even a conspiracy between, without making it too dark, between the people in Capitol Hill who get elected as Republicans, the people who raise money for Republicans, and these people on talk shows that are selling this really fierce rhetoric?
Mr. RATHER: Well...
MATTHEWS: Are they working together?
Mr. RATHER: I think they are working together. That doesn't mean each and every person in Congress, each and every person who gives money. But just, I think it's been a concerted effort and I think they have had the message discipline. The question for them is, is it message discipline that's helping them or hurting them?
MATTHEWS: OK.
Mr. RATHER: I think up till now it's hurting them.
MATTHEWS: Andrew, the question is, do you think the White House, which is the
Democratic president, and his troops, professionals, are they professionally smart in targeting people like Limbaugh, people on Fox, people like that on the—on the airwaves, wingnuts, people like—are they smart to go after them and make them the issue?
Mr. ANDREW SULLIVAN (The Atlantic, Senior Editor): I think that Obama's skill is actually not directly going after people, but letting them destroy themselves. This has been his long rope-a-dope strategy. Everybody who attacks him is really Wile E. Coyote; he's the Road Runner. They create these extraordinarily elaborate traps to blow him up, and they end up blowing themselves. And beep-beep, he's running on to a health care reform. And that's what he does. And he has this sort of—I mean, for the first black president, he's really WASP-y. I mean, he's a really—he's got this, like, incredibly cool, clipped, classic, bourgeois-meets-Kennedy kind of crispness to him, which is actually kind of the great sort of solvent to this kind of—this kind of anger and rage. And people, in the end, they need to vent. But they don't want to venter to run their country, they want a grown-up to run the country. And right now I think they're best not directly attacking them, letting them have their say, getting out of the way and putting forward this sort of moderate, bipartisan affect for the president. It's brilliant. I don't know why the Republicans...
MATTHEWS: You're chuck—I'm sorry. You're chuckling, Helene, her. Now, does this president and his people that you work with over there, do these White House people know that it's smart for—are they smart to know that the more they make these the only alternative to them, the wingnuts, and they're the governing party trying to run the country, are they better off the—if that's the choice for the public?
Ms. HELENE COOPER (White House Correspondent, The New York Times): I think they definitely think that they are, which is why you're seeing them focusing so much on, you know, `Our guy is going to'—he's going to push on Afghanistan, he's going to push on Iran. He's going to be the statesman, he's going to be at the UN. He's about to take a trip to Asia, to China, to Japan.You're going to see a lot of that presidential stuff. He's pushing on health care.
MATTHEWS: Right.
Ms. COOPER: While he's working on, you know, running the country, let the rest of them take care of themselves.
MATTHEWS: Hm.
Ms. COOPER: I thought that was—I have to say, what you just said about the first black president being really WASP-y, he was raised by white people, remember?
Mr. SULLIVAN: I know, I know, I know.
MATTHEWS: OK, what do you—what do you make of that? What do you make...
Mr. SULLIVAN: But he's—but he's—yeah, I know.
MATTHEWS: OK, I've got to go to...
Ms. KATHLEEN PARKER (Columnist, The Washington Post): I'm dying to talk here.
MATTHEWS: Speaking for the WASPs, let me ask you...
Ms. PARKER: As a—as a WASP.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, is it—what do you make of this Ray Milland presidency? He's so sophisticated and urbane.
Ms. PARKER: Well, I agree with you. In fact, I've called him a WASP before myself. But just to play devil's advocate, which I feel is my duty in this—in this environment, I don't know that there's any conspiracy between what you're calling the wingnuts and the Republican leadership. I think what's more likely is that...
MATTHEWS: Well, what would you call the birthers and people like that, and Beck and those people?
Ms. PARKER: Well, I mean, these are—well, those are—those are entertainers.
MATTHEWS: Are they nuts?
Ms. PARKER: I do think that, to some extent, Republicans who wouldn't actually participate in the food fight rather enjoy it, because they're getting to hear said what they're really thinking and yet they don't have to take responsibility for it.
MATTHEWS: How's that help them politically? Does that—I know it's entertaining, and who doesn't like it when the crazy kid takes on the teacher?
Ms. PARKER: Sure.
MATTHEWS: But does that help them get the voters activated? Is that—is that going to help them next time?
Ms. PARKER: No, I don't—I don't think so. It's become so over the top, nobody really wants to be associated with that in the endgame.
Mr. SULLIVAN: In the long run, I think Fox News is a kind of poison pill for the Republican Party because the things you need to rile up your base and to entertain and get big ratings and the money incentive that is now really driving this—you know, the trouble is there isn't a conspiracy. The trouble is the sort of conservative, industrial complex, which is basically a media entity, is dictating the politics of Washington. And no one in Washington—there's nobody left in the Republican Party to stand up for the institution and say, `No. We stand for this.'
MATTHEWS: OK.
Ms. PARKER: Well, I...
MATTHEWS: Well, wasn't it Gandhi who said, `First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, and then they attack you and then you win'? How do you know this isn't emergent, what's going on on the right?
Mr. SULLIVAN: Because it's been done before. It—this is exactly what happened under Clinton. I mean, they also had amazing success in media and, look, they got crushed.
MATTHEWS: OK, Dan, the question is, how come—it seems to me the Republican leadership are the ones who're the odd man out. Nobody talks about Mitch McConnell on this program or anywhere else; nobody talks about John Boehner.
They're overlooked. The people that get talked about are the president, Rahm Emanuel, his people and the people on the air attacking them from the far right. It seems like the Republican Party's been overlooked by both the right and by the left.
Mr. RATHER: And this creates a real problem for the leadership of the party, which wants to win next year's election and would like to win the presidential election in time again. After that, this is exactly their problem, that the huge megaphone of the radio entertainers, and in some places they call themselves newspeople, fair enough, tend to weigh—outweigh them.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. RATHER: And when they hold a news conference or appear on television, it sort of fades into the mist. This is part of their problem.
Mr. SULLIVAN: But they also have more talent.
Ms. COOPER: But can't you also make the argument that that also serves to make Republicans seem more centrist, the ones who—the Republican Party members?
MATTHEWS: You think?
Ms. COOPER: Yeah. I think—I think you—when you have gone back...
MATTHEWS: It's—but what happens when they wag their tails?
Ms. COOPER: ...and you have Rush Limbaugh on one side...
MATTHEWS: What happens, Helene, when they wag their tails at Rush Limbaugh, when they all pay—they salute him and genuflect to him when any word is spoken against him?
Ms. COOPER: But it's—but if you buy the argument that the real battle is the battle for the middle, that the right is...
MATTHEWS: Hm.
Ms. COOPER: ...the right's already gone and the left's already gone, then these—I think this put these—it puts people like Eric Cantor, for instance, in a very good position.
MATTHEWS: OK, we...
Mr. SULLIVAN: But look what—look what the middle candidate, the establishment candidate last time did, John McCain. He picked Palin. So they've lost their nerve entirely. There is no...
MATTHEWS: The middle has.
Mr. SULLIVAN: The middle of the Republican Party, the establishment of the Republican Party...
MATTHEWS: OK.
Mr. SULLIVAN: ...doesn't exist anymore.
MATTHEWS: We're going to get to that later in the program.
We asked The Matthews Meter, however, 12 of our regulars, which side is more likely to lose from this war of hot rhetoric going on right now, the fiery right or the White House? Well, seven say it's the fiery right that's losing right now, five say the White House. It's very close. The White House could suffer, some think.
But Kathleen and Andrew, you're both at the meter, both with the majority. You think the right wing is losing this war of words and heat between the Obama crowd and the people on the airwaves.
Ms. PARKER: Well, I think, on the one hand, there's a great risk for the White House, because once you do start participating in what is essentially a food fight, then you lower yourself to that—to that level.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Ms. PARKER: But I think ultimately, for the same—for the reasons I've already outlined, that the far right will suffer more because we're—people are not going to want to be associated with that level of partisan rhetoric and vitriol. It's not...
Mr. SULLIVAN: Everybody was saying in August, the tea parties are rocking the White House. And when you take a look right now back at the polling, you see that was the moment the White House regained initiative on health insurance reform.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. SULLIVAN: That's when the thing bounced back. Because people were like, `Well, they're all'...
MATTHEWS: What do you think happened, Andrew? Why did the people performing at these tea parties end up turning the public—and it's showing in the polls. The president's polls came way back in September after that crazy period. Why
do you think that helped him?
Mr. SULLIVAN: Because people know there's a problem here in health insurance, they know it's going to bankrupt the country, they know it's not giving them good quality health care and they want someone to fix it. And they watch these people and realize these people don't want to fix it, they want to attack this guy.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. SULLIVAN: And that—they're absolutely right about that.
MATTHEWS: OK.
Mr. SULLIVAN: And they've pegged the Republicans perfectly well.
MATTHEWS: Is this conversation we're having right now about the battle between the president and the wingnuts, if you will, the people on the far right on the air—I know it's a judgment call—is this going to be something that's going to be part of our life for the rest of this presidency?
Ms. PARKER: Probably.
MATTHEWS: Dan?
Mr. RATHER: Definitely. And to be accelerated, if anything.
Ms. COOPER: Heck, yeah.
Mr. SULLIVAN: Until it fails.
MATTHEWS: Are you still a man of the right?
Mr. SULLIVAN: I think of myself as a conservative, yes. And I think actually, at this point, Obama represents more conservatism than the Southern populism of the GOP.
MATTHEWS: Anyway, before we break, the Limbaughs and the Becks and the others want to beat Obama, but they haven't fallen in line to promote any one Republican for president. It's pretty obvious who the leaders from the GOP nomination are who's fighting for it; we got the clues from last year. Mitt Romney went to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2008 to announce he was giving up the primary race against John McCain, but definitely didn't sound like it was his last hurrah.
Mr. MITT ROMNEY: (From February 7, 2008) I entered this race because I love America. And because I love America, in this time of war I feel I have to now stand aside for our party and for our country.
MATTHEWS: Mike Huckabee knew his campaign was a lost cause by Super Tuesday, but he decided to keep battling John McCain, mainly to keep his evangelical followers happy for the future.
Mr. MIKE HUCKABEE: (From February 5, 2008) I'm going all the way to St. Paul, unless somebody gets all those delegates that makes the trip meaningless to me. Then I'll save the money. But right now it looks like we may end up in St. Paul before we have the nominee. Now, if the others would like to drop out and go ahead and turn it over to me, I'll be happy to accept it.
MATTHEWS: And Sarah Palin. Todd Purdum had a scoop in Vanity Fair from behind the scenes. He had—Palin, he said, had a plan to give a big swan song on the stage when John McCain conceded on election night to Barack Obama, and McCain aides were surprised to discover that her speech was already loaded into the teleprompter when they told her that was not exactly election night protocol. Well, she took it straight to John McCain himself and he personally had to firmly say to her, `No, you're not going to give a speech tonight.' Check the body language out that night. Hm.
When we come back, we'll get into this, all of this. With all the voices ramping things up like Rush Limbaugh, will Republicans be driven to a radical choice to beat Obama next time, or will they do what the GOP usually does, give it to the guy next in line, Mitt Romney? Plus, scoops and predictions right out of the notebooks of these top reporters. Be right back.
(Announcements)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back. Predicting a Republican nominee is usually fairly easy: Look at the losers. The GOP has a history of handing the honor to the one who almost made it before. Think Reagan in 1980, George H.W. Bush in '88, Bob Dole in '96, John McCain in '08. But as we've been saying, things could be different now. Will the right wing on radio talk shows and cable networks beat the guy on deck? Will they break the old Republican habit by getting the momentum for Sarah Palin? And what will they do to Mitt Romney, more of an establishment guy who ran hard last time? Or Mike Huckabee, who hung in against McCain?
Kathleen, there is kind of a tradition in the Republican Party, it's almost predictable, like in a small-town rotary or in a country club, you know, to give it to the person who was the runner-up last time.
Ms. PARKER: I don't know.
MATTHEWS: You know what I'm talking about? They don't go with somebody...
Ms. PARKER: No, you're right, and I think there is a sense that it's Romney's turn. And there will be a lot of people disappointed if that were not the case. There's been a great deal of buyer's remorse since the last election, and I think...
MATTHEWS: About McCain?
Ms. PARKER: Yes, that they felt like—because once Romney stepped down, he became such a champion of all things GOP. I mean, he really has been point man for McCain, and then he's raised money for McDonnell in Virginia and Christie in New Jersey. And so that's what you do, you raise money for other candidates in the party and you win allegiances that way.
MATTHEWS: Are they going to break the rule this time and not go with the person who almost did last time?
Mr. SULLIVAN: I don't know. I think it's—I'm sorry to say I don't know. I mean, I think it's going to be fascinating, because I do think there are these amazing forces beginning to collide. And Romney is, yeah, the—he looks right as a president, he seems like grown-up even though he isn't, even though he'll say anything anybody says is necessary to get more power for himself, which is his entire career. And, of course, one—the Mormon question with the evangelicals remains. It was never quite resolved last time. And I think there will be an evangelical rival to him. I also think Palin is going to be around and very strong, and I think Ron Paul should again—he's now proved himself one time around.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. SULLIVAN: And a lot—I think there's—the right is more complicated than some people think.
MATTHEWS: Hm.
Mr. SULLIVAN: And I think it's going to be an amazingly fun race. But I don't think any of them have presidential timbre, I just don't.
MATTHEWS: The old patter, Dan, was to follow the usual order and go with the most seasoned or best bet if you think he can win, and otherwise just have some fun at 52-card pick-up, go with Goldwater, go with McGovern. Do you think the Republicans will feel they have a close enough shot to beat Barack Obama next time that they'll run their best candidate and not have fun with a Palin?
Mr. RATHER: A lot depends on the economy, how the economy goes. If they think they have an open shot, a real shot at getting a Republican elected, make Barack Obama a one-term president, you might see a different field. But following things: First of all, when it comes to this far ahead, we know that what we most expect usually doesn't happen; what we least expect often does happen.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. RATHER: Sarah Palin's still very much in the picture. Mike Huckabee may not just be whistling Dixie this next time as an evangelical candidate, some strength in the Midwest. I would have to agree that, at this moment, Romney seems the most likely partly because what you point out, the party tends to go to the runner-up...
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. RATHER: ...the next time around.
MATTHEWS: And there's Pawlenty out there, too. He's sort of establishment.
Mr. RATHER: But it's far from settled. And somebody like Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, very articulate, well-educated person, could come out of nowhere.
MATTHEWS: Kathleen?
Ms. PARKER: Well, I think—I think Bobby Jindal will stay in Louisiana and finish his job there. I think there's a certain understanding that it is Mitt Romney's turn.
MATTHEWS: Helene?
Ms. COOPER: I—listening to you say that is really interesting, though, because I was just looking on the—you know, Sarah Palin's book is about to come out, "Going Rogue," and it's already up to the top five on Amazon.
Ms. PARKER: She's also started an organization.
Ms. COOPER: And it's just, I'm trying to—yeah. I'm trying to imagine, you know, a Mitt—how Mitt Romney's book...
Ms. PARKER: Well, if Sarah Palin gets—if she gets the wind behind her back in a big way, I would imagine that Mitt Romney will not run.
MATTHEWS: Who wrote the book?
Ms. COOPER: I think she's going to be really—I...
MATTHEWS: Who wrote the book?
Ms. COOPER: She had a ghost writer.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Ms. COOPER: I forgot the name of the woman. She worked on it in San Diego.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. SULLIVAN: Lynn Vincent.
MATTHEWS: She didn't write it.
Mr. SULLIVAN: Lynn Vincent.
Ms. COOPER: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: OK, when we come back, scoops and predictions right out of the notebooks of these top reporters. TELL ME SOMETHING I DON'T KNOW. Be right back.
(Announcements)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back.
Kathleen, tell me something I don't know.
Ms. PARKER: Chris, just to continue the conversation on Sarah Palin, and I'm sure I will live to regret this, but the great—there are two conversations taking place. There's the public conversation wherein Republicans support her and think she's great. There's the private conversation where that's not the case. And the greatest fear they have is that she will win the nomination and they will lose the general election because they're convinced she couldn't possibly win.
MATTHEWS: What are they afraid of about her?
Ms. PARKER: They don't think she's...
MATTHEWS: I take her very seriously politically.
Ms. PARKER: Well, they take her seriously as—for all the good qualities she has.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Ms. PARKER: But they don't see her as presidential material.
MATTHEWS: Dan Rather?
Mr. RATHER: Well, it's not on our politics theme, but look for additional big banks to get in the same kind of difficulty and be prosecuted for the same kind of difficulty that UBS in Switzerland has gone through with the secret tax evader accounts, and TSB Lloyds of London, which got in trouble for laundering Iranian money. You're going to see more of that with some big-name banks coming to the front page fairly soon.
MATTHEWS: Wow. Helene?
Ms. COOPER: Well, I just got back from Liberia, and I was struck on my trip there by this battle that's going on between the United States and China, and it's sort of emblematic of the larger fight for Africa that's ongoing between America and China. But in Liberia, America and China are fighting over who's going to supply the country's electricity. There's no electricity or running water at this point throughout most of the country, and there's—you know, things have been sort of stuck right now as these two superpowers battled it out. And I think who wins will say something about where Africa is going.
MATTHEWS: Wow. Andrew?
Mr. SULLIVAN: There is, actually, an obvious solution that's looming on Iran, and that's something called nuclear latency, i.e., that the Iranian regime will prove to the world that they have the capacity to make a bomb and the ability to do so quite quickly, but will not go the next route. And the question will be how tough an inspections regime they will agree to in order
to reassure us that that's the case.
MATTHEWS: Wow.
Mr. SULLIVAN: But then they will move to demand to the United States, if they're not going to have a nuclear weapon, move against Israel's 150. And that will be when the interesting moment happens.
MATTHEWS: Wow.
When we come back, this week's BIG QUESTION. The president's getting closer to formally announcing his Afghanistan plan. The question: Who will be angriest if he threads the needle down the middle, the left or the hawks? Be right back.
(Announcements)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back. Our BIG QUESTION this week: When President Obama formally announces his Afghanistan plan, if his plan is down the middle, who will be angrier, the left or the hawks? Kathleen?
Ms. PARKER: Well, I'm going to go with the hawks, because I think one of the big issues in every war is that we don't go—set out to win, we don't ever put enough resources up front. And to go halfway would be to go halfway.
MATTHEWS: Like 10,000 more troops, not 40,000.
Ms. PARKER: Right.
MATTHEWS: Dan, who'll be angrier?
Mr. RATHER: Hard to say. They're both going to be very angry, both the left and what you call the hawkish right. This is the reason it's such a difficult call for the president. But it's a call only the president can make. I do expect it will be something down the middle, if you will.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. RATHER: And both sides at the extremes will be very angry with him. But the real question is, what do most of the American people think about it?
MATTHEWS: Helene?
Ms. COOPER: I think the left will be angrier. I think these people are already saying that we should pull out, that we should start ramping down. And so I think anything that falls short of that is going to make them—is going to make them angry.
MATTHEWS: It's funny, because he never promised to do that in the campaign.
Ms. COOPER: No. Well, he—in the campaign he said he was going to send two additional brigades.
MATTHEWS: Wow. Andrew?
Mr. SULLIVAN: I think he's going to fudge, to kick it down the road a little bit, especially since we don't know quite what Iraq...
MATTHEWS: Some kind of increment, but not the 40?
Mr. SULLIVAN: Yeah, because he—there's so much stuff else in play, including Iraq. I mean, how do we—how do we leave there reassured that we've really left there and it's under control? And he's got now a limited amount of resources. So I think he'll fudge it, and I think that'll probably anger both sides, but not too much to give him political damage. And then I think
he's going to figure out sometime next year exactly. And I have a feeling he's going to figure out to get out next year.
MATTHEWS: Wow, OK.
Mr. SULLIVAN: But he'll fudge in the meantime.
MATTHEWS: Fudge now, pull later.
Mr. SULLIVAN: It's classic caution and...
MATTHEWS: OK. Very nuanced.
Thanks to a great roundtable: Kathleen Parker, Dan Rather, Helene Cooper and Andrew Sullivan.
That's the show. Thanks for watching. See you here next week.
