Announcer: This is THE CHRIS MATTHEWS SHOW. Today...
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
One on one. The battle for the Democratic nomination is between Hillary and
Obama. But Hillary's been running on experience. How does she morph into a
candidate of historic change? How does she get people to believe?
No second date? He's got the young voters and the educated ones, but to win
Obama's got to win over more women, like he did in Iowa. Can he do it again?
Finally, John McCain's war. Is he the ABC candidate, the `anybody but
Clinton' guy Republicans will get behind? Is that his best case, to circle
the wagon?
Hi, I'm Chris Matthews, welcome to the show.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Interview: Michele Norris, host of "All Things Considered," Bob
Woodward of the Washington Post, Gloria Borger of CNN and David
Brooks of The New York Times on Obama and Clinton's campaigns,
John McCain's `anyone but Clinton' appeal; Tell Me Something I
Don't Know; Big Question
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
Michele Norris hosts "All Things Considered" on NPR. Bob Woodward is
assistant managing editor of The Washington Post. Gloria Borger is senior
political analyst for CNN and a columnist for U.S. News & World Report. And
David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times and an analyst on the
"NewsHour."
Well, it's a one-on-one fight for the Democratic nomination, Hillary vs.
Barack. Each faces his or her separate hurdlers. For Obama, his biggest
challenge now is to get women behind him. He had a slight edge among women in
Iowa, but in New Hampshire they went to Hillary. She got a 17-point
turnaround among women from Iowa to New Hampshire. In addition, Obama has to
get more Democrats--besides independents--to favor him. He can do it by
stressing his electability, something he started doing in New Hampshire.
Senator BARACK OBAMA: (January 6) I beat John, I beat Mitt, I beat Rudy, I
beat Fred. I beat them all because we know that they are about the past, and
we are about the future.
MATTHEWS: As for Hillary, she needs to find a way to be both soft--as she was
at moments in New Hampshire--and also tough to show she's human and strong.
She also has to stress that the first woman is a pioneer just as the first
African-American is. She needs to rally voters behind a sense of history as
Obama has. Listen to how she talked up her pioneering ways in New Hampshire.
Senator HILLARY CLINTON: (Monday) I am also running to break through the
highest and hardest glass ceiling for our daughters and for our sons and for
our children and for our country. And really, for women around the world.
MATTHEWS: Bob, how does she grab that sense of history, that wave that Obama
seems to be grabbing?
Mr. BOB WOODWARD (Assistant Managing Editor, The Washington Post): Well,
first of all, she's become her own story. It isn't Bill and Hillary. The
story is Hillary. And you always ask in something like this, where are the
emotions? And she's found a way to bring out her emotions in open. It's not
just the crying, it's talking to people, finally being accessible. I think
that's a big deal. She is a very smart person. If I may say this, she's kind
of like you. She has to dial her personality down.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
GLORIA BORGER (CNN Senior Political Analyst): She does?
Mr. WOODWARD: Yeah, she can't--yes, she does. And I, early in the Clinton
years, did some interviews with her where she was just open and saying exactly
what she felt. So she dials down. I think now she's going to take a little
bit of that dial up, and people are going to say, `What's she doing? What's
she saying? What are'...
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. WOODWARD: `...her emotions?' And that is a real campaign asset, at least
for the moment.
MATTHEWS: Michele, when you go to a rally for Obama, as a lot of us have been
to, they are astounding affairs to attend because you can see, hear and you
honestly do feel--I certainly did--the rousing historic nature of this guy,
African-American with a real chance to be president. How does she grab that
excitement?
Ms. MICHELE NORRIS (NPR Host, "All Things Considered"): Well, she starts to
talk about it more. I think it's not necessarily the excitement at the
rallies that she'll be pointing to. She has an opportunity right now, if you
look at the way that so many women said that they responded to that moment
where she showed some emotion and they saw something different. When she
talks about breaking those glass ceilings and starts trying to connect with
other women...
Ms. BORGER: Right.
Ms. NORRIS: ...who have felt that, who have, you know, butter their head and
their shoulders up against those glass ceilings...
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Ms. NORRIS: ...that may be a real opportunity to say, `You know what? I
understand what it's like.'
MATTHEWS: I personally don't see how she loses at all running as the woman
candidate.
Ms. BORGER: Well, she's now talking about....
MATTHEWS: Most Democratic voters are women.
Ms. BORGER: Well, she's now talking about being a woman. In that last
debate she said, `Look, guys, I embody change. I'm a woman. He's not the
only person who looks like change. I look like change.' But I think Hillary
Clinton has a really difficult problem here because, as a woman candidate, she
bent over backwards to show us how tough she was. Don't forget, this is a
woman we've been watching for more than a decade.
MATTHEWS: Right.
Ms. BORGER: We think we know who she is already. OK? So she bent over
backwards to show us how tough she is, and now she's going the other way to
show us how likable she is. `Oh, you hurt my feelings.' That was a brilliant
line. She's going to try to do John McCain...
MATTHEWS: Wait a minute. Are you suggesting contrivance?
Ms. BORGER: Oh, you think?
MATTHEWS: No, I'm wondering.
Ms. BORGER: A little bit. No, I think...
MATTHEWS: I don't think it was contrived. Do you?
Ms. BORGER: I think the tearing up was absolutely real...
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Ms. BORGER: ...but now I think we're at a point where this is contrivance
because it works for her. And I'm not saying that in a bad way.
MATTHEWS: OK. Toughest question to David, which is, how do you put it
together? The toughness to be leader of the world at a very difficult, scary
time, taking on the bad guys of the world--at the same time being a mensch, to
use a male expression, to be a person?
Mr. DAVID BROOKS (The New York Times): She can't--you can't fake who you
are. She is who she has been. I'd use a slightly different metaphor than
Bob. I'm not sure it's a dial, it's a wall. She's an international
celebrity. I remember traveling with her in Europe. She is Elizabeth Taylor,
and she's been that for 20 years. When you're a celebrity on that level, you
build walls. And she's built walls with everybody around her except for a
tight coterie. And we got a little glimpse behind the wall in New Hampshire.
Ms. BORGER: Not anymore.
Mr. BROOKS: But that's it, and I don't think you can tear down the wall
overnight. You just can't change 24 years...
Ms. BORGER: She is, though.
MATTHEWS: Is it smart to show--is it smart for her to dial up who she is
again?
Mr. WOODWARD: Exactly, because look, the--now the focus is on her. What--I
mean, people are picking up the paper, people are saying--tuning in to the
television set. What did Hillary do? What did she say? It is now an issue.
MATTHEWS: OK.
Mr. WOODWARD: And remember, on the other side of this is the wonky side,
which she's got down cold.
MATTHEWS: I want the two women to talk about this. This is a time of exposed
nerves. I know so many women who read the papers, keep up with events as much
as all of us do who have very complicated feelings about her, and not--and not
necessarily positive, yet in the maelstrom of this past weekend in New
Hampshire, they began to say, `You guys are killing this woman, stop it.'
Ms. BORGER: Women feel like everyone else, that they've known Hillary for a
long time. And they have opinions about her, and a lot of women don't like
Hillary Clinton, but at that debate when John Edwards decided to team up with
Barack Obama and hit her and say--you know, and criticize her together and
gang up on her, which they did...
MATTHEWS: You felt that?
Ms. BORGER: I thought, whoa, the guys are ganging up on Hillary Clinton.
Ms. NORRIS: More importantly, other people felt that.
Ms. BORGER: Right. Other people felt that.
MATTHEWS: What did you feel, Michele?
Ms. NORRIS: Well, I think that we saw that many voters thought that that was
going on.
Ms. BORGER: Mm-hmm.
Ms. NORRIS: You know, the interesting thing, when you talk about Hillary and
Barack Obama in this case, if people start beating up on Barack Obama and you
talk the, you know, like constituency there, African-Americans, the response
might be a little bit opposite there, instead of saying, `Oh, they're beating
up on them,' the worry is, oh, is he viable?
Ms. BORGER: Right.
Ms. NORRIS: And so it's like it's almost the exact opposite reaction.
MATTHEWS: Bob, the fascinating thing, looking at all the poll data coming
in--although I'm careful to talk about poll data these days...
Mr. WOODWARD: That's right.
MATTHEWS: ...because it's not perfected yet.
Mr. WOODWARD: Sure.
MATTHEWS: A lot of people came out of those voting booths and told our
interviewers that they think Barack Obama--even though the majority voted for
Hillary, they think Barack is more electable. I know that's ironic for an
African-American in our culture, but is that his biggest selling piece to men
and women, `I can beat the Republicans'?
Mr. WOODWARD: Well, first of all, I mean, a campaign is a communications
exercise and a personality projection exercise. And he's a master at that.
He really comes across well head to head, on television and in those speeches.
He's a--he's a dynamic, serious person, and people immediately tune in to
that. So I think the good news is we've got a contest.
MATTHEWS: Right.
Mr. WOODWARD: And that--you know, the--we--you talk about the challenge to
the candidates, but I think the real--one of the subsidiary questions is
what's the challenge to the voter? They, you know--we're talking like
political consultants and pollsters and campaign managers, `what would you do
here? What does this mean?'
MATTHEWS: Right.
Mr. WOODWARD: The voter's sitting out there and saying, `Who are these
people? Tell me more.'
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. WOODWARD: And if it's just a process that takes two weeks, we're going
to get much less. Now we're probably going to get months of who these people
are, what they've done. You know, Hillary, Obama, they are both legislators.
There is a voluminous record...
MATTHEWS: Right.
Ms. NORRIS: Right.
Ms. BORGER: Right.
Mr. WOODWARD: ...of what they've done.
Mr. BROOKS: Can I say something about this electability issue? Because it's
a pet peeve of mine. People are idiots. We couldn't tell...
MATTHEWS: Oh, that'll help. That's a good comment from Washington.
Mr. BROOKS: We couldn't tell--we couldn't tell who was going to win the New
Hampshire primary 36 minutes before the polls closed.
MATTHEWS: So they're idiots.
Mr. BROOKS: How is anybody going to know...
MATTHEWS: Wait a minute. Maybe we are.
Mr. BROOKS: We are, too, and we're licensed professionals. How are--how is
anybody going to know who's most electable in November?
MATTHEWS: One of the big questions coming out of this last debate, or
election up in New Hampshire, is can we trust polls when race is on the
ballot?
Ms. NORRIS: Well, we're not sure about that. I mean, the big question
coming out of the polls in New Hampshire, those preprimary polls and why so
many people got it so wrong, is not necessarily the question of whether people
went into the voting booth and did something that they told the pollsters that
they were going to do, is whether the polls really accurately reflected the
people who showed up. There is a...
MATTHEWS: Yeah. Women.
Ms. NORRIS: Women and working-class voters, lower-income voters,
working-class voters...
MATTHEWS: OK. OK.
Ms. NORRIS: ...who were not included in those surveys...
MATTHEWS: He....
Ms. NORRIS: ...and that's where Hillary was very strong.
MATTHEWS: Gloria, he saw the big ballooning of women at the end--working
women, if you will, older women, but Obama's people are saying--David Axelrod
and the rest are going, `Wait a minute. We can't let this happen in every
primary and every caucus.'
Ms. BORGER: Right.
MATTHEWS: So what can he do to get the women?
Ms. BORGER: I think Obama has to start outlining an agenda that appeals to
working-class voters. Barack Obama right now is the candidate of the wealthy.
MATTHEWS: Right.
Ms. BORGER: The candidate of the elite. The candidate of the idealist.
MATTHEWS: Right.
Ms. BORGER: She's--she...
Ms. NORRIS: I don't--I don't...
Mr. WOODWARD: According to the polls.
Ms. BORGER: According to--according to the exit polls--wait a minute.
Mr. WOODWARD: (Unintelligible).
MATTHEWS: (Unintelligible).
Ms. BORGER: Wait a minute. So far, according to the exit polls, which we're
not supposed to pay attention to...
MATTHEWS: OK. OK.
Ms. BORGER: ...you know, he needs to come out with an economic agenda now
that...
MATTHEWS: OK.
Ms. BORGER: ...broadens his appeal because that's her playing ground.
MATTHEWS: David, you're--a favorite for you. Karl Rove, of all people, you
can't totally buy but maybe he's smart on this one. He said that Barack's
going to the wine drinkers, Hillary's going to the beer drinkers. He said
there's more beer drinkers in the Democratic Party.
Mr. BROOKS: That's generally true. There's always Starbucks candidate,
whether it's Bill Bradley or Paul Tsongas or Barack Obama...
MATTHEWS: OK. And who's the Dunkin' Donuts candidate?
Mr. BROOKS: Well, that one's Hillary. The difference is Obama is
African-American. And so if he can get African-American votes and the
Starbucks votes, that's a potential minority...
MATTHEWS: OK.
Mr. BROOKS: ...but the crucial constituency here is Latinos.
MATTHEWS: All right.
Mr. BROOKS: Who do Latinos go for?
MATTHEWS: I know. The Clintons are looking at them.
Ms. BORGER: California.
MATTHEWS: We put it to our Matthews Meter, 12 of our regulars. Who has the
bigger set of challenges ahead, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? It's close,
but seven say, all things considered, Obama has the bigger set of challenges.
Five say Hillary does. David and Gloria both said Obama's got the biggest
challenge.
Gloria.
Ms. BORGER: Well, I want to go back to this other point. I think Obama now
has to talk about substance because that's what Hillary Clinton is going to
start doing. She's going to start saying...
MATTHEWS: Right.
Ms. BORGER: ...not so much like Walter Mondale, but a version of `Where's
the beef?'
MATTHEWS: Full funding for Title 20 programs.
Ms. BORGER: Where's the--no but she's going to start saying, `Where's the
beef?'
MATTHEWS: OK. Right.
OK. Before we break, as the Democrats move their act to Las Vegas, where
there's a big caucus coming up this Saturday, a lot of people would like to
see the list of candidates get a little shorter. Just this past week Bill
Richardson, for example, dropped out of the race. But not John Edwards. When
it comes to getting out, Edwards insists it's no dice.
Mr. JOHN EDWARDS: (Tuesday) I want to be absolutely clear to all of you who
have been devoted to this cause, and I want to be clear to the 99 percent of
Americans who have not yet had the chance to have their voices heard that I am
in this race to the convention, that I intend to be the nominee of my party.
MATTHEWS: Well, that persistence is making Obama backers wonder if Edwards is
simply a guy slowing up traffic. You might say it's like the guy at the
airport in the movie "Honeymoon in Vegas," hopelessly single-minded on his own
business.
(Excerpt of "Honeymoon in Las Vegas)
Mr. BEN STEIN: (As Walter) Would it be any cheaper if I stop in Nashville?
Unidentified Actor #1: (In character) Same price, sir.
Mr. STEIN: (As Walter) I hold an Advantage card.
Actor #1: (In character) That won't make any difference in the price. Sir,
there seems to be a very long line.
Mr. STEIN: (As Walter) Tell me again about the deal on SuperSaver.
Actor #1: (In character) Well, there are several restrictions.
Mr. NICOLAS CAGE: (As Jack Singer) What's this guy doing, around the world
in 80 days?
Unidentified Actor #2: (In character) Lighten up.
Mr. CAGE: You lighten up.
Actor #1: You can only fly on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, and it's...
Mr. CAGE: (As Jack Singer) That's it. That's it. Look. Look. I've got a
major problem. OK? My fiance was kidnapped and taken to Hawaii. I've got to
get there now.
Mr. STEIN: (As Walter) Well, I'm trying to make arrangements to get to
Milwaukee for my nephew Douglas' wedding on the 21st.
Mr. CAGE: (As Jack Singer) You're not even flying today?
Mr. STEIN: (As Walter) No!
(End of excerpt)
MATTHEWS: That's the great Ben Stein. Anyway, David, if John Edwards stays
in, who does it help?
Mr. BROOKS: I suspect it helps Obama. I think--I think he splits some of
the Hillary vote more than some of the Obama vote because it's more of the
down market vote.
MATTHEWS: So it hurts Hillary if he stays in?
Mr. BROOKS: Right, and it helps Obama.
MATTHEWS: Wow.
Ms. BORGER: I'm going to say if he stays in through the convention, if you
look at the rules, John Edwards--I mean, this would be our dream
scenario--could become a kingmaker here, believe it or not.
MATTHEWS: OK. Michele? Who's he help, who's he hurt, by staying in?
Ms. NORRIS: I'm not sure. I'm not, you know, I'm not going to make a broad
prediction on who he helps or who he hurts.
MATTHEWS: Check the polls.
Ms. NORRIS: I think we all learned that lesson.
Mr. WOODWARD: No one knows. No one comes close...
Ms. NORRIS: Thank you.
Mr. WOODWARD: ...to knowing.
MATTHEWS: I know. A careful answer from the eminent...(unintelligible).
When we come back, John McCain won a big battle this week. Does he have to be
seen as the anti-Clinton to win his party's nomination? Plus, 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. John McCain's win in New Hampshire over Mitt Romney
didn't help settle the Republican race; it shook things up even more. One
thing's for sure, though. The GOP establishment likes to rally behind a
favorite candidate. They did it back in 1988 when Vice President George H.W.
Bush was running. They did it again in 1996, pushing Bob Dole to the
nomination, and they did it, of course, in 2000 when George W. Bush wanted to
follow in his father's footsteps and became the party's chosen one.
Bob, the party is--to paraphrase Mark Twain--is an organized political party.
They like to find somebody and push them. Is this going to happen for John
McCain now?
Mr. WOODWARD: And they want to win. And McCain has got an aura about him of
some sort of moral authority now, something David identified some months ago,
and I think--I think it just--it comes through. You may not agree with him.
Lots of Republicans don't agree with him...
MATTHEWS: Mm-hmm.
Mr. WOODWARD: But that sense of stature. The other thing, I think the
question on voters' minds is, what are these people going to fix?
Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals want a president to exercise
presidential power.
MATTHEWS: Hm.
Mr. WOODWARD: To fix things. And McCain has that sense of, `Gee, problem
there, I'll fix it. I've got a principle that I will apply to this.'
MATTHEWS: You mean like Iraq, immigration, whatever?
Ms. BORGER: Well...
Mr. WOODWARD: Yeah, and lots of people may not like it, but there is a moral
authority there.
Ms. BORGER: You know, there was a lot of talk in this season so far about
the voters rejecting someone with experience. I don't think that's the case.
I think they're rejecting people they believe will be polarizing, and that is
good for John McCain...
MATTHEWS: OK.
Ms. BORGER: ...because he has experience, but he's not seen...
MATTHEWS: OK.
Ms. BORGER: ...as a polarizing figure.
MATTHEWS: We all know that he'd be a great general election candidate, at
least that's the assumption everybody seems to make because...
Ms. BORGER: Right.
MATTHEWS: ...of this `I've earned it.' He served his country, sacrificed for
his country. He seems like a real patriot. David, let me ask you about the
conservatives. He's always had a problem with regular Republicans, the people
that run the trenches on election day, the party regulars. And then, added to
that the people he picked up as enemies in 2000, evangelicals. Has he made
any peace with these people?
Mr. BROOKS: A little. If you look at the polls in New Hampshire, he did
almost as well as--he did better than Romney among registered Republicans and
almost as well as he did with independents. And that's because the party has
shifted. It's become much more of a foreign policy party..
MATTHEWS: Michele, it looks to me like one of the two, Hillary or Obama, are
going to be the Democratic nominee right now. That means a history-making
person of some kind or another. Do the Republicans need sort of an old hand,
an old veteran like John McCain to take on that kind of historic challenge?
Ms. NORRIS: Well, it's a--it's a nice sort of counterbalance against that.
I'm not sure that they need it. I just want to note David's point whether
McCain has made ground--made up ground with evangelicals. I think the real
test of that will be six days from now in South Carolina.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Ms. NORRIS: And the polls suggest that perhaps he hasn't done well with
them.
MATTHEWS: We asked The Matthews Meter, 12 of our regular panelists, does
McCain have the best chance to become the GOP's consensus candidate? Believe
it or not, 10 say yes, the party will rally around this guy. Just two say no.
David, you say yes?
Mr. BROOKS: Process of elimination more than anything else. Rudy Giuliani's
running unimaginative and bad campaign.
MATTHEWS: How about Romney?
Mr. BROOKS: Romney has not won anywhere. You got to show you can win.
People generally don't like him, that's the other secret factor. Mike
Huckabee...
MATTHEWS: People or the candidates? The other candidates don't like him.
Mr. BROOKS: The other candidates hate him, but they--people are--but let me
under--this is not something I think you may agree with, but Mike Huck--I've
asked a bunch of consultants, Republican consultants recently, if it's one on
one, McCain vs. Huckabee, does Huckabee have a chance, and almost everyone
said yes.
MATTHEWS: Yeah, but as a general...
Mr. BROOKS: Because of what Michele said.
MATTHEWS: ....election candidate, to get back to our question. Who runs
better in those close states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, those kind of states?
Mr. BROOKS: It's no contest. McCain is the only one with a serious
Democratic and independent following.
MATTHEWS: I'll be right back with 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.
Tell me something, Michele, I don't know.
Ms. NORRIS: You know, there was a lot of talk about the Oprah effect after
the Iowa caucuses. I think in South Carolina we're going to see the effect of
that, and if you talk to the Obama folks, what they'll tell you is the 30,000
people who showed up to see Oprah Winfrey, 87 percent of them at that point
had not been contacted by any campaign. They signed up, and the Obama
campaign has been going after that 87 percent hard, and they think that may
help them make up the difference.
MATTHEWS: Bob.
Mr. WOODWARD: You may know this, but the real fault line in American
politics is still the Iraq war. It is the most important thing going on in
the world, it is the most imp--it is going to be the most important thing
going on in American politics. Disclosure, I'm writing a book about it--a
fourth book on Bush and his wars. And if you think ahead in any version of
events, the new president--he, she--is going to have to make some really hard,
important choices about that war, our foreign policy, the Middle East, and
that needs to be discussed more in the campaign.
MATTHEWS: Wow.
Gloria.
Ms. BORGER: Well, we've all been talking about how this race is probably
going to be decided on super Tuesday on February 5th. I've been talking to a
bunch of Democratic strategists who have really been looking this over
carefully, and three of them this week said to me, `no, March 4th, it's going
to come down to Texas and Ohio.'
MATTHEWS: OK. David.
Mr. BROOKS: I think Florida, but that's just me. One of the--one of the...
Ms. BORGER: Democrats.
Mr. BROOKS: ...subterranean issues is the fatigue factor. Who can perform
reasonably well when they're tired?
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. BROOKS: New Hampshire was really just determined by fatigue, in Hillary
Clinton's fatigue. And I would say, though he's the youngest, Barack Obama's
performances are most affected by fatigue for the worse.
MATTHEWS: For the worse. OK. I'll be right back with this week's BIG
QUESTION. George Bush says he'll be strongly behind the Republican candidate,
whoever he is. Will the candidate campaign with Bush? That's the BIG
QUESTION this week. Be right back.
(Announcements)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back. This Friday President Bush gave an interview to
David Gregory of NBC, and he said this:
President GEORGE W. BUSH: I will be strongly for the Republican nominee for
president.
MATTHEWS: ...which brings us to this week's BIG QUESTION. The president will
be strongly behind the Republican, but will the Republican candidate--McCain,
whoever--want to campaign with Bush? Michele?
Ms. NORRIS: I think the real question is whether Bush will be behind him
literally. I mean, he's made no secret that he's never really...
MATTHEWS: OK. Will it be raising hands together...
Ms. NORRIS: ...enjoyed have...
MATTHEWS: ...at those rallies?
Ms. NORRIS: Well, he's never liked to campaign so...
MATTHEWS: Bob.
Ms. NORRIS: ...he might not be there.
MATTHEWS: Bob, will he be raising hands?
Mr. WOODWARD: Listen, the Republican Party is so tight when it gets to
either winning or losing elections, they will do any--same in the Democratic
Party...
MATTHEWS: OK, but will you...
Mr. WOODWARD: I mean, they are going to go...
MATTHEWS: OK, you're McCain, do you want Bush next to you?
Mr. WOODWARD: Sure, of course.
MATTHEWS: OK.
Ms. BORGER: You want Bush next to you in the state of Texas, say, but you're
not going to want...
MATTHEWS: Hey, look...
Ms. BORGER: ...Bush everywhere with you everywhere.
MATTHEWS: That puts him on television with Bush.
Mr. BROOKS: It depends how the Iraq war is going. If the real--if it's
still stable...
Ms. BORGER: Right.
Mr. BROOKS: ...he's fine. Bush is fine.
MATTHEWS: God, are you Hugh Sidey this week? Going to take a `wait and see'
attitude towards this.
Mr. BROOKS: I'm a humble guy now.
MATTHEWS: Thanks to a great roundtable. Michele Norris, Bob Woodward, Gloria
Borger and David Brooks.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sign-off: NBC's The Chris Matthews Show
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
That's the show. Thanks for watching. By the way, to catch a webcast of our
show, go to thechrismatthewsshow.com. The newest one, by the way, goes on the
Web Monday morning. See you next week.
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