CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
I'm convinced if you walk into any dinner table right now in America, any
kitchen table, any bar room, any golf course at the first tee, what they're
talking about is this alert thing. Is it for real, is it politics, is this
part of electioneering, or is this damn serious?
Yelling "boo!" Hold an election in a jittery world. Is the new hard evidence
of a second attack on New York and Washington good news for Bush?
War of remembrance. A pro-Bush ad has a Vietnam war doctor challenging
Kerry's first Purple Heart. Can McCain get Bush to condemn it?
Thank God he's a country boy. Bush talks hick. Both he and Kerry hit the
sticks. The new battle for the hard-hit back country.
Plus, what do you want for the next four years, the '50s or the '60s?
All that and more with an august roundtable on your weekly news show.
Announcer: From Congress to the West Wing, he's been a Washington insider,
now he's one of the capital's top journalists: Chris Matthews.
MATTHEWS: Hi, I'm Chris Matthews. Welcome to the show. Let's go inside.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Profile: Liz Marlantes, Christian Science Monitor; Pete Williams,
NBC News; Howard Fineman, Newsweek; and David Brooks, New York
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
Liz Marlantes covers the Bush/Kerry race for the Christian Science Monitor;
Pete Williams reports on homeland security for NBC News; Howard Fineman is
Newsweek's chief political correspondent; and David Brooks is a New York Times
columnist and analyst on "The NewsHour."
First up, yelling "boo!" A big terror arrest this week, and murky warnings
about another 9/11. The president's learned the danger of staying mum.
Remember this presidential daily briefing: "Bin Laden determined to attack
inside the United States." So here he is sounding the siren.
President GEORGE W. BUSH (Monday): We are a nation in danger. We're doing
everything in our power to confront the danger. But one thing is for certain:
we'll keep our focus and we'll keep our resolve. We will do our duty to best
secure our country.
MATTHEWS: Pete, the week began with the warnings we got about another attack
on New York and Washington and ended with that arrest in London. Is this
serious business?
Mr. PETE WILLIAMS (NBC News): It's clearly very serious and, you know, it
comes at a time against the background of concerns about some kind of al-Qaeda
attack in the US before the election. Two unspecified and we're told
unrelated threats to New York, an al-Qaeda detainee saying they're going to
hit in August or September, and then presto, here comes all this information
from Pakistan about surveillance in buildings, of financial buildings in New
York and the administration felt they could absolutely could not ignore it.
The--the--the worry level was already tor--torqued very high. Now you could
argue that they didn't perhaps articulate it as clearly as they could in the
beginning. They've always been candid in saying, `We don't know if this is an
operational plan, this is something they studied and put on the shelf'...
MATTHEWS: Right.
Mr. WILLIAMS: ...`or something that's about to go into effect,' but they
couldn't risk it.
MATTHEWS: Politics, Howard. The question here is did they do it in a way
that signaled more alarm than was re--was required? For example, it took a
lot of people a long time to figure out, `Wait a minute, four years some of
this evidence, eight months ago some of this evidence.' Why are we going crazy
right now?
Mr. HOWARD FINEMAN (Chief Political Correspondent, Newsweek): Well sometimes
I think the administration is determined to undermine its own credibility,
even when it doesn't have to. If they had said initially, `Some of this is
old information but we've been tracing it for years,' that wouldn't have hurt
them. But at the grass roots of the Democratic Party people don't believe it.
John Kerry does. He got a briefing on this, talked to his people. They say,
`Look, Kerry's on board for this. He's not going to politicize it.' But the
grass roots of the Democratic Party they're suspicious.
MATTHEWS: Well that--lis--lis...
Mr. WILLIAMS: In fairness--in fairness they did say that some of this stuff
was gathered before 9/11.
MATTHEWS: They did do that, but the urgency...
Mr. FINEMAN: Not right away.
Mr. WILLIAMS: Yes, the first day.
Mr. FINEMAN: Not the first three or four--and then, say, three or four years
ago.
MATTHEWS: But let me get back to this point. Suppose you worked in one of
those five target buildings, you know--the Stock Exchange in New York, of
course, the World Bank, the IMF, the others, Citicorp, Prudential. You're
told your building's been targeted by the enemy just like 9/11, and then you
see the mayor of New York standing, ringing the bell, `Come to work at the
stock exchange.' And then you see the senator from New York saying, `Come to
work at Citicorp.' What are you supposed to do?
Mr. WILLIAMS: In fact, you know, they say more people went to work on a
Monday--on that Monday in the New York Stock Exchange...
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. WILLIAMS: ...than are normally there on an August Monday. So obviously
they felt the thing to do was show up.
MATTHEWS: Liz, let's talk about the candidate you're covering: John Kerry.
He's in a tough bind here, isn't he?
Ms. LIZ MARLANTES (Christian Science Monitor): It's obviously difficult for
him. I was--I was on the trail with the Kerry campaign when this alert came
out, and you could just sort of sense the wind was sort of taken out of their
sails a little bit because on the one hand he's not questioning it as a
political move--he did get the briefing, as Howard says, and--and thought it
was serious also. His aides all--all say that.
MATTHEWS: So no cheap shots on that.
Ms. MARLANTES: So--exactly. But at the same time...
MATTHEWS: How about Howard Dean jumping in there?
Ms. MARLANTES: Oh, he just--Kerry distanced himself from that very quickly.
MATTHEWS: Saying it was a trump card.
Ms. MARLANTES: He really doesn't think that was a responsible thing to say.
But--but at the same time what happened is, Kerry still wants to be part of
the conversation. He doesn't want to suddenly not be part of it at all.
MATTHEWS: Ergo, here's what he did.
Ms. MARLANTES: So he's got to find...
MATTHEWS: Let's take a look at John Kerry putting down for the first time how
George W. Bush handled 9/11 itself.
Senator JOHN KERRY: Had I been reading to children and had my top aide
whispered in my ear, `America is under attack,' I would have told those kids
very politely and nicely that the president of the United States had something
that he needed to attend to.'
MATTHEWS: Well why did he jump--drop that bomb? He's--the first time he made
fun of the president for continuing to read to those school children on 9/11.
Ms. MARLANTES: Well in fairness to Kerry, he was answering a question. He
didn't voluntarily introduce this--this little attack. But he did obviously
choose to answer it in that particular way, and I do think it was interesting
to note that this week he got much more aggressive in terms of questioning the
Bush administration's handling of the overall war on terrorism. They're
really--he got out there the day after the alert and he said, `They have not
shown the proper urgency in meeting this threat.' The fact that Bush is right
now, you know, calling to revamp the intelligence agencies hasn't come soon
enough. It has been three years since 9/11 and it should have happened a lot
earlier. He's really hitting it a lot harder than he had been in--in previous
weeks.
MATTHEWS: David:
Mr. DAVID BROOKS (New York Times): He doesn't know what he'd do. It's easy
for him to say that. He has no idea what he would do in that circumstance.
You know, what Bush did was show a certain level of calm, `Let's get through
this and do this one thing--step at a time.' Completely cheap shot. It's just
ridiculous. The one thing that Kerry has done right--and we've just heard
about it--is distance himself from Howard Dean.
There's sort of this wacko wing of the Democratic Party right now which is
really getting close to black helicopter-land where they don't think anything
the US government can do in homeland security or anywhere else is legitimate.
So somehow there's a whole section of this country that doesn't think the
terror warnings are legitimate, they think Ridge is doing it for political
timing reasons. It--it--it's a--it's a dangerous part of the party which you
used to see on the right called the paranoid style of politics. It used to be
the John Birch Society. Now you see it on left, and Kerry's doing an
excellent job of distancing himself from those people?
MATTHEWS: Can I speak for the wacko ring just for this moment? I don't want
to stay with them too long.
Mr. BROOKS: You always speak for the wa...
MATTHEWS: Well let me just say this, they were right about the war to this
extent. We went to war, purportedly, in terms of our international argument
for the war...
Mr. BROOKS: Right.
MATTHEWS: ...over intel that didn't exist: the weapons.
Mr. BROOKS: Right.
MATTHEWS: And so they do have a case that the government doesn't tell the
truth, or the government can mislead by accident. Howard:
Mr. FINEMAN: Chris, I think the fact that John Kerry went after George
Bush's personal performance in those seven minutes is a sign of the fact that
he hasn't decided whether he's for the war or against the war...
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. FINEMAN: ...and so he can't take him on, on a policy grounds.
MATTHEWS: So he has to...(unintelligible.)
Mr. FINEMAN: He has to basically say, `The guy was a deer in the
headlights.'
MATTHEWS: Right.
Mr. FINEMAN: It's a personal attack because he can't decide for/against,
for/against the war.
MATTHEWS: Well we all know--we all know what we're talking about, those
minutes that were in that movie, "Fahrenheit 9...
Mr. WILLIAMS: Yes.
MATTHEWS: ...where he's just sitting there for seven minutes...
Mr. WILLIAMS: Well do you think he would have raised that and...
MATTHEWS: ...talking to the kids after he'd been warned about the plane
hitting.
Mr. WILLIAMS: Do--I just wonder if you think he would have raised that had
it not been for Michael Moore's movie making this such a big point.
Mr. FINEMAN: Well that's what the Republicans are saying.
MATTHEWS: Oh, well that's what they're going to say.
Mr. FINEMAN: The Republicans are saying Kerry's just reading from Michael
Moore's script.
MATTHEWS: Which hurts.
Mr. FINEMAN: Right.
MATTHEWS: Let's check in with the Matthews Meter. We asked 12 of our
regulars, `Would an actual terror help or hurt President Bush?' If the attack
happened in the next few weeks five think it would help the president and
seven say it would hurt. But if the attacks happened just before the
election, the reverse, nine think it would help President Bush and hurt--help
the president, and just three say it would hurt him at that point.
Howard, you voted against the--the--the masses there.
Mr. FINEMAN: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: Most people think what happens right before the election's a `rally
'round the flag' impulse. You don't think that.
Mr. FINEMAN: I'm not convinced, because I think George Bush's whole campaign
is based on, `I am vigilant, I am on the ramparts, I am protecting you as
president of the United States.' Whenever it happens, in my view, it could
change the dynamic in a way that George Bush couldn't control.
Mr. WILLIAMS: And yet...
Mr. BROOKS: Could I just make one...
Mr. FINEMAN: I'm just--yeah.
Mr. BROOKS: ...one--one thing that I think will happen. The psychological
effect will be so devastating I think the next day Kerry and Bush will do an
event together. I don't think we can underestimate the psychological effects
of the desire to not make this thing political if they appear together.
Mr. FINEMAN: Well who would that then benefit politically in the end?
Mr. WILLIAMS: Plus, the other--the other thing I think is interesting is if
you look at the polling, how many people say they fully expect al-Qaeda to
attack again, no matter how much...
MATTHEWS: Yeah, because--because, Pete...
Mr. WILLIAMS: ...eq--whoever's president tries to protect us.
MATTHEWS: ...the Spanish paradigm. That they went to Spain...
Mr. WILLIAMS: Well they were saying it before Spain, too.
MATTHEWS: ...right before an election and they did influence that election on
the surface.
Next up, war of remembrance. Questions again this week from some Vietnam
vets who say John Kerry's trumping up his heroism. The Texas-based group that
backed President Bush in 2000 is paying for the ads.
David, fair ball?
Mr. BROOKS: Ridiculous. You know if the one weak spot you should not attack
John Kerry on it's his service in the war. It's just ridiculous thing to do.
MATTHEWS: Should Bush say so? Should the president intervene and say...
Mr. BROOKS: Yeah, the--Bush is saying so. They're upset because their whole
focus is, `Let's get off Vietnam, let's talk about the next 30 years of this
guy's life.' That's what they want to do. They do not want to be talking
about Vietnam.
MATTHEWS: So this isn't one of those good cop/bad cop things like with Willie
Horton?
Mr. BROOKS: I really do not believe it is.
MATTHEWS: The establishment is doing the right thing and the other third
party is doing the ba--you think they're not working toward this or they are?
Mr. BROOKS: I think they are sincerely hurting the Bush campaign.
Mr. FINEMAN: I--I don't--I--I'm--I don't think there's direct coordination.
It's very interesting. I talked to John McCain who is upset about this, who
wants the ad to be denounced. The little wrinkle in the story is that it's
John McCain's own media firm that's doing the ads.
MATTHEWS: Yeah. But not paying for it.
Mr. FINEMAN: But not paying for it.
MATTHEWS: Well does anybody--let's all do a little poll here. These ads hurt
Kerry or not? What do you think?
Ms. MARLANTES: I think they could hurt. I mean, despite the fact that
they're being discredited, that, you know, one of the people in the ads has
come forward and said...
MATTHEWS: The book coming along this fall.
Ms. MARLANTES: ...but there's a book coming out, and it's already number on
the Amazon best-seller list.
MATTHEWS: I think the doctor can hurt it, myself.
Ms. MARLANTES: And...
MATTHEWS: If the doctor says, `I treated him, it was a scratch, he shouldn't
have gotten a Purple Heart,' and then if he did get a Purple Heart it just
diminishes one of his medals.
Ms. MARLANTES: I think what you have to look at also, is--is how it effects
voters who are not really paying that much attention. Kerry has pinned so
much of his campaign on his Vietnam record, and if this stuff is just sort of
floating out into the ether and people who aren't paying attention pick up
stuff here and there that maybe there was something funny about Kerry's
Vietnam record, I think it could have an impact.
MATTHEWS: Let's go to the Matthews Meter one more time. We asked 12 of our
regulars the usual question: Who won the week, Bush or Kerry? It was Kerry's
post-convention tour week, but it was also Bush's big chance to lead the
country on the terror front. Everybody what a--what a splash for the
president. I guess it says it's nice to be the president, huh? It's good to
be president.
Anyway, before we break, Bruce Springsteen has been the music of the Kerry
campaign.
(Clip from Democratic convention)
MATTHEWS: This week Springsteen announced a full blitz of pop concerts by a
bunch of big stars for Kerry. It reminded us that 20 years it was Ronald
Reagan that went to Springsteen's home town in New Jersey to wrap himself in
"The Boss"'s magic.
Former President RONALD REAGAN (September 19, 1984): (From file footage)
America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts. It rests in
the message of hope in songs of a man so many young Americans admire: New
Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen.
MATTHEWS: I'll be right back with a chase for the hick vote. Can a corn
field accent do the trick? Plus, my thoughts on the 1950s vs. the 1960s.
Which do you like, Bush or Kerry? Stick around.
Announcer: Today's show is brought to you by...
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MATTHEWS: The president goes country. Plus, what kind of a first couple do
you want? One from the '50s or one from the '60s? Stick with me.
(Announcements)
(Clip from "All the King's Men")
MATTHEWS: Welcome back. That was Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark, talking
to rural folks in one of the great movies about politics, "All the King's
Men."
Since the Democratic Convention, John Kerry's been touring through the back
country; Bush has been hitting the same spots but with an added touch. Here's
the president at his big-city best compared to his accent out in Iowa this
week.
Pres. BUSH (January 20, 2000): (From file footage) After the Declaration of
Independence was signed, Virginia statesman John Page wrote to Thomas
Jefferson, `We know the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this
storm?'
(Wednesday) Listen, the strength of this country's not our military. The
strength of this country's not our wallets. The strength of this country is
the heart and soul of the American people.
MATTHEWS: Howard, that's something the president can do and I don't think
John Kerry can do: get down with the country folk.
Mr. FINEMAN: Yeah, I like when--when he starts bouncing like this. You know
he's getting country...
MATTHEWS: But he has--he drops his cheese, he says insurance--insurance.
He...
Mr. FINEMAN: Well the--the fact is, unlike his dad, this guy did grow up in
Texas. He went to San Jacinto Junior High and Sam Houston Elementary and he
worked in Midland, Texas, and he went to the Midland Oil Club and he knows
about drilling in the chalk and all the other terms of...
MATTHEWS: And so do you, Howard.
Mr. FINEMAN: ...art--well, the terms of art of the `oil bidness,' and it's
real. It's real.
MATTHEWS: Well, OK, let me ask you Liz, you're following John Kerry around.
You have a weak economic thing out there. Friday there was bad economic news,
jobs aren't being created. Can a guy with such a northeastern sort of mien
get the regular people to like him out there?
Ms. MARLANTES: Yeah, well two things. I mean, he is trying a little bit.
He talked about hunting, he talked a lot this week about how he was a hunter
since he was 12 and he--I watched him play softball, a game was between
firefighters and UAW workers on...
MATTHEWS: Slow pitch or fast pitch?
Ms. MARLANTES: ...the "Field of Dreams." It was slow pitch but he--but he
two--he had two good hits and he got three outs. He was actually--you know,
he did fairly well. So he--he's trying, but...
MATTHEWS: We've got an expert on--go ahead.
Ms. MARLANTES: It's the issues. Really, really where his pitch is, is on
the issues.
MATTHEWS: Jobs.
Ms. MARLANTES: And jobs.
MATTHEWS: You're the expert on this sort of anthropological stuff. You're
the Margaret Mead of America. What do you make about this? There's a big
drop in the polling out there. Let's take a look. It shows how much the
rural vote matters. In 2000 President Bush won 60 percent of the rural vote;
Gore, his opponent then, got 38 percent. This time around it's roughly even.
The latest Gallup Poll has it basically 48-47. I mean they're even.
Mr. BROOKS: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: Are they afraid in the White House?
Mr. BROOKS: My--my basic rule is that if your county is gaining population
it tends to be trending Republican. If it's losing population it tends to be
trending Democratic. And those rural counties are losing population.
MATTHEWS: So Pennsylvania's getting more Democrats.
Mr. BROOKS: Absolutely. Absolutely.
MATTHEWS: So would you, looking at the states that we've been looking where
the president and the opponent have been following--Iowa, Wisconsin,
Pennsylvania--what's happening out there?
Mr. BROOKS: They're all losing. It's the upper Midwest and the--central
Pennsylvania. Those are the areas losing populations fastest, fastest,
fastest.
MATTHEWS: And Democrat.
Mr. BROOKS: (Unintelligible.)
MATTHEWS: Hey, just to get the political point here, what's the president
going to do? Is he going to be Harry Truman and go out there and whistle-stop
in the next months?
Mr. BROOKS: No, what they've got to do, they looked at the Kerry convention
they said, `good values, no policies. We've got to explain to those people
how we're going to pro--solve their problems. We've got to have something a
little more specific than what Kerry had.' That's what...
MATTHEWS: What's tickin' them off out there in the--in the hicks in the
sticks?
Mr. FINEMAN: What's tickin' them off is loss of industrial jobs. Now listen
to this. It used--that used to be an urban thing. But a lot of jobs,
industrial jobs, moved out to the countryside. Now they're being lost out
there. So it's blue-collar jobs in the countryside that are being lost in
places like Iowa.
MATTHEWS: Well what...
Mr. FINEMAN: And that's what Bush has to address with health care...
Ms. MARLANTES: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: What about this issue of what they call the back door draft, when
so many regular people with those kind of blue-collar jobs, or farm jobs, they
get picked up in the draft--or rather the reserves--they go--they join, then
they get held on and held on and held on? It's basically a draft.
Ms. MARLANTES: Absolutely. Kerry--Kerry hit on that issue a lot when he was
out on the trail this past week. He had that and outsourcing. Those are the
two issues that really resonate. And over and over again when I talk to
people who are coming out to see Kerry, turning out to his rallies, the number
one thing people talked about was, in fact, jobs.
Mr. BROOKS: It should be--should be said outsourcing is a completely bogus
issue. Of the total job losses over the past year, I think 2.5 percent are
related to outsourcing.
MATTHEWS: But why do people feel it is?
Mr. BROOKS: Because you get this sense that `there are these foreigners out
there who are taking away our jobs.'
Mr. WILLIAMS: Some force.
Mr. BROOKS: Yeah, some evil force out there...
Mr. FINEMAN: It's ironic in some parts of the country that receive jobs from
the north, from the industrial north, in the--in the sun belt, they're losing
industrial jobs in many places, and that's what gives the Democrats an
opening. But on the war issue, the number of people killed and injured from
rural states and rural counties is so disproportionately large.
MATTHEWS: OK.
Mr. FINEMAN: That's what makes it a big factor.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, why is the--why is the war off the front pages? We
only got 30 seconds now, but if you look at the numbers, there are more people
killed this July, this June, than the last Gi--July and June, even though
we've turn--turn--you know, formally turned over the country to the Iraqis,
why aren't people putting on the front page we're getting as many people
killed right now and more people being wounded right now, seriously wounded,
than last year, but it's off the front pages?
Mr. FINEMAN: Because Paul Bremer's out of the country. Because it's
nominally an Iraqi government is why.
MATTHEWS: I think--I think the media's going to return to that war.
Liz, tell me something I don't know.
Ms. MARLANTES: The Olympics starting up, and there's great concern this year
that the difference, of course, between past--more recent Olympics is that
there's a lot more anti-American sentiment out there, and the US Olympic
Committee has made a big effort to try to get American athletes to tone down
their behavior, to really watch, not to be too showy, not to show off if
they're winning, not to be too loud when they go out in public settings. They
sent out a videotape to athletes trying to tell them how to behave.
MATTHEWS: They going to tell tourists how to behave now?
Ms. MARLANTES: Well, and there's great concern in political circles, there's
interest as to how these athletes are going to be received, whether they might
get booed at some point...
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Ms. MARLANTES: ...and of course this relates to politics because Kerry has
been making the point that Bush has alienated many allies.
MATTHEWS: I don't think it's going to work. I don't think it's going to
work. Pete--getting small is not an American impulse.
Pete:
Ms. MARLANTES: No, it could--it could backfire, exactly.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. WILLIAMS: If President Bush is re-elected Tom Ridge would likely to stay
in the Cabinet but not as secretary of Homeland Security.
MATTHEWS: How big? Colin?
Mr. WILLIAMS: Probably not huge. Not secretary of State.
MATTHEWS: No, not that big.
Mr. FINEMAN: Get ready to see over and over again an 11-minute video the
Republicans are running on the Web now chronicling John Kerry's changes of
position on the war in Iraq. That--they're going to play it over and over
again.
MATTHEWS: When are they going to blow that one out?
Mr. FINEMAN: They're going--they're--it's already on the Internet getting
lots of hits. It's going to be on national television soon enough.
MATTHEWS: David:
Mr. BROOKS: There's a fight within the administration of whether to take out
the Iraqi insurgents in four cities--Falluja and three others--whether to do
it before the election, which many fel--people feel you have to do. Other
people think, `Hey, let's just keep it calm until the election. But--but
those four cities are turning into sanctuaries for terror.
MATTHEWS: When are we going after Muqtada al-Sadr, the real tough guy down
there?
Mr. BROOKS: He's not the tough guy. They--they can take out him. It's
the--it's the realist insurgents who are part of the Baath regime. That's the
people they're really worrying about. And they're building really safe,
terrorist bases in four different places.
MATTHEWS: OK, thanks to a great roundtable. Liz Marlantes, Pete Williams,
Howard Fineman and David Brooks.
Before we go, anybody think that Pete and Howard might be separated at birth?
What do you think? Have you come up against this before?
Mr. FINEMAN: Well I describe myself as the kosher Pete Williams.
Mr. WILLIAMS: And I'm the goy Howard Fineman. I'm happy and proud to be so.
Mr. BROOKS: What about Liz and me?
MATTHEWS: I don't think you look alike at all.
I'll be right back with the man in the '57 Chevy and the man in the Volkswagen
bus. Don't miss this one. Stick around.
(Announcements)
MATTHEWS: Coming soon it's onto New York for the Republican Convention.
Don't miss it.
(Announcements)
Announcer: Closed-captioning provided by...
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Commentary: Matthews compares the eras of the '50s and '60s
in relation to President and Mrs. Bush and Senator and Mrs. Kerry
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
Sometimes elections are not just about the candidates, they're about the
country we want to live in. George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, are a couple
right out of the 1950s. They come across, fairly or not, like the high school
sweethearts who grew up with Friday night football.
John Kerry and Teresa Heinz, meanwhile, are right out of the 1960s. They look
like they met in the Peace Corps or the Harvard Square. You could see them on
a Friday night heading off to some foreign movie like "A Man and a Woman."
Kerry loves that legacy.
Senator JOHN KERRY: John Kennedy called my generation to service. It was the
beginning of a great journey. We believed we could change the world, and you
know what? We did!
MATTHEWS: So here's the choice. Do we want a leader who sees things
plainly...
President GEORGE W. BUSH: We have an obligation to work toward a more free
world. That's our obligation. That is what we have been called to do, as far
as I'm concerned.
MATTHEWS: ...or the '60s-style, wrestling with complexity?
Sen. KERRY: (From CBS "60 Minutes," July 11) What--what I voted for was
a--an authority for the president to go to war as a last resort. I think the
president made a mistake in the way that he took us to war.
MATTHEWS: Do we want the more provincial or the more urbane? Do we want the
girl next door or the continental? The ideal...
Former President JOHN F. KENNEDY (July 14, 1960): And we stand today on the
edge of a new frontier, the frontier of the 1960s. The frontier of unknown
opportunities and perils.
MATTHEWS: ...or business school pragmatism?
(Clip from "The Graduate")
MATTHEWS: Interesting choice. Let's savor it. Better yet, let's get into
it.
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Sign-off: The Chris Matthews Show
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
That's the show. Thanks for watching. See you here next week.
