Matthews on Bush and the port deal: "He looks like he's a wise man now

[Jon8503]

... almost Atticus Finch"
Summary: Chris Matthews compared George W. Bush to Atticus Finch, the hero of the 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird (Warner Books).
On the February 24 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, host Chris Matthews joined Weekly Standard senior writer Stephen F. Hayes in praising President Bush's handling of the controversial agreement to turn over control of six U.S. ports to a company owned by the government of Dubai. Matthews compared Bush to Atticus Finch -- the Alabama lawyer who "represents morality and reason" in Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird (Warner Books).

Matthews's comparison of Bush to Finch -- a character portrayed by Gregory Peck in a 1962 film adaptation (Brentwood Productions, Pakula-Mulligan, Universal International Pictures) of the novel, and voted the number one movie hero of all time by the American Film Institute -- is just the most recent example of his over-the-top praise for Bush. As Media Matters for America has documented, Matthews previously gushed that Bush sometimes "glimmers" with "sunny nobility;" and falsely claimed that "verybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs."

From the February 24 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

HAYES: You know what -- you know what I think is particularly interesting about this? If you go back and -- you remember to Bush's State of the Union? He had this whole passage about not returning to isolationism and to not being protective --

MATTHEWS: Yeah, that's new this year.

HAYES: -- and I thought -- yeah, and, you know, when I heard the State of the Union, my initial reaction to that was, who the heck is this guy talking about? It was out of the blue. It didn't --

MATTHEWS: Yes, who are these straw men?

HAYES: And it now looks as though he might have been right. I mean, he's got --

MATTHEWS: He's talking about Peter King . He's talking about all these guys.

HAYES: No, or Sue Myrick from North Carolina who sent this, you know, two-sentence letter to the president a couple of days ago saying not only no, Mr. President, but hell no. You know, maybe he was actually right and sort of in front of the curve on that.

MATTHEWS: Well, he looks like he's a wise man now and a man of restraint, almost Atticus Finch. You know, almost the guy against the mob outside this -- the police station.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602270010

[WI_DEM]

1. Matthews, like Bush, is a buffoon

[blm]

10. Tweety HAS to prop Bush's image up to help his brother's campaign in Penn.

GOP's don't have a complete control over Penn's electronic voting machines, yet, so Bush's poll numbers are weighing down the numbers for the GOP candidates in 2006, including Matthews' brother running for Lt. Governor.

[rodeodance]

2. and another not so wise moment for Tweety.

[JitterbugPerfume]

3. The comparison to Atticus Finch was just sick

Matthews is a fool

[TallahasseeGrannie]

4. Somebody explain this to me

When I first heard about this port stuff I thought it was lunacy and couldn't believe it. Now it looks like suddenly everybody and their brother thinks it is just hunky-dory. Frist was against, now for. Tweety is purring like a kitty cat.

What the heck am I missing? I was SURE this would take him down. Now, granted, I know absolutely nothing about ports and management. I am truly ignorant.

Somebody explain what just happened?

[Armstead]

9. The phonies have fallen back into line, but a lot are still angry

Bill Frist made the most waffling backslide statement to try to get bck into the good grces of the House of Bush.

Something like "My reaction was that I'm comfortable with this president's decision, but I recognized that many Americans were uncomfortable about it, so we need hearings to reassure Americans so that they too cn have the same comfort level....blah,blah"

But the perception has stuck of the inherent incongruity of this del contrasted to the administration's so-alled emphasis on security.

[TahitiNut]

5. Breathtaking. Simply breathtaking. (More like Bob Ewell, I'd say.)

Junior doesn't amount to a smear of dogshit on Atticus Finch's shoe. A piece of shit who'd NEVER warrant "Stand up, Miss Jean Louise ... your father is passing." More like "There's a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep 'em all away from you. That's never possible." Junior is one of the "ugly things in this world."

[Ksec]

6. Yes, Tweety. The neocon agenda has been a smashing success.

Bush is Christlike. Tell us more . You people have been so effective Im dying for more of the same. How about we Saint Cheney for shooting a man in the face?

[Beelzebud]

8. As long as you measure success by how many things have been smashed. :D

LOL

[Beelzebud]

7. Tweety just looks more and more like a JackAss every day.

[soleft]

11. Surely that violates some kind of obscenity law

That is just truly sick.

[Tummler]

12. Bush would have put Tom Robinson in Gitmo without access to a lawyer

But yeah, other than that, they're really quite similar.

:sarcasm:

[DURHAM D]

13. When Tweety speaks about his big hero Bush he gets a special

look on his face - a stupid grin - glazed over eyes - a little foam around his mouth, etc. etc. etc.

I always look to see if Tweety has one hand under the desk - doing you know what.

[Iris]

14. I guess I'm a real whack job

because I don't like the President even a little bit. Never have. Never will.

"Sunny nobility" my ass. Matthews can stick this where the sun don't shine.

[Initech]

15. So is Dubai Ports World telling Matthews what to say also?

[maxrandb]

16. Guess Matthew's missed the part where Bush

said he "DIDN'T KNOW A DAMN THING ABOUT IT"

Yeah, he's like Aticus Finch, if Finch had never stepped foot in the courtroom and missed the trial because his head was up Cheney's ass.

Leave it to Matthews to compare apples to dog-shit.