Huckleberries Online

ART: Chris Matthews Got It Wrong

Posted by DFO

Dec. 4, 2009 2:31 p.m. • 8 comments

After the president’s address on Afghanistan Tuesday night at the West Point Academy, Chris Matthews opined that the cadets had no reaction to Obama’s speech and that, in truth, Obama had found himself in the “enemy camp.” Matthews has since apologized for his comment. As he should. Besides the impolitic nature of his comment, he needed to apoligize because he got it wrong. Completely wrong. I watched those same faces that Matthews watched, when the camera panned to the audience during the speech. But I saw something completely different from what Matthews saw. Instead of lack of reaction, I saw intensity. Somberness. I saw young people, with perfectly pressed uniforms - how many hours did that take? to get those uniforms just right - listening to every single word, absorbing what the president said, determined to understand exactly what they will need to do - what their mission will be/Beth Bollinger, Accidental Rabbit Trails. More here.

Question: What do you make of Chris Matthews’ slip of the tongue and subsequent apology?

Eight comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Charles_Dixon on December 04 at 2:45 p.m.
People like Matthews will forever be stuck in the Vietnam era mindset of journalism: Democrats good. Military bad.
hhuseland on December 04 at 3:01 p.m.
Perhaps the fact that cadets are not allowed spontaneous outbursts, but retain military discipline could have been misconstrued as no reaction. It was, but not in a pejorative sense.
Charlie on December 04 at 3:12 p.m.
Everybody can’t get a “thrill up their leg” like Matthews does for Obama.
Fixer on December 04 at 3:56 p.m.
I was present for Bill Clinton’s 1993 speech aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Fewer than 500 sailors and Marines of the 5000+ aboard actually attended.

While many attendees didn’t care for Clinton or the things he stood for, there was the same polite respect as there would have been for any other senior official. “Military bearing”, they call it.
fortboise on December 04 at 5:14 p.m.
Apparently Matthews was too busy jabbering after the speech to actually see Obama make his way through the crowd. There was plenty of positive reaction to being able to meet the President.

I rather appreciated being able to hear the speech without the tedious interruptions for applause that usually accompanies Presidential addresses in public. The couple times there was applause, you knew the affirmation was sincere.
TALKJOC on December 04 at 6:24 p.m.
Simply put….Mathews is an idiot!
spokelooneh on December 05 at 2:09 a.m.
Mathews makes himself more and more irrelevant every day. He doesn’t really pay attention to what is actually happening, but just has to have some pithy and often wrong comment.

Obama got by my count three or four moderate applause’s from the assembled cadets. Seemed perfectly normal to the situation at hand.
richard on December 06 at 3:02 p.m.
Matthews can’t help it … he has always been a dolt. Just another example of a former Democratic politico who was allowed to use connections to become a “media” figure. With MSNBC, no less.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.