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Immediately following the press conference given by Sergeant James Crowley, Chris Matthews and his guests started raving about what a great job he did and how he might have a future in politics if he wanted one.

Matthews: We're back with Roger Simon and Mark Whitaker after that, I have to say remarkable press conference Roger because I have watched politicians for about forty years now. He's better than most of them.

Simon: Is this guy suave or what? We had a cordial and productive discussion. It's like a head of state. He was good.

Matthews: Well he answered a lot of questions. No apologies. He said they're going to look forward. They're going to have a meaningful discussion later, not over a beer, but a serious get together. Mark your thoughts.

Whitaker: No apologies and probably no law suit from the body language. He says they're going to meet again. My guess is that Skip Gates loves to do documentaries.

Matthews: And he will be a player?

Whitaker: I wouldn't be surprised that they're going to be players in a documentary. And I think we've seen that a star is born. I think this guy could have a future in politics, the media. We'll see.

Matthews: Look out Deval Patrick in the next election, the governor up there. We'll be right back. I have to tell you I, well I feel like we're watching a.. Britain's Got Talent here. Right back with Mark Whitaker and Roger Simon and more of the politics fix. We've got our Susan Boyle here.

Now, for anyone who's been watching him for as long as I have, this is another obvious man-crush remark by Matthews along the same lines as his "furrowing up his leg" statement about Obama, or the "Aqua Velva" remark about Grandpa Fred. Tweety just can't help himself. But it seems he's got the Freepers up in arms for comparing Crowley to Susan Boyle.

As creepy as it is to watch Matthews with no filter as usual and just letting the first thing to come into his brain pour out of his mouth, and expressing another of his man crushes on the air, I really don't think he was trying to insult Crowley.

Some of the crew at MSNBC reacting to Dick Cheney's fear mongering speech at AEI. Apparently we're going to have round two of this on Hardball tonight.

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One of the more laughably adolescent and petulant aspect of Bush's Farewell Legacy Tour is the refusal to examine any aspect of his presidency, brushing it off with a "Well, you may not agree with me, but you have to agree that I made tough decisions."

Maybe it's not so surprising that the guy who got to Harvard and Yale on legacy and who needed to be bailed out by Daddy and friends on every business he attempted thinks that he deserves credit for merely sticking it out and not pushing off "hard" decisions to others. Certainly, that has been his modus operandi before public office. But clearly, that excuse isn't flying with the media any longer, as exemplified from this segment of The Chris Matthews Show, which highlight the fatal flaw of Bush's reasoning: you don't get credit for making the tough decisions, you get credit for making the right decisions.

KAY: Of course he had to face tough decisions. Because that’s the job of the American president, you have to face tough decisions. And you have to face them well and make the right decisions. I think the trouble is in all the interviews he’s given—these farewell interviews—he still really hasn’t answered satisfactorily the central question of his presidency: Why did he invade Iraq? It’s not enough to say it was a tough decision, so I made it, you have to say it was the right decision. [..]

RATHER: As far as it goes, it’s a fair estimate that great presidencies are made out of crises. If you come up with the right answers. The business of tough decisions, every president has tough decisions to make. Herbert Hoover had tough decisions to make. He made some of the wrong ones. Gen. Grant, for all his generalship when he was president, made tough decisions, but made the wrong decisions. This is the way history goes, fairly or unfairly. It seems to me, you make the wrong decisions, you pay the price. [..]

WHITAKER: Chris, you know, Bush likes to think of himself as the Great Decider, but I think one of the things that history is going to record is how indecisive he was at key moments. You think about Katrina, and handling that crisis. You think about the current economic crisis, that he’s leaving and how he was sort of asleep at the switch as that all happened. And even on Iraq, even though he was decisive on going to war, he was incredibly indecisive about the aftermath of the war. And I think that that’s the root of a lot of the problems we’ve had there.

Wow, you know, these Media Elite types are actually starting to sound like us DFHs, aren't they? Too bad their honesty only kicked in as Bush got kicked out.

Transcripts below the fold

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John Amato has blogged about this and this clip from this week's The Chris Matthews Show is proof positive that the progressive blogosphere must be smart about picking battles in pushing a liberal agenda for America. Let's face it, you and I and the rest of the liberal blogosphere have been right more often than not and certainly exponentially over the Villagers that populate The Chris Matthews Show. But they're not ready to give up their coveted place at the table, and certainly not to upstart bloggers who don't have the decency to take them at their word any longer.

So to those oh-so-wise Beltway bobbleheads, we will be the "angry left" that Obama must marginalize in order to have a successful presidency. It won't be the Republicans with their bag of obstructionist tricks, ones of which WaPo's Ceci Connolly doesn't even have memory, that give Obama a hard time, it will be us, the "angry left." We are the ones to not give Obama a "honeymoon period" and we will be the ones fighting him as he attempts to execute his agenda.

Sigh. Do anyone of these chuckleheads ever consider that the reason the left has been so "angry" for the last eight plus years is that what we've said and what we've valued has been criticized, dismissed, sneered, condemned, denounced and our characters attacked? Of course not. And when the nation shows that they have awakened to what we've been saying all along and announced with their vote that they want to give the left a shot, we're still criticized, dismissed, sneered, condemned, denounced and our characters attacked because we might like to see some people actually reflective of our values in office.

Good to see the open minds of the Very Serious Villagers remain. Would that they would be so condemning of those who have been so very wrong all this time.

Transcripts (courtesy of Heather) below the fold

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From the Chris Matthews Show, Oct. 19, 2008.

Chris asks his panel of Kathleen Parker, Andrew Sullivan, Katy Kay and Mark Whitaker if the Republican party is out of ideas.