Chris Matthews Slams Harold Ford For "Cheney Talk"
On Hardball, Harold Ford pulls out the 24 ticking time bomb red herring and says he might have voted for torture after our country was attacked on 9/1
Matthews: You know it's interesting Congressman it seems like Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are caught trying to do two things at the same time. You see her standing there in front of a million flags sincerely trying to look as nationalistic as the Republicans. I mean patriotic...in other words tough. Anything that goes to the defense of the country we're going to be tough as nails as opposing any enemy of any kind. We're tough as the Republicans are. At the same time trying to express sympathy for prisoners, bad guys. Is that a problem? You seem to be suggesting it is. You can't be both tough as nails and at the same time look like you worry about human rights violations. Is that a problem politically or not?
Ford: No. I think Eric Holder said this best when referring to the Ted Stevens case in the aftermath and when he stepped forward and said we would not, the Justice Department would not move forward. He said the most important thing in the Justice Department is not winning, it's justice. So in this sense I think having the conversation about what happened and whether or not at Guantanamo Bay, and I'm not as outraged as some are about it because as much as I think some of those techniques were enhanced and might have risen to a level of torture you have to remember when this was occurring.
This is 2002, 2003. The country was in a different place, in a different space. And if you were to say to me, as an American, put aside my partisanship, that we have an opportunity to gain information that would prevent the destruction of an American city, to prevent killings in American cities, and we have to use certain techniques, I’m one of those Americans that would have voted a certain way, Chris. And that polling said it might have been torture, but I’m not as outraged.
Matthews: You are veering into Cheney country here. The destruction of an American city. What evidence did you ever have that the enemy had a nuclear weapon that could blow up an American city? Where'd that..that's Cheney talk. That is..that's what he uses to justify torture. We have no evidence that any enemy of ours had a nuclear weapon.