March 25, 2002
SOFTBALLS :
The road to Baghdad (Chris Matthews, SF Chronicle)It will take 200,000 U.S. troops to invade Saddam Hussein's capital and effect the "regime change" demanded by neo-conservative policy wonks and backed by oil-patchers George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The question America needs to answer now, while there's still time to stop this road trip, is whether a war justified by ideology and energy economics is truly in this country's interests.
Patrick Ruffini is right, These are the final days of the Chris Matthews show, Hardball, on MSNBC. How can we be so sure? Because he's making the same mistake that Geraldo Rivera made during the Clinton scandal, turning against his audience.
Geraldo Rivera became a cable hit by beating OJ Simpson like a rented mule. This made him a hero to middle Americans, sick of the mainstream media pussyfooting around the issue. Then he decided to defend Bill Clinton and has never been heard from since. He was supplanted during Impeachment by Chris Matthews, who despite impeccable liberal credentials, simply couldn't stomach Clinton's myriad outrages. But now, whether reverting to type or genuinely alarmed, Mr. Matthews has turned against the expansion of the war on terrorism and thereby risks losing his audience.
Don't get me wrong, I'd acknowledge that there are perfectly honorable reasons to oppose a war in Iraq, from true pacifism to principled isolationism. But if you read his column you'll find that Matthews, like several other commentators and the British Foreign Office, is arguing that the case hasn't been made that Saddam needs to be removed. I'd just ask this question : what kind of mental calisthenics must one do in order to reconcile the notions that Bill Clinton should have been removed from office but that Saddam Hussein shouldn't?
Look for Mr. Matthews to join Mr. Rivera in a yurt in Afghanistan soon...
UPDATE : HEY MR. MATTHEWS, SEEN THIS? :
Saddam stokes war with suicide bomber cash : The Iraqi leader's payments to the families of dead Palestinian terrorists means more trouble for Yasser Arafat (Paul McGeough, March 26 2002, Sydney Morning Herald)
The hall was packed and the intake of breath was audible as a special announcement was made to the war widows of the West Bank - Saddam Hussein would pay $US25,000 ($47,000) to the family of each suicide bomber as an enticement for others to volunteer for martyrdom in the name of the Palestinian people.The men at the top table then opened Saddam's chequebook and, as the names of 47 martyrs were called, family representatives went up to sign for cheques written in US dollars.
Those of two suicide bombers were the first to be paid the new rate of $US25,000 and those whose relatives had died in other clashes with the Israeli military were given $US10,000 each.
If you look up "state sponsored terrorism" in your Funk & Wagnall's, you might well see this story there.
FURTHER UPDATE :
The Times even has a story that casts doubt on Mr. Matthews's over-confident assertion that the anthrax attack was entirely domestic in origin : Report Linking Anthrax and Hijackers Is Investigated (WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID JOHNSTON, March 23, 2002, NY Times)