Natural Republicans

Referring to Chris Matthews’ complete skewering of “former Pentagon Spokesbeing” Torie Clarke, Atrios writes:

The real question is if this is what he really thinks why do we so rarely hear it?

But it really isn’t the case with Matthews that this is unusual for him.  Remember, he was always against the war.  But really, there’s only so many times you can confront anyone about this shit, and have them respond back with the crap that Clarke responded with, before it simply becomes bad television.  We keep wanting them to fess up and be straight with us, and that’s just not the kind of people they are.  It always bugs me at the end of each Matlock when people unnecessarily confess to the crime, as it almost never works like that in real life; but it really does make for better television.  And besides, anyone who still doesn’t know that the WMD’s were a crock of shit, won’t be persuaded by anything that Matthews said.

But both Atrios and Crooks & Liars seemed to suggest that this was something new for Matthews, but it’s not.  Guys like him largely agree with us on the issues.  They know all this stuff.  But the problem is that they don’t like us and they do like the Republicans.  They believe all that crap that the GOP spin machine spews out against us.  We’re freaks.  We’re anti-American.  We’re unpatriotic.  We smell bad.  Because that’s all it’s really good for: Getting people to hate us.

If you’re not already prone to agree with the Republican position, you’ll never agree.  Because it’s crap.  Fantasyland crap that shouldn’t fool a fourth-grader.  But it’s easy to believe the smears.  That’s why the more intelligent conservatives (and yes, they’re out there) don’t really like the Republicans either.  They’ll often tell you how much they dislike both sides.  But they really really hate the Dems.  And that’s the best that the spin machine can do to these people.  They can’t make them love Bush; but they can certainly make them hate us.  

And so that’s the deal with Matthews too.  He hates Dems.  That’s why he suggested that illegal immigrants are “natural Republicans”; because he thinks that Republicans are good and hard-working and that Dems are lazy and against free enterprise.  And whether or not DeLay’s got some dirt on Matthews, Matthews really does like him.  He’s a hardworking bugman from Texas.  But this is the way of the media elite: They like Democrat positions, but don’t like Democrats.  And that’s the only chance that the Republicans have.


P.S. I really admired the level of bullshit required in Torie’s response.  The war wasn’t about WMD’s, it was about the pre-emptive action required to stop the WMD’s that didn’t exist.  Except she never really put it quite so boldly.  But then again, they never do.