Controversy is the source of all entertainment. And, if you saw Thursdays addition of Hardball, you probably witnessed one of the most entertaining examples of political debate on MSNBC. In the beginning, Larry Thurlow combatted reports from a recently released citation confirming the enemy fire that gave Kerry and, surprisingly, Thurlow their Bronze Medals. Thurlow claimed that Kerry wrote the citation, citing that Kerry had a "Master plan."

But more importantly, and more interesting, was the confrontation between conservative columnist and fox contributor Michelle Malkin with Hardball Host Chris Matthews. The conversation started typically enough until Malkin was asked what she meant by John Kerry's wounds being self inflicted.

This began an unusually savage drillings by Matthews, who continued to pummel Malkin to give a concise yes or no answer. Chris eventually dismissed her, proclaiming that "No irresponsible comments are going to be made on the show."

Malkin, not giving up without a fight, was later interviewed on conservative Rush Limbuaghs radio talk show. In summation, she accused Matthews of trying to hit on her, that she her claim was spun to mean something it didn't, and that MSNBC was faltering under slumping ratings.

Not going unnoticed by Hardballs media staff, a surrogate reporter promised a response from Chris Matthews on monday, as he was on vacation and unable to comment.

The controversy centers around whether or not Michelle Malkin said the wounds were self-inflicted or "On purpose." On Limbaughs show, she claimed she never said that the wounds were "on purpose" but that they were "self-inflicted."

Oddly enough, the media transcript from the Rush Limbaugh show, detailing the incident, and Hardball do not match up. For instance, this section on Limbaugh:

Does not match this transcript from Hardball:

This was left out of the Limbaugh talk show:


The Question for Debate is, who, if anyone, is in the right? Who is spinning whom?

Was it Malkin who slandered John Kerry by saying the book claim that Kerry "Shot himself on purpose?" Or, was it a hot headed Matthews that mistook what Malkin was attempting to say and manufactured the whole "on purpose" claim.

The Question for Debate is, who, if anyone, is in the right? Who is spinning whom?



I missed the Hardball show, as I frequently do since I have no desire to hear yet another liberal shill like Chris Matthews, but I did hear a part of the Limbaugh show this morning on the road and I think he got it wrong and she got it wrong. The story as I understand it was that Kerry's wound in this instance was caused by his own grenade, not enemy fire. In all fairness to Kerry, the term "self-inflicted" isn't really what it sounds like in this case. A more appropriate term might be "stuff happens" or a reasonable similar saying to that and sometimes grenades go off before they're supposed to go off and that's when really bad stuff happens. That's how Max Cleland was injured in Vietnam. To my knowledge nobody has ever made the claim that Kerry "shot himself" as Matthews implied, but rather that Kerry's injuries in that action were caused by his own grenade and not by enemy fire.

I don't watch Hardball either because who watches MSNBC anyway and I don't want Chris Matthews blowing out my television speakers with his ranting. A debate between him and Michelle Malkin would be something I'd watch with the sound off.

Personally, if I were interviewing Malkin, I'd probably be more intrigued by her looks than her right-wing ravings and droolings. Malkin seems to be compelled to overcompensate for her attractiveness by being more strident in her opinions. Mona Charen never had that problem.

Michelle gets love from liberals because she's a hottie, but even hotties have their less-than-hot days as evidenced by these series of stills from an appearance on Bill Maher's HBO show:

http://www.100monkeystyping.com/wlog/archives/001061.html

You can read her version of the throwdown with Matthews on her website/blog:

http://www.michellemalkin.com/

lol... who was spinning?? They both were!! Matthews just beat Malkin at it, because he already knew how she was going to spin, plus he had homecourt advantage of being the interviewer. She wanted to deceive the public, without "lying" to the public.
For instance you may see a debate from time to time of whether Bush lied. More than likely you will be hard pressed to find a statement that is completely untrue, just enough truth to deceive. Bush would talk about OBL or Al Queada, then tell the public something about how Saddam worked with terrorist organization. People uneducated on the matter, which are most Americans will make the connection between OBL and Saddam. Truth is Saddam connection with terrorism is probably some palestinians fighting against Israel.
Now here, Malkin is being sure to use the phrase "self-inflicted" wound, from conservative talking points. Why?? Because if they talk about bullets flying and combat and leave it at "self-inflicted" it gives the appearance the "Kerry purposefully shot himself." Like Aquilla said, likely it was an incident where "stuff happens" probably with a grenade or something thrown by Kerry. Malkin could have ended it with a simple "no"



No, I'm not.

But that wasn't the plan so she kept getting her tail spanked in a "spin off"

The reason why I think Matthews was spinning is because he is shrewd enough to know self-inflicted wound didn't necessarily mean "he shot himself on purpose". But over and over that was the phrase he continued to use with her and only that phrase, because he knew her agenda and he was counter-spinning. Malkin was either going to lie and say yes, which would make her lose so much credibility. She was going to say "no", which was unlikely because the sheep only knows how to say "BAAAHHHH" or she was going to dodge the question, and unknowingly look like a buffoon.

Bob Somerby's Daily Howler did a great analysis of this topic yesterday. Somerby is no fan of Matthews, and certainly no fan of Malkin. His biggest criticisms are directed at Matthews, who was very much unprepared to counter Malkin:

This is a very good example of nothing being spun up to be something. As Aquila accurately observed, stuff happens in war.

How many purple hearts have been awarded for people being injured from flying body parts of their comrades? Friendly fire? And yes, their own grenade's shrapnel?

Although I wonder how you could tell in the chaos of war just where shrapnel came from. Nobody's pointing out that this is heresay with no proof. Rumor.

It's just election year blithering. Who cares who spins what? They are all full of it. The people who have their minds already made up listen to these things.

So my answer to the debate question is: "I do not care who is the greater spinner. They are all equal liars in my perception."

This entire issue is spun. The fact of the matter is the Navy awarded Kerry the medals. End of story.

I have a hard time seeing how this whole thing is even coming up....

I almost never watch Hardball for exactly this reason. But, I did catch this one. All I can say is that Chris Mathews is a EDITED TO REMOVE NON-MEDICAL TERM FOR HUMAN ANATOMY. You don't conduct yourself like that in a debate, Ms. Malkin gained huge respect from me for how she handled the boorish and ridiculous behavior of Chris Mathews.

I know now why his rating are so entirely poor. He is just a left wing hack. I don't mind a hack left or right wing. But, if you are going to be one at least treat the opposing view with at bit of respect and let it get aired. I would be like having just Sean Hannity or just James Carville interviewing a opposing view and never letting them get a word in edgewise or allow them to finish a sentence. Bad T.V. Bad Host. Failing Show.

I give the round to Malkin.

Matthews vs. Malkin, A Liberal Media? Who's telling the Truth?

I saw this episode, and it was purely the host playing his power to make his case.
He made Thurlow look like a goon.

I would say I was Matthews fan for about five minutes because he appeared to be defenfing Kerry, but he's given too much time to this SVBT issue.

As for a liberal media? Is there such a thing? I sure don't think so.

I found myself absolutely in love with this particular quandary. Mostly because I am thoroughly convinced that neither knew what they were talking about.

Chris started the whole debacle by falsely accusing Malkin of making the charge that Kerry had "Shot himself on purpose." He then continued to unfairly press her for a concise answer.

However, Malkin either was "spinning" it, which I doubt, or didn't know what self-inflicted meant herself.


What she meant to say was "No, but some of them say his wounds were self-inflicted." In other words, Malkin ended up defending an accusation she never made. She really could have ended the drilling if she just said No to Chris Matthews. Further evidence of her confusion was at the end of the controversy.

It seems that she, at the time, believed it.

The reason I love this episode is because both the so called "experts" got it completely wrong.

It was pretty clear to me that Malkin was just describing some of the basic details to what the SBVets were claiming and since she wasn't even their to discuss that book in the first place (she was there to discuss her own book about intern camps in America during WWII) she was giving basic details. He clearly conducted himself with no grace and threw off a very respected journalist and author.

Hopefully he feels ashamed now that the Kerry camp has had to admit that the swift boat vets were right, proven through admissions by Naval personnel and his own diaries from the time.

On a related note....

Did anyone see the Chris Matthews "interview" with Zell Miller after his convention speech?

If not, I would ask you to click the following link

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5892840/

and state your opinion. The Zell Miller interview is about halfway down...

While I agree Zell Miller may have been too agressive towards Chris Matthews, I believe its understandable. I watched this happen and it was crazy how Matthews was interrogating (not questioning) Miller. Matthews REALLY baited Miller and wouldn't allow him to answer. In other words, he wasn't asking a question. He was making a statement through use of his questioning and making an attempt to embarrass Miller.

Miller would have nothing of it. He even referred to the Michelle Malkin interview by stating the following....

" Wait a minute. Don‘t pull that kind of stuff on me, like you did that young lady when you had her there, browbeating her to death. I am not her. I am not her."

Matthews has gone over the top. I would just finish by stating the following... If Chris Matthews was as rude to me as he was to Zell Miller and I was in the room with him, I'd put his lights out.

I thought that was a pretty good interview actually. Matthews remained friendly throughout the entire thing, and he was laughing more than yelling. I also, unlike the Malkin controversy, understood where he was going with his questions.

Firstly, he commented about the bills Kerry voted against. Matthews was making an analogy with large, social security bills and Kerrys vote against the 87 billion.

Matthews is asserting thats its disingenuous to claim Kerry is against things like body armor for troops, when in reality those bills are apart of large packages.

An extreme example:
A bill which gives food to poor, hungry, single mothers and also wipes out congress giving the president a dictator like status. Thusly, it would be disingenuous to claim that voting against this bill means your against giving single mothers food. If that came up individually, you might gladly vote for it. But if its coupled with something you strongly disagree, you have to vote against the entire thing.

To this, Miller basically responded that Kerry had voted against several defense spending which were individual bills.

I think he kind of evaded (maybe correctly) what Matthews was really after, which was the "vote against the troops" 80 billion dollars. So Matthews continued to hound him for it. They then came upon a huge misunderstanding:

What Matthews was referring to was a common left wing attack against republicans who vote against welfare etc. in an attempt to draw an analogy to the 87 billion. He was, I assume, trying to say "Its unfair when they do it to you, so isn't a vote against the troops an unfair accusation for Kerry?" However, Miller actually perceived it as an attack on him, thinking that Matthews asserted Miller wanted to "starve little kids." Huge misunderstanding.

Then we go on to where a more legitimate point was made:

Thats what I considered a pretty legitimate point. There was no reason really to single out reporters, as Chris displays with the nursing comment. When given, and he was given, a chance to respond, he got frustrated and said "your hopeless." He then challenged him to a duel when he could have been explaining what he meant.

All in all, he finished it pretty nicely after he thought he hurt Zell Miller a bit too much:

It even ended nicely:

Reading the transcript might actually give you the wrong impression of the debate. Chris had this good-natured laugh all the way through when he was "attacked" by Miller, and Miller is the type of guy who doesn't look like he's seriously mad when he's mad. To me, it was more light hearted than anything else.

BecomingHuman your views on the interview are quite correct. I watched it like I also watched the Malkin interview and all Chris was doing was debating them and challenging them to support their views and not using empty rhetoric.