Matthews: ‘Nation Building Was Magic Phrase,’ Rand Making Clear He’s Not Bush
Chris Matthews on Rand Paul Announcement: "Nation Building Was The Magic Phrase," "Making It Clear I'm Not George W. Bush" (RealClearPolitics)
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC: I think [Rand Paul] laid down the fight here; the line is "I'm not for nationbuilding overseas, I'm going to build bridges at home not over there. It is a direct charge to the neo-cons...
All this money that is trying to create a right wing hawkish Republican nominee for president, may not sit too well with the average Republican voter. Because the "Reguar Republicans" who send their kids to war, are not the ones who pay for these ads, they are totally different people... Those people are not impressed by these god damn ads. I wouldn't even talk about ads and I certainly wouldn't put them on air for free, Tom.
Stop running right wing ads for free on our network... Who paid for the ads?
THOMAS ROBERTS: The Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: What the hell is that? Come on? Its the committee for the present danger, they're all front groups, right wing front groups. Call them what they are. Lets not pretend some nice people got together and said lets go to war and nation-build and knock off another government. That's what we're doing here, and I salute Rand Paul for having the guts to take on this crowd....
He's not for big government or a big foreign establishment or nation building, as he made clear. It comes through, Tom, again and again, it comes clear, I'm not George W. Bush or the crowd of clowns around him.
The interesting story not told here is the Republican regular people out there, what nixon called the cloth coat Republicans, not the rich people, they are not hawks, they don't want to go into another war.... They don't want George W. back, and that is what problem Jeb has, they don't want another war. They saw the absurdity of that war and they don't trust him. So we'll see. They say everybody is tough on Obama because he is not strong. But if we go to another war, that is the alternative with Iraq and Iran, if we go to war. And I think Republicans are smarter than their leaders...
It's not like it was back in 2004, when you say you're against the war and somebody like Rudy Giuliani pops up like a coocoo clock and says "remember 9/11."
It is not going to be that simple anymore, because people know there was no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq, it did nothing to keep us safe, it was just more killing, more hatred, more jihad, more war...
He's covering himself on that. He's saying those guys were wrong. We'll hear more of this. Nation building was the magic phrase. He knew what he was saying. Let's not try to create a Jefferson style democracy in the Middle East. That was a mistake. That was a red herring.
