Like Chutes and Ladders, but with More Killing

I hate hate hate hate hate Chris Matthews. This round-head, Charlie Brown-looking asshole goes on television every afternoon and tells Americans that politics are just a silly little game where nothing really matters except likability.

You all remember him during the election. "He's the President you want to have a beer with." "George Bush totally controlled this debate." "I just don't know if John Kerry has the leadership to run the War on Terror. He's a flip-flopper." He even went so far as to TITLE his news program "ELECTION 2004: THE HORSERACE."

A presidential election, Chris, is not a horse race. It's a serious undertaking designed to determine whether a given individual has the ability to serve as Chief Executive of this entire nation, and whether that individual has an appropriate amount of popular support. But Chris likes to talk about elections and politics like it's a game of Candyland being played by several of his close friends.

"Congratulations, David Frum, you get to take a ride on the Licorice Railroad! Move ahead three spaces! But, oh, sorry Senator Feinstein...You've been delayed in the Magical Gumdrop Forest. Looks like Republicans win again!"

Yeah, it's odd how politics is all gamesmanship, according to Chris, but that the Republicans always seem to win the game no matter how poorly they play. I guess, as bad as the Abramoff Scandal and George Bush's disasterous first debate against Kerry and the NSA surveillance Scandal and the ongoing tumultuous Civil War in Iraq and the Valerie Plame leak and the poor response to Hurricane Katrina and the failure of Bush's Social Security form and the reaction to his failed nomination of Harriett Miers for the Supreme Court, that the Democrats are just plain worse at the game. Because it's not like Chris Matthews could be serving as an biased umpire, rigging the game for his friends!

Anyway, that's my bone to pick with Tweety, who tries his best each day to convince people that politics doesn't really matter, that the wise men at the top have everything under control, and that you really ought to leave all the important decision-making to crusty old white men anyway. (Like Chris!)

I bring CM up today because of this item in Media Matters. As usual, they do an expert job of using the worlds of these one-sided mouthpieces for the Right against them. Today, they find Chris explaining to former NSA employee Russell Tice that breaking the law is part of the President's job, from his January 12th program.

MATTHEWS: We're under attack on 9-11. A couple of days after that, if I were president of the United States and somebody said we had the ability to check on all the conversations going on between here and Hamburg, Germany, where all the Al Qaeda people are, or somewhere in Saudi [Arabia], where they came from and their parents are, and we could mine some of that information by just looking for some key words like "World Trade Center" or "Pentagon," I'd do it.

TICE: Well, you'd be breaking the law.

MATTHEWS: Yeah. Well, maybe that's part of the job. We'll talk about it.

"Maybe that's part of the job?" Maybe not, though?

I don't think breaking the law to spy on Americans is the President's job. I don't think the President's job ever should involve breaking the law. Because that violates any concept of what the law means. There is no concrete "law" if certain people are allowed, nay encouraged, to violate the rules as part of his or her job. (And, of course, if the President is breaking the law, he'd have to instruct others to break the law with him...It's not like he's sitting in the back of some anonymous van outside a suburban house wearing headphones, spying on Americans personally.)

If the Founders, or any other Congress over America's history, decided that the President should be allowed to do whatever he wants, regardless of what the laws say, they would have put that into the Constitution. "Amendment #28: If you're President, and there are villainous ragheads about...forget everything we just said. Do what you want."

But, alas, this has never happened, so the Prez is beholden to all the same annoying laws as the rest of us. He has to file his taxes and register his car at the DMV and cross intersections using designated crosswalks, just like a schnook. And he can't spy on people just because he feels like it. He needs a court order like anyone.

But this is obvious, right? I'd like to draw your attention to something a bit more subtle and telling in Matthews' comments.

We're under attack on 9-11.

This is how Matthews couches his entire argument. It's the first thing he says. And, certainly, it seems accurate - on September 11th, the United States was attacked by fanatical Muslim terrorists.

But the tenses are wrong. We aren't currently under attack on 9/11. 9/11 is a date, years ago, when we were attacked. Presently, I suppose you could say the United States is being verbally attacked, and that our troops stationed in the Middle East are under attack. But we ourselves are not under attack.

In fact, the opposite is true. Today, we're on the attack. We're dropping bombs, torturing prisoners and "clearing out" dangerous neighborhoods of insurgents. What Matthews says, and what the criminals running this war would have you believe, is that in the post-9/11 world, we're constantly under attack. At all times. Right this second, America is being invaded by terrorists who are plotting your grisly demise.

It's 9/11 right now, and has been for years. We're under attack. Today is no different from that horrible day over 4 years ago. So forget the laws...Let the President do anything he wants to keep you safe.