It's only Hardball off-camera

Thanks to the thin-skinned folks over at L. Brent "Where's My Scaife Check" Bozell's Media Research Center for transcribing Chris Matthews latest comments from the Don Imus show. This says a lot about what is said on the air, and what they say during commercial break.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews, whose Hardball show has fewer viewers than the cancelled Donahue had, went on a tear against President Bush, whom he described as “a kid,” and others in the administration over their Iraq policy. Matthews charged on Friday's Imus in the Morning: “It's going to make every Arab kid grow up to hate our guts for the next thousand years.”

Matthews argued that the policy has nothing to do with any danger posed by Iraq's arsenal. Instead, “it's about changing these governments around so that they play ball with us.”

On Bush, Matthews bemoaned: “This kid has got religion, he goes to bed at 9:30, he doesn't drink, he's got God on his side, his family doesn't complain against him -- he's basically got the bit in his teeth and he's going to war, and the people around him aren't questioning it.”

MRC analyst Jessica Anderson took down some of what Matthews spewed on the February 28 Imus in the Morning radio show simulcast on MSNBC:

-- "It looks like Bush 43 is going to go, he doesn't care. There's an interesting little item in the paper today about how Bush 41, the family as it's called, are concerned about going it alone, ripping apart the alliance that Bush Senior had going into Baghdad the first time, or going into Kuwait. I think they're worried about it, I'm worried about, but you know, this kid has got religion, he goes to bed at 9:30, he doesn't drink, he's got God on his side, his family doesn't complain against him -- he's basically got the bit in his teeth and he's going to war, and the people around him aren't questioning it. I think Colin Powell is aboard, Wolfowitz is out there, you know, almost like a fanatic saying, 'I don't even know how much the thing is going to cost, but we're going.' These guys are going to war and there's no way around it. At this point, they probably have to."

-- "Well, you know my gut, I've been against this war. They said it was anthrax, then they said they did '93, then they said they did 2001. They've got every excuse, it's like throw it against the wall and see if it sticks, and it's basically an attitude that the guys around the President are ideologues, they don't like despotisms, they want to go in there and knock off those Arab leaders, they want to change the Middle East around so it's peaceful and the Israelis can cut a better deal, and it's all about ideology and, to some extent Israel, but it's hardly any of it is about guns. I think the gun part of this thing has always been BS.

“It's about changing these governments around so that they play ball with us and I think that's what the game has been from Wolfowitz and Feith and Rumsfeld and Cheney -- they're all hardliners. You know, when they get off the air with me they always giggle, 'You know, I hope they don't disarm.' That's their worst fear, that Saddam Hussein will throw all his guns out in the street in front of 'em, then we can't go to war and these guys will be miserable. It's not about guns. It's about ideology. These guys want to change that part of the world and they're damned, they'll come up with any excuse to do it. And look, that's an idealistic Wilsonian notion. I think it's squirrelly. It's going to make every Arab kid grow up to hate our guts for the next thousand years, but that's they're(sic) point of view and I've got mine."

So why doesn't Matthews confront them about their off-screen comments the next time they come on? Is it Hardball or T-Ball?