A journalistic disgrace:

Chris Matthews, in his commentary at the end of his program, had this to say (13 Sep 2003):
(populist pandering in bold red)

You would think that political nobodies caused the California recall.
In truth it's political somebodies who deserve the credit - and the ridicule.

I'm talking about the professional politicians.

They can't control the budget.
They can't maintain the border.
They couldn't even keep the state's electricity from being cut off.
The politicians aren't even good at being politicians. Those suits in Sacramento might as well be in Swaziland, they're so disconnected from the people.

A famous Californian once explained why one of its state's early pioneers, Hiram Johnson, devised some odd constitutional means, such as the recall, to take power away from the political parties.

(1966 clip of) RONALD REAGAN: Here he was striving to return power and authority to the individual, and he set up certain practices for our two political parties that still exist today. The open primary. Things that are very difficult for people in the east to understand, where they've been used to more boss rule and the smoke-filled room. And here in California, we take the case to the people.

Ronald Reagan got it. Maybe that's why the people of California got him.

There is so much wrong with what Matthews said.

• It was a political nobody, Darrell Issa, that got the recall to happen.
• Those "California politicians" have a budget problem, just like the other 49 states. In fact, California had to experience the dot-com and high-tech collapse, which made things worse.
• California politicians can't maintain the border? They can't send troops to Peru or a manned crew to the space station. Those are federal functions.
• Blaming the politicians for what turned out to be market manipulation by private (and out-of-state) interests, is a complete distraction from the truth. And in any event, the politicians did act to prevent further black-outs. They scrambled and did all manner of things to reduce the risk, including signing contracts under anomalous market conditions.
• And railing against "the suits" is pretty lame.

Matthews should be embarrassed. Everything he asserted was either false or misleading.

posted by Quiddity at 9/13/2003 07:36:00 PM