Hardball With Chris Matthews: P.J. O'Rourke (December, 2000)

Source:The New Democrat  

Sounds to me at least that Chris Matthews voted for George W. Bush for president at least once. 2004 I think is pretty much a given the way he was talking about President Bush and seemed unimpressed by Senator John Kerry. And never saw Senator Kerry as someone who could beat President Bush. But in this interview, it sounds to me that he voted for then Governor George W. Bush for president in 2000 as well. Or maybe Matthews is just a fair-weather fan and goes with the winner no matter who the winner is. The ultimate blind-follower and faddist who’s addicted to the crowd and making sure he’s always part of the crowd. Sounds like a personality description for a lot of Americans. So now I like Matthews even less or dislike even more, you know what I mean.

As far as the Baby Boom Generation, I agree with P.J. O’Rourke especially on this. But hey without the Boomers, there wouldn’t be a lot of Gen-Xers and I would probably be somewhat lonely in Generation X, because my parents are from the 1930s, or what Millennial’s call the dinosaur age that they only know about because of what they’ve seen from their video games. But to go back to the Boomers, P.J. is right that they are the most self-absorbed generation at least in recent American history. You don’t get labeled the M Generation otherwise. Me, meaning “government give me what I want after the you tax me to death, bring me back to life and take care of me”.

As far as Bill Clinton, again I’m a liberal New Democrat, but if you look at where the country was when he became President and how he left it and look at his policies as President that he was able to put through, I don’t see unless you just hate the guy how you can’t call him a successful President. Whether that is very good or great, at least good, but I put him down as very good. A B+, that if he had personal discipline, 1998 is a completely different year for him and it is not wasted because of the Monica Lewinski scandal. We’ll never know that obviously, but President Clinton, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Leader Trent Lott were working on a broad bipartisan agenda together for 1998.

But to go back to P.J.’s point about the Boomers, they are the most self-absorbed generation that we know of. Bill Clinton is the President or the King of this generation and everything in his life is about him. Not saying he doesn’t care about anyone else, but everything he does has something to do about him for good and bad and for mostly good. And to a certain extent and not trying to take any responsibility away from Wild Bill as I call him, but perhaps he is a victim of his own generation. And so is Chris Matthews, speaking of self-absorbed selfish assholes, Matthews could be Wild Bill’s Vice President or Prince.