There was a lot to object to in Mary Matalin’s appearance on “Meet The Press” last Sunday. For starters, as Media Matters has noted, she lied repeatedly, on multiple subjects: the political affiliations of John Bolton’s critics; the reason for judicial vacancies; the ABA’s assessment of the judges whose nominations are stalled by filibusters. Spinning — to interpret and present facts in a way meant to influence others to favor your side of an argument — is one thing. But on Sunday, Matalin didn’t simply cherry-pick selective facts to bolster her case. She lied. And there’s no point in pretending otherwise.
Of course, in between the lies, she also got plenty of spinning in. Here’s a small sample of what she said:
On opposition to John Bolton: “… just obstructionism by the Democrats, it’s everything to do with politics on their side, and on our side everything to do with getting the best people in the best place in the best policy to assure just not America’s security but global peace.”
On Tom DeLay: “It’s not about Tom DeLay. It’s about obstructing the president’s agenda, and it is about what they’re always about, which is demonizing. You know, it’s a politics of personal destruction, which they’ve taken to an art form.”
On the “nuclear option”: “What the Republicans want is an up-or-down vote. What Senator Frist has offered to the Democrats is a — you want to filibuster, you can have 100 hours of debate on every judge. They rejected that. It’s another example of obstruction. It’s petty obstruction. It’s not even principled obstruction.”
So let’s go over what Matalin has told us. The only reason Democrats oppose John Bolton, who, as Tim Russert put it, “tried to dismiss people who wouldn’t agree with his interpretation of intelligence,” is politics. Democrats have taken the “politics of personal destruction” “to an art form” — as opposed to, say, Ann Coulter, Dennis Hastert, or the ironically named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. And Democrats have blocked judges for “petty” reasons, not “principled” ones, despite the fact that the small percentage of judges they have blocked have repeatedly taken extreme-right positions antithetical to Democrats.
There’s more. After Russert brought up Pat Robertson’s claim that the federal judiciary is a greater threat than “a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings,” he showed a MoveOn.org ad calling on Bill Frist and Tom DeLay to repudiate Robertson’s words. He then asked Matalin, “Has this gone too far?” Here’s the subsequent exchange:
Matalin: It’s demagoguery. That’s sheer demagoguery.
Russert: Well, you don’t agree with Pat Robertson.
Matalin: I think that was an injudicious thing to say, but that the secular left has behaved imperialistically — there’s no other word for it. They have subverted the democratic process by taking their issues to the judiciary. What the so-called religious right has done has taken their petition and their concerns into the democratic process, into the public square. They organize and they try to affect legislation, as opposed to being the subverted process of democracy which is what the secular left does.
This is all demagoguery. There is a secular left. There is a religious right. It is — the way in which the secular left overestimates its uniformity is funny. They’re not — there’s not just Christian conservatives. There [are] a lot of the people who are concerned about traditional values and in politics and in the public square. There are lots of Jews, there are a lot of conservative Muslims. There are — it’s ecumenical. There’s Catholics. It’s across the board. There is not a uniformity. There’s lots of pluralism and they’re part of the democratic process. And this is just demagoguery on the parts of these left-wing extremists.
Got it? Pat Robertson’s assertion that federal judges are a greater danger than terrorists was “an injudicious thing to say,” but anyone who raises a hand in protest to that statement is a “left-wing extremist” exercising “demagoguery.” Rhetorical backbends don’t get much more twisted than that.
Why, jaded readers might wonder, does this particular abomination so exercise us? After all, there are any number of talking heads out there willing to lie and spin with reckless abandon and then exhibit righteous indignation toward anyone who expresses disagreement — and any number of talk shows eager to roll out the red carpet for same.
But Matalin, and “Meet the Press” itself, deserve to be singled out because they are thought to represent the best of political dialogue: a respected political operative who has worked in high places being grilled on the most revered political talk show in America. If anyone still thinks that the carnival barkers are confined to cable shoutfests while serious political dialogue endures elsewhere, last weekend’s display should be enough to put that fleeting hope to rest once and for all.
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.