Chris Matthews never saw a war he wouldn't cheerlead for

By Frank Moraes

I've been really busy this week, so I haven't been doing much cooking. And cooking is the only time I watch television. But tonight, I had to cook because I had some Spanish rice and corn tortillas that really needed to be used or they were going to go bad. So I found myself in the kitchen trying to make something like taquitos. I failed miserably, but the result was still delicious. But mostly, I got to watch All In, which was all about the coming Syrian attack. Even though I seem to agree with Chris Hayes on the issue, most of the guest were there cheer leading for war.

I was hoping for something more from The Rachel Maddow Show. The truth is that I'm really depressed about what's going on. It really does seem that Obama has painted himself into a corner with all that talk of "red lines." And now he thinks he will look weak if he doesn't bomb Syria. It's sad, because to me, he does look weak. He looks weak the same way that bullies always look weak. He looks weak because he cares more about saving face than doing what's right. So I was hoping that Maddow would make me feel better, even though I thought the odds were long.

Alas. Rachel Maddow was off. In fact, the whole The Rachel Maddow Show was off. Instead, there was a special edition of Hardball with Chris "War Monger" Matthews. But I continued to watch. After all, my pseudo-taquitos were not ready to go into the over. (I know, I know: they are fried, not baked!) Anyway, how bad could Chris Matthews be? Surely he had learned something from being so painfully, so aggressively wrong about the Iraq War. Right? Right?! Right?!!

One thing that Chris Hayes discussed on his show is how disheartening it is to see people pushing for war with Syria by saying exactly the same things proponents of war with Iraq said 10 years ago. The only difference is now they add some obligatory statement about how it is different this time.Sure, the intelligence that was indisputable last time was wrong, but this time it really is indisputable. But other than saying such things really deliberately and forcefully, we have no reason to think anything has changed.

Matthews came out swinging. He said the bombings were about killing. Okay, that got my attention. But it was just a fake. It was just so that he could go on to claim that killing innocents was a small price to pay for sending a message. And he doesn't see that message being sent to Syria and the Assad government. No, bombing Syria is about sending a message to Iran about not building a nuclear weapon. And he had others on to parrot back his words to him. Matthews really belongs onFox News, because that's all his program is: propaganda. And I would say that even if I agreed with him.

Here's the thing: bombing might indeed make Iran very careful in public. And it might make them really determined in private to get a nuclear weapon. Because everyone knows that Obama wouldn't be about to bomb Syria if it had a nuclear weapon. As I wrote about earlier this week, when the United States intervenes, we send unintended messages. But all of this talk of messages from Matthews is just smoke and mirrors. He loves a good war. He loves a bad war. He loves anywar.

MSNBC should have fired him long ago!

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)