Daschle II

I'm no big fan of Chris Matthews, but on the Imus show the other morning, I think he really nailed a big problem with the Dem leadership (courtesy of The Corner):

From the Imus show: Imus: "Have you noticed or maybe not, how similar Harry Reid’s voice pitch is to Tom Daschle?"

MSNBC's Chris Matthews: "It’s not Knute Rockne at halftime."

Imus: "Well no but…"

Chris Matthews: "There is something precious about it and why do these guys always elect somebody who’s precious. It must be because in the chambers, when they’re talking to each other you don’t have to be Knute Rockne. It’s all about these little whispers ‘I can help you with that’ or ‘You want to go home Thursday, you’ve got to go home for that thing, let me help you with that’ and it must be very special. But these guys are not Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, or Tip O’Neill. Tip O’Neill hated whispers, couldn’t stand them. I worked with him for six years, he couldn’t stand people that came around with their soft little precious voices. He wanted you to thunder out what you believed and what you cared about, and that kind of democrat whether it’s Hubert Humphrey, or it’s Jack Kennedy or Johnson or Tip, where are they? I mean you knew where they stood because they told you. You know Tip would have been out today saying, ‘Good work Reagan, you know I didn’t think it was going to happened but damn good job I salute you’. He would make it simple. Tom Foley would do that. I remember writing a speech for Foley and he said, ‘Give the president credit. Don’t quibble’. I think these guys quibble and say, ‘Well he’s sorta good but I’m not sure, I’m not sure about the troops, shouldn’t they be home?’ After the troops accomplish they’re biggest mission in years, bringing democracy to a country and letting people vote, the first thing the democrats are saying over the weekend is, ‘Bring the troops home, now, today!’ You’ve got to wonder if they are grown ups."

Imus: "Well, you wouldn’t be talking about John Kerry on Meet the Press would you?"

Chris Matthews: "Yeah I don’t get it. You’re talking about Cabot being off key, he was completely off key."

Imus: "Oh man that was disastrous."

Chris can usually be counted on as an unabashed cheerleader of the Democratic Party, but it's refreshing to see them eat their own once in a while. But, will the Dems learn from any of the criticism they get from their own??