Chris Matthews Rips Obama’s Handling of Egypt Crisis: ‘I Feel Ashamed As an American’

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MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews appeared on Morning Joe, Friday, to slam President Obama's handling of the escalating crisis in Egypt, saying it made him ” ashamed as an American .” Matthews, who famously declared Obama gave him a “thrill” up his leg, excoriated what he perceived to be the President's disloyalty to Egypt's leader, Hosni Mubarak. The Hardball host berated, ” And Barack Obama, as much I support him in many ways, there is a transitional quality to the guy that is chilling.” He added, “I believe in relationships…You treat your friends a certain way. You're loyal to them.” Matthews has previously lauded the authoritarian Mubarak.. Pointing out Mubarak's stand against Hezbollah and other extremist elements in the region, the anchor on January 31 wondered, “How can you say he'll easily be replaced? This guy's the George Washington of peace over there.” [See video below.] Deriding immediate calls for Mubarak to step down, Matthews lamented, “Character and planning…I feel shame about this. I feel ashamed as an American, the way we're doing this. I know he has to change. I know we're for democracy, but the way we've handled it is not the way a friend handles a matter.” Matthews even attacked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's performance: “I watched Secretary Clinton today. I don't get anything. I don't see anything other than two and two are four. I keep waiting for five. Show me you've done your jobs over there.” A transcript of his answer to Joe Scarborough's question, which aired at 8:22am EST, follows: JOE SCARBOROUGH: Chris, a statement yesterday from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, real concern among Arab states, if this is how we treat our ally of 30 years and I know it's tough to bring these facts up to people who want to call for his immediate lynching, but if we treat an ally of 30 years this way, demanding that he leaves quote “now,” Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, are other allies in the region start questioning America's character [sic]? CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well, I think that's the great word, Joe. It's character. Our national character. We do is have a character. And Americans think about ourselves as the good guys and being good friends and loyal. And these are values that mean a lot to us as people. You don't walk down the street and watch your friend get gunned down and not do anything about it. We're not Kitty Genovese here. We're not a situation in New York or something when somebody gets mugged and we watch it happen. Was he our friend for 30 years? Are we denying that? I remember, Joe, when he came to one of those afternoon events they had in the House Foreign Affairs committee back in 1981 after Sadat had been assassinated. And, of course, we Americans loved Sadat. There was a great emotion towards him because of what he had done for peace and his courage. And we just loved his dignity and his personality. And Along came Mubarak, this strong personality. We thought things might come apart over there and he held everything together. He was strong. I was with Tip O'Neil that day and I walked aback from that meeting with him and I said, “He's a strong guy.” And we were just chatting about what an impressive figure he was and we've been with him for 30 years. And now we're saying, it's time for the gate. Well, we should have known this. My second point of view about this, it's friendship. He's 83 in May. He's getting old. We should have prepared this 10, 20 years ago. In friendship, where was the State Department? Don't we have hundreds of people sitting over there in Foggy Bottom with no other job except to know what's going on in Egypt, with no other job, but to know the culture and politics in that country and to understand who the potential leaders and factions that might off set the Muslim Brotherhood? What are they doing? I watched Secretary Clinton today . I don't get anything. I don't see anything other than two and two are four . I keep waiting for five. Show me you've done your jobs over there . And I just wish, in our friendship, we should have been smart and I think we don't have a plan B. I mean, the guy's almost 83. His plan was Gamal]. I was talking to Secretary Powell while ago. I hope it wasn't off the record, because he said it rather clearly to me. I said, “What do you think of Mubarak?” He said, “He's like every other leader in the world there. All they think about is primogeniture.” They want their oldest kid to be their successor, whether it's Gadaffi or Bashar Assad. They call themselves Baathist, monarchist, whatever, Islamists. It all comes down to the same thing. They want their oldest kid to replace them. And what was the plan for transition for our friend? Did we ever talk to him about it? Did we talk about it, encourage him? That's my view. Character and planning. And I don't see- I feel shame about this. I feel ashamed as an American, the way we're doing this. I know he has to change. I know we're for democracy, but the way we've handled it is not the way a friend handles a matter. We're not handling as Americans should handle a matter like this. I don't feel right about it. And Barack Obama, as much I support him in many ways, there is a transitional quality to the guy that is chilling. I believe in relationships. I think we all do. Relationship politics is what we were brought up with in this country. You treat your friends a certain way. You're loyal to them. And when they're wrong, you try to be with them. You try and stick with them. As the great old line was, “I don't need you when I'm right.” You've got to help out people when they're in trouble and all I'm seeing is transaction. Who we going to get the next deal with? And, by the way, we don't have a plan for the next deal, so we're not even good at transactions, let alone relationships. What are we good at here? That's what I keep asking. What have we done as leaders and friends? Nothing except watch. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Wow! — Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter .

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Chris Matthews Rips Obama’s Handling of Egypt Crisis: ‘I Feel Ashamed As an American’

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Posted by on February 4, 2011. Filed under News, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

5 Responses to Chris Matthews Rips Obama’s Handling of Egypt Crisis: ‘I Feel Ashamed As an American’

  1. What makes me ashamed as an American is that for the last 30 years, we have been supporting the murderous regime of Hosni Mubarak because we think that it will buy some security for Israel. Even friends of Israel, which I am not, have said that alienating Israel's Arab neighbors by supporting repressive regimes is not in the long term interests of the Zionist state. Now those chickens are coming home to roost. Israel's fate is none of my concern. But my government's involvement in oppressing people is.

    dwilmsen
    February 5, 2011 at 11:33 am

  2. Where you ashamed about Sadam? He was a so called freind to. Hypocrite.

    Guest1
    February 5, 2011 at 4:05 pm

  3. I just watched a bit of the Matthews fellow. We often get the show a day or two behind its original broadcast, so I don't know whether what I was watching was current. It seemed it was after his Morning Joe meltdown, whenever that was. He kept referring to the protests in Egypt as riots and the protesters are rioters. He must not be watching the broadcasts from the streets, and he certainly must not be in touch with anybody in Cairo. The only rioters were the thugs from the Mubarak regime trying to quell peaceful protests. That ended on Friday, with the heroic protesters repelling the cowardly goons of the repressive regime (bought and paid for with US dollars). Look today: there will be a mass said in Tahrir Square at 1:00. Muslims standing guard over their Christian brothers praying just as the Christians stood guard over their Muslim brothers praying. The bold and noble Egyptian people are breaking all stereotypes and upending all conventional wisdom. The "wisdom" of blowhard fools like Chris Matthews.

    dwilmsen
    February 6, 2011 at 1:51 am

  4. I think if Chris Matthews is ashamed as an American after what our president said or didn't say then he should move to a country that makes him feel better. I would be willing to buy his one way ticket!

    Justmythoughts
    February 6, 2011 at 8:42 am

  5. I think you used the wrong way to describe watching your "friend", how about putting it that way. what if you watched your friend starve his own family while growing his own fortune, and when one of his children cries cause he's hungry, he kills him. will you support him in killing the rest of his family? will you advice him to change his ways and say "sorry"? could his being "sorry" bring back the dead? could you risk more deaths on your conscience for a promise of change?, what if he's always promised of change, for 30 years he promised them, and never kept his promise once?. And you should be ashamed of yourself if you really think that the US government should support an elected president in a supposedly democratic country in singularly choosing his own successor, as if the 85 million people who live in this country doesn't count as a factor in choosing their own leader. And why would you think that a people like the Egyptians, who took to the streets in a PEACEFUL demonstrations which remained peaceful despite being shot at, beaten, killed, jailed and tortured for more than two weeks and never fired back or turned violent, why would u think that this kind of people would support war, terrorism and destruction of neighboring countries when their former leader is changed to someone better to his own people, which means he must be a good man in general, why would he even want war and support terrorism. and would these peaceful people even let him do that if he ever thought of it?. In the end you should've realized an important fact, Mubarak was representing the Egyptian people. So it was the Egyptians who supported peace for 30 years through him, it was the Egyptians who befriended your country through their leader, cause he was speaking and acting on behalf of the egyptian people. He was taking action on behalf of us and by god you should've supported us when we were wronged by him as we have supported you for all these years cause we have the right to claim our dignity, our humanity and our freedom just because we are human beings.

    an egyptian
    February 8, 2011 at 11:51 am

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