CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
Today on THE CHRIS MATTHEWS SHOW BOSS TUBE, the political clout of TV. From
Checkers to Dukakis in the tank, what you see decides who you get. Plus, you
can run but you can't hide. The X-ray power of television to show what the
politician tries to hide: himself. All that and more on today's show.
Boss tube: Nixon used TV to save his life; Bush Sr. demolished his opponent
with a tank. What will be this Bush's weapon?
Character X-ray: Caught off-guard, TV can show you naked. Will eight months
of airtime expose a Bush or a Kerry we didn't know?
Where we headed? Riots in Chicago, hostages in Iran, hell in Vietnam. Will
chaos in Iraq or unemployment lines be this year's election video? All that
and more with a camera-ready roundtable on your weekly news show.
Announcer: From Congress to the West Wing, he's been a Washington insider,
now he's one of the capital's top journalists: Chris Matthews.
MATTHEWS: Hi. I'm Chris Matthews. Welcome to the show. Let's go inside.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Profile: Katty Kay of BBC, Sam Donaldson of ABC, Andrea Mitchell
of NBC and David Brook of New York Times discuss political figures
and the influence of television
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
Katty Kay covers Washington for the British Broadcasting Corporation; Sam
Donaldson is a longtime ABC News correspondent; Andrea Mitchell has covered
many campaigns for NBC; and David Brooks is a columnist for the New York
Times.
First up, boss tube. For over half a century the big-time politicians have
used TV as a big brother. Young Richard Nixon was a master at it. In 1952
Dwight Eisenhower tried to dump Nixon from his ticket because of a back home
political fund. But Nixon risked all by going on prime-time TV to ask the
American people if they were with him. Sixty million people tuned in, the
largest TV audience ever up until that time. Let's take a look.
Mr. RICHARD NIXON (September 23, 1957): (From file footage) I come before
you tonight as a candidate for the vice presidency and as a man whose honesty
and te--and integrity has been questioned. I am submitting to the Republican
National Committee tonight through this television broadcast the decision
which it is theirs to make. Let them decide whether my position on the ticket
will help or hurt, and I'm going to ask you to help them decide. Wire and
write the Republican National Committee whether you think I should stay on or
whether I should get off. And whatever their decision is, I will abide by it.
MATTHEWS: Well, that was the first time a politician, Sam, went over the
heads of the journalists right to the people and scored a bulls-eye.
Mr. SAM DONALDSON (ABC News): Absolutely shrewd Nixon. He knew that
Eisenhower wanted him off the ticket, so he said, `My wife has a cloth
coat...'
MATTHEWS: Right.
Mr. DONALDSON: `...I have a little dog, Checkers.' Then he had to close the
deal for public opinion. And he shrewdly said, `If they write to Eisenhower,
Ike can do what he wants. If they write to the Republican National Committee,
Ike will have to accept it.' And the story is that Eisenhower was watching
that broadcast. He had a pencil in his hand. And the moment Nixon said that,
what you just heard, Ike snapped the pencil. He knew he'd been outmaneuvered.
MATTHEWS: He also told the--the candidates on both sides, Adlai Stevenson and
the Republicans on the Republican side, they had to release all their
financial information. And Ike didn't want to release any information about
his famous book.
Andrea, it's called positioning. Nixon comes out, he says, `I'm not one of
these big-shot politicians, I'm a regular guy like you.'
ANDREA MITCHELL reporting: And by doing that and by invoking Checkers and the
cloth coat, he creates his own image and gets out in front of the story and
creates something that can't be denied.
MATTHEWS: A 30-year political career the other way.
Mr. DAVID BROOKS (New York Times): One of the effects of TV, George
Washington was a guy much loftier than the American people, but in the TV age
you have to be basically like the American people. They have to sense that
you share their values, so it sort of brings people down into regular...
MITCHELL: Even if you're not.
Mr. BROOKS: Even if you're not, yeah.
MATTHEWS: And they're still doing it. You're going to see how interesting
how Bush and Kerry who tries to be the regular guy, which of these guys from
Yale and St. Paul's.
Let's take a look at Ronald Reagan's positioning himself as a national MC.
Here he is leveling President Jimmy Carter.
(Beginning of file footage)
President JIMMY CARTER (October 28, 1980): These are the kinds of elements of
a national health insurance important to the American people. Governor
Reagan, again, typically, is against such a proposal.
Governor RONALD REAGAN: Governor, there you go again.
(End of footage)
MATTHEWS: Andrea, killer.
MITCHELL: Killer. And, you know, four years later in the debate against
Walter Mondale when the whole age issue was a big question, he inoculated
against that by saying that he wasn't going to try to take advantage of Walter
Mondale, of his youth and inexperience.
MATTHEWS: Right.
Mr. DONALDSON: And watch that.
MITCHELL: So it was another moment in another debate and Reagan showing that
he was a master of that kind of moment.
Mr. DONALDSON: Andrea, that's correct. Watch that. Listen to him say that
and then watch what he does. Reagan picks up a glass of water as Mondale is
among those who laugh, and sips it. The victor.
MATTHEWS: Right. I want--I want--I want Katty to respond to this one.
Any--another debate execution--here it comes--a newspaper can quote you but TV
captures you right in the act. Watch now in the 1988 vice presidential
debate, a well-prepped club man, Lloyd Benson of Texas, demolishes an
unsuspecting Dan Quayle.
(Beginning of file footage)
Mr. DAN QUAYLE (October 6, 1988): I have as much experience in the Congress
as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency.
Mr. LLOYD BENSON: I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack
Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.
(End of footage)
Ms. KATTY KAY (Washington Correspondent, BBC): That--and--and...
MATTHEWS: That was the most painful moment watching that.
Ms. KAY: Absolutely painful moment, and look at Quayle's face as he realizes
exactly...
MATTHEWS: Defeat.
Ms. KAY: ...what's happening to him. He stays straight ahead. He doesn't
even engage Benson. He can't do because he knows he's just been defeated.
Mr. DONALDSON: Well, he...
MATTHEWS: He's been vaporized.
Mr. DONALDSON: Quayle says that--that was a low-blow, and Benson says, `You
raised the subject, Senator, I didn't.' Oh!
Mr. BROOKS: It also shows how...
MITCHELL: It was completely scripted, by the way.
MATTHEWS: Tell us about it.
MITCHELL: I mean, they had watched him saying this on the campaign and
the--the preppers for Lloyd Benson in that debate gave him the line. He
practiced the line. He waited. He used it, and he used it in a way that
seemed unscripted. It was perfect.
Ms. KAY: And--and that's timing, isn't it? Some people, I think...
MITCHELL: Yeah.
Ms. KAY: ...some politicians on television have natural timing. If you
don't, you can have the lines, but if you don't have the timing on television
it can fall flat.
Mr. BROOKS: It also shows how visceral politics is. It's just like the
alpha males. It's a two gray-backed gorillas going up against each other.
Ms. KAY: And it hasn't changed very much this year, it seems.
Mr. BROOKS: It has--it hasn't really changed.
Mr. DONALDSON: Yeah, but it's changed because of television. See, that's
what we're talking about. In the old days I wasn't there when Lincoln and
Douglas debated. Who knows? We read it...
MATTHEWS: Where were you?
Mr. DONALDSON: I was prepping, covering the presidency. We read it, but
today it's the body language. I'll go to my grave convinced that if Al Gore
had shown up for those three debates, come across as a nice guy...
MATTHEWS: Oh, we're getting to that. We're going to get to that in a minute.
Mr. DONALDSON: OK.
MATTHEWS: Let's talk about the prefab stuff they do for the TV ads, because
these ads are getting really good on campaigns for president. TV ads can also
be the executioner. One month before the 1988 election Michael Dukakis still
had a chance in the polls again the senior George Bush, but not after Bush and
his people used this spot to dwarf Dukakis into Rocky the Squirrel.
Television Ad: (From file footage) Dukakis has opposed the Stealth bomber and
a ground emergency warning system against nuclear attack. He even criticized
our rescue mission to Grenada and our strike on Libya. And now he wants to be
our commander-in-chief. America can't afford that risk.
(Visual of Rocky from "Rocky and Bullwinkle")
MATTHEWS: Do-do-dee-do-do-do. Oh, he just looks like Rocket. Has that got
an international quality, Katty? You may not have seen that before. Isn't
that a funny picture?
Ms. KAY: I--I have seen that before, and the thing is, is to shoot the--to
go for the image that suits you. Don't try and put yourself in a position in
television in which not your natural surrounding.
MATTHEWS: Right.
Ms. KAY: Because as it has this X-ray quality, it's going to show you for
what you are, and Dukakis couldn't carry that off.
MATTHEWS: What did he look like to you?
Ms. KAY: He looked like somebody playing at being a tank driver. He looked
like a kid and that was the problem.
Mr. DONALDSON: That's the problem. I was--I was there.
MITCHELL: Snoopy on the Sopwith Camel.
MATTHEWS: Snoopy, right.
Ms. KAY: It has this--it...
Mr. DONALDSON: I was there that day, and as he approached the stands they
were all catcalling. `Hey, you know, General Patton.' The report--reporters
are this way: `General Abrams!'
MATTHEWS: Did you know he was killing himself, or did--what did he think he
was doing?
Mr. DONALDSON: He thought he was showing he was strong on defense. That he
was...
Ms. KAY: That he was strong, and that's the...
MITCHELL: And what--the awful thing was, Sam was covering him that day. We
were watching from Washington and he actually had given a defense speech in
Chicago earlier before going to the tank...
Mr. DONALDSON: Right.
MITCHELL: ...and...
MATTHEWS: Going in the tank.
MITCHELL: Going in the tank. And they thought--we all thought the story of
the day was going to be Michael Dukakis giving a very reasoned, tough defense
speech. But instead, obviously, it was the image. I was with the late Lee
Atwater. He saw that image and picked up the phone and they--they put the ad
together.
MATTHEWS: (Unintelligible). David, is this fair, to take a picture of what a
guy looks like? Basically, it's a caricature made by the candidate himself.
Mr. BROOKS: It's sort of fair. You got to have big shoulders and a big head
to run for president. You got--big head, big star is what they say in
Hollywood and that's true. That was Wes Clark's problem, by the way. Too
small a head. But you know...
MATTHEWS: But you know...(unintelligible)...really believes that, by the way.
Mr. BROOKS: ...but only--but only if...
Ms. KAY: Don't you think also the audience knew what Dukakis was trying to
do, though. And that's part of the problem is that the audience is sitting
there, knowing that this guy is trying to look presidential, and he's not
pulling it off. And so--does--you...
Mr. DONALDSON: But some people can get away with it.
MATTHEWS: Who could have gotten away with the tank picture?
Mr. DONALDSON: Ronald Reagan. Let me just tell you something. He had a
terrible environmental record. He really did. He ran for re-election. They
took him out to Roosevelt Island. He made a wonderful speech in front of the
statue of Teddy Roosevelt, the great environmentalist. Hey, there he is. Two
great environmentalists together.
MITCHELL: Or George--George Herbert Walker Bush in Boston Harbor, again in
'88, standing in front of Boston Harbor and looked terrific, and whether or
not they had a good environmental record didn't matter. The picture told the
story.
MATTHEWS: Just days before the 1992 New Hampshire primary Bill Clinton was
hit by claims of draft dodging. On election night he used the national TV
coverage to spin a distant second into a victory.
Mr. BILL CLINTON (February 18, 1992): (From file footage) While the evening
is young, and we don't know yet what the final tally will be, I think we know
enough to say with some certainty that New Hampshire tonight has made Bill
Clinton "The Comeback Kid."
MATTHEWS: Isn't it amazing? He was eight points behind ma--behind Paul
Tsongas, and he declared himself the winner and everybody bought it.
MITCHELL: He wrote his own headline and he came out early, declared himself
the winner. And when you think about what they had just gone through in that
month--we'd gone through the draft controversy, Gennifer Flowers, everything
that had come and hit this candidate--and he came out, declared himself a
winner, and that's what stuck.
MATTHEWS: I'll tell you, the next morning Paul Tsongas, who won the New
Hampshire primary, walked into GMA headquarters--I was giving a talk there, I
was giving some remarks--and he walks in and he looked like he'd just lost.
And then Bill Clinton came in with eight staffers behind him, grabbing all the
doughnuts and having the time of his life. And he come--it's all mind
control, isn't it. Clinton, he's unbelievable.
Ms. KAY: Expect--isn't it about expec--I mean, primaries are partly about
expectations anyway. It's a bit like a stock market. If your company comes
in below earnings...
MATTHEWS: Right.
Ms. KAY: ...or below expectations or above expectations, even if you haven't
done very well, then you're going to grab the headline.
MATTHEWS: Spin.
Ms. KAY: But als--it's about spin, and about the way you delivered the
speech.
MATTHEWS: I think Clinton taught us some things. We learned a lot today
about positioning from Dick Nixon. I'll be right back with more time
capsules. This time they're not--they didn't want to be caught this time.
Caught in the act, how television shows it like it is. Stick around.
Announcer: Today's show is brought to you by...
(Announcements)
MATTHEWS: TV cameras can be sneaky. Let's see what they catch. Stick with
me.
(Announcements)
President GEORGE W. BUSH (September 14, 2001): (From file footage) I can
hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people--and the people who
knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.
Mr. DAN QUAYLE (August 16, 1988): (From file footage) It is George Bush's
America that we will work for. We will work hard. And believe me we will win
because America cannot afford to lose.
MATTHEWS: Welcome back. That was George W. Bush at the moment, on September
14th on that pile of rubble at the World Trade Center when he showed himself a
leader. And that was Dan Quayle, freezing his image as a kid at the very
moment he was introduced to the country as George Bush Sr.'s running mate.
Andrea, it ain't fair, but it happened. That guy that yelled out to the
president on September 14th, `I can't hear you,' perhaps the greatest cue line
in the history of American politics. Because if he hadn't yelled it...
MITCHELL: The greatest straight man.
Mr. DONALDSON: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: ...he wouldn't have been able to get the president to be magi--to
be majestic.
Mr. BROOKS: Carl Rove.
MATTHEWS: Carl Rove.
MITCHELL: But you know there are--there--there are some natural politicians.
Ronald Reagan comes to mind and in some ways that day George W. Bush was a
natural politician. He was a natural leader rising to the moment. Dan Quayle
introducing himself to America: disaster. The Republicans, the Jim Bakers,
all the people at the convention where we were all covering...
MATTHEWS: Who never liked him to begin with.
MITCHELL: ...we didn't like him to begin with--they looked at that and were
just appalled.
MATTHEWS: David:
Mr. BROOKS: Yeah, it's a question of deep--deep self-confidence. Deep in
your bones. Born with this self-confidence, `I should lead the free world.'
That's what the best leaders have, and that shows up. Also, how to shout. If
you shout with a deep voice, as Bush did, that works. If you shout with a
squeaky voice, as Quayle did, that's--you're finished.
MATTHEWS: And isn't it great that he had a bullhorn and not a mike? I mean,
he would have been Wayne Newton with a mike.
Mr. BROOKS: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: But he had that bullhorn. That was just so great.
Mr. DONALDSON: And then the...
Ms. KAY: And it's not totally unfair, is it, either? Because actually he
responded fast to a line that was--we all assume--thrown out to him randomly.
I don't think it was Carl Rove necessarily.
MATTHEWS: No, it was a real guy.
Ms. KAY: It was somebody who threw out this line and he was quick. He
picked it up and he picked it up eloquently. And for somebody actually who
has a reputation for not being particularly eloquent...
MATTHEWS: Right.
Ms. KAY: ...in that moment he came up with exactly the right words,
delivered them beautifully...
MATTHEWS: It was magic.
Ms. KAY: ...and it was a magic moment.
Mr. DONALDSON: See the power of the pictures. Quayle read what Quayle said,
it was perfectly sensible. Read what Howard Dean said after Iowa. Perfectly
sensible.
MATTHEWS: We'll get to that.
Mr. DONALDSON: Read--read--read...
Ms. KAY: (Unintelligible).
Mr. DONALDSON: ...what President Bush said and it was OK, but not as
powerful as seen in the pictures.
MATTHEWS: So what was the je ne sais quoi here? What made it work?
Mr. DONALDSON: It made it work because of the pictures. It made it work
because of the...
MATTHEWS: He was standing on the rubble.
Mr. DONALDSON: Yeah, because of the place.
MATTHEWS: That's why we love presidential debates, and some of the most
revealing moments do come from those debates. In the first meeting of Kennedy
and Nixon, radio listeners declared Nixon the winner. But TV caught Nixon's
sweating face and darting eyes. Viewers said Kennedy won. In 1992, George
Bush Senior looked at his watch during the first debate. Was there somewhere
else he needed to be? And in 2000, Al Gore showed his impatience with a sigh,
17 times.
(Beginning of file footage)
Mr. GEORGE W. BUSH: Medicare and prescription drugs and social security.
(Gore sighs)
Mr. BUSH: Now the difference in our plan is...
(Gore sighs)
Mr. BUSH: ...I want that 2000 to go--it's not my vision.
(Gore sighs)
Mr. BUSH: I believe we ought to give seniors...
(Gore sighs)
Mr. BUSH: ...that's not the way America's meant to be.
(Gore sighs)
Mr. BUSH: And surely we can find...
Mr. AL GORE: Those are very clear differences.
Offscreen Voice: Governor, one minute.
Mr. BUSH: The man's practicing fuzzy math again. There's differences.
(Gore sighs)
(End of footage)
MATTHEWS: Katty, that is one of the most memorable evenings in history.
Ms. KAY: That--that was...(unintelligible).
MATTHEWS: Seventeen times that guy showed his distaste and impatience.
Ms. KAY: You know what's amazing? Looking back at those early pictures and
how much people have learned now, and I wonder whether television still has
the capacity--same capacity to show somebody as they really are because
politicians have become so used to it. They're so scripted. There are so few
unguarded moments that I wonder whether that X-ray quality still exists. We
had John Kerry skiing back in March.
MATTHEWS: Right.
Ms. KAY: He fell over. It was caught by a newspaper reporter. And he
rounded***(as spoken)***on the newspaper reporter and blamed his security
agents and was very furious. If there had been a television camera there he
would have responded very differently. He wouldn't have let himself get
caught offguard like that.
Mr. DONALDSON: But unless you have the--the--the sense that David was
talking about, a sense of self, you've got to try to remember the camera's
there. There was a famous debate between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. The
microphone failed. They were both standing at opposite podiums. The
microphone failed for 28 minutes. They both stood there afraid--I would have
sat down. You know, I'm tired. Because the first one to sit down would be
thought to be weak. He would look weak, so they both stood there
like...(unintelligible).
MATTHEWS: What would Bill Clinton have done?
Mr. DONALDSON: Oh, he probably would have sat down, probably gone out and
said hello to Andrea or something, you know.
MITCHELL: `How you doing?'
MATTHEWS: Yeah, I think--and Ronald Reagan would have done...
MITCHELL: He would have engaged the audience is what he would have done.
Mr. DONALDSON: Right.
Mr. BROOKS: Yeah, but they're all so stupid. They--I mean they know if the
TV's on they make mistakes. Al Gore made a mistake in the--in the later
debate when he walked over to George Bush and tried to get right in his face
and intimidate him.
MATTHEWS: But that...(unintelligible).
Ms. KAY: But people--people think they're rerunning...
Mr. BROOKS: And Bush gave him a little glance--no, exactly. He planned it.
Ms. KAY: ...these pictures all the time and John Kerry is not going to make
those same mistakes in the coming debates.
Mr. BROOKS: He'll make other ones.
Ms. KAY: I'm sure he's going to be very prepped not to sigh even once during
those debates.
MITCHELL: Well if he's not a natural there are other mistakes that he can
make. I mean, he did very well against Bill Weld and won that Senate race.
He's a good debater. But there are other revealing moments, and we don't know
yet what they will be, but as Sam just mentioned, and I think you're probably
going to show us, the Howard Dean moment.
MATTHEWS: Right, but I always wondered when--when George Bush Sr. got
through his debate with Clinton and with Perot he probably went back to his
people and said, `How did I do?' Do you think anybody had the nerve to say to
him, `Why did you look at your watch?'
MITCHELL: Look at your watch.
Mr. DONALDSON: George Bush Sr. hated debates. I don't think his son likes
them much better. He hated it. And when he looked at his watch he tried to
explain later, `You know, I was just trying to see whether I was getting equal
time to so and so...(unintelligible).' He wanted out of there because he hated
the moment.
Ms. KAY: And it showed.
Mr. DONALDSON: And it showed.
MITCHELL: And if you recall that was the debate in the round where they were
sitting on stools. It was a little bit uncomfortable...
MATTHEWS: Right.
MITCHELL: ...and where Clinton memorably jumped out of--off of his stool and
went towards that woman in the audience who had a problem and he was
embracing...
MATTHEWS: And guess who tried to imitate that this year? John Edwards, about
20 times.
Anyway, we've already seen TV take its toll on the presidential race this
year. John Kerry got caught calling the Bush's crooks and liars.
Mr. JOHN KERRY: (From file footage) These guys are the most crooked, you
know, lying group I've ever seen.
MATTHEWS: Well, he did turn the sound up there. And who could forget this
bicentennial moment?
Mr. HOWARD DEAN (January 19): (From file footage) We're going to California
and Texas and New York! And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and
Washington and Michigan! And then we're going to Washington, DC, to take back
the White House! Yeah!
MITCHELL: Yeah!
MATTHEWS: Yeah, and Tom Harkin right behind him, loved it.
MITCHELL: Harkin was his guide.
MATTHEWS: What do you make of that--Katty, was that a scream heard around the
world?
Ms. KAY: That's going to--that's going to--yeah, that certain--it's heard
round the world and heard round the Internet, because remember, of course,
there's not just television now, but there's also the Internet, which is
changing things as well, which means people can download this and watch this
at their desk time and time again as much as they want to.
MATTHEWS: Nice little byte, isn't it? It's a nice, neat little byte.
Ms. KAY: It's a great little byte and it's going to summarize this election.
MATTHEWS: Sam:
Mr. DONALDSON: You want to know about--you want to know about Richard Nixon?
Nevermind all that's been written, all that's been said. Look at the picture
of him. He's walking with Ron Ziegler, his then press secretary. He doesn't
want the reporters there. He wants Ziegler to get him out and he pushes
Ziegler.
MATTHEWS: Yeah, I remember.
Mr. DONALDSON: He literally pushes him away.
MITCHELL: In New Orleans.
Mr. DONALDSON: And at that moment if you think this guy is not a mean man,
you're wrong.
MATTHEWS: Wow. We all are so perfect, aren't we? You caught Nixon at his
trade.
Anyway, I'll be right back with more good stuff. This time it's about the
power of TV that sets the national mood and we're not talking Johnny Mathis.
Stick around.
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MATTHEWS: Today's show is brought to you by...
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Announcer: Closed-captioning provided by...
Mr. ABE RIBICOFF (August 28, 1969): (From file footage) And with George
McGovern as president of the United States we wouldn't have to have gestapo
tactics in the streets of Chicago.
MATTHEWS: Welcome back. That was Connecticut Senator Abe Ribicoff, blaming
Chicago's Mayor Daley for the violent tactics against Vietnam
veterans--Vietnam protesters outside the 1968 Democratic Convention. A decade
later, the nightly reports of American hostages in Iran cost Jimmy Carter his
presidency.
Mr. WALTER CRONKITE (CBS News, November 3, 1980): (From file footage) And
that's the way it is, Monday, November 3, 1980, the 366th day of captivity for
the American hostages in Iran. This is Walter Cronkite, CBS News. Good
night.
MATTHEWS: That was a killer, Sam. Every night it was another day and Carter
just got one more nail in the coffin.
Mr. DONALDSON: Carter didn't know what to do about it. I mean, he wanted it
off the back--on--on the back pages, but he couldn't get it there because
everyone kept reminding people every day, and Cronkite was one of the foremost
to those to do it.
MATTHEWS: Remember on the plane--you and I were on Air Force One, right? I
was a speech writer, you were covering it I think for...
Mr. DONALDSON: Yes. Oh yeah.
MATTHEWS: Remember how the la--the number one item on the evening news on CBS
that night, the night before Carter's re-election, was the anniversary of the
hostage-taking, not the election the next day. And we all know we're
finished, our goose is cooked, and the biggest story in the news is the year
anniversary of the hostage and not the election. What can we argue about?
Mr. DONALDSON: But, you know, it's fair. Let me just tell you it's fair. I
mean those who live by television die by television, live by the news, die by
the news. People say, `Well...'
MATTHEWS: But this is mood setting. This isn't the news. Cronkite didn't
have to do that every night.
Mr. DONALDSON: No, but he did the news, just like now people talk about how
many people we've lost in Iraq. It's the news.
MITCHELL: That's how "Nightline" got launched. "Nightline" got launched as a
nightly report on the hostage-taking, and it ended up being 365--366 days.
Ms. KAY: And also it goes to show you can control television to a certain
extent but you can't stop things from intervening. There--there's no way you
can stop the attacks from Baghdad and then stop them appearing all over
television every night.
Mr. BROOKS: But there's not Cronkite any more.
Ms. KAY: You can have those images...
Mr. BROOKS: The--now there's a million channels, everybody's segmented in
the channel they agree with.
MATTHEWS: Well who sets the mood then?
Mr. BROOKS: There is no mood. Everybody's got their own mood. You have a
mood, you have a mood, you have a mood.
Mr. DONALDSON: (Unintelligible)...all the channels. Today if we all had all
these channels and it was Chicago 1968 you see the pictures, and what controls
there when people say, `Oh, we don't want to see that any more. Leave it
alone.'
MATTHEWS: OK. Katty, Sam, Andrea, David this is nice walking through history
with you folks. Anyway, thanks for a great roundtable, and here's a bet for
you. Between now and Election Day, something's going to happen on that TV set
you're watching right now that could well make presidential history.
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Sign-Off: The Chris Matthews Show
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
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