What has Happened to Mary Matalin?

[Yes, I'm up late. I've got the flu, I've been running a fever for over four days now, and my sleep is all messed up. Add to that the fact that about the only things I can do right now are watch TV and type on this laptop, and you end up with some oddly-timed blog entries. -- Liam]

This weekend, on the second half of Meet the Press, the guests were James Carville, Paul Begala and Mary Matalin, and I have to wonder what has become of poor Ms. Matalin.

I remember her from the early 90's as an intelligent, thoughtful, reasonably attractive conservative woman with whom I sometimes disagreed, but who always seemed to have some thoughtful rationale behind her words. I remember James Carville as her somewhat eccentric liberal husband who was always long on personality ("a character", as my Dad would put it), who seemed a lot longer on folksy sayings than substance, and I remember Paul Begala as a guy who struck me as probably having been among the more nerdy in his high school class, less personally compelling than the other two but with some good things to say (with which I sometimes disagreed).

Carville has not changed. He's still long on folksy good-ol'-boy charm, all hat and no cattle. A bit less hair than before.

Begala also hasn't changed. He's a bit more comfortable speaking, the leftover psychological scars from wedgies in the locker room (or maybe I'm projecting my own high school experience onto him) have faded a bit, and he still has some good things to say.

Mary Matalin, however, seems to have undergone some sort of radical surgery during which she had all expression botoxed out of her face and any ability to speak or think critically drained from her head.

Her entire time on the program was one disproven Republican talking point after another.

Begala and Carville were on talking about a new book they've written in which they hold a fairly critical mirror up to the Democratic party and why it can't seem to win even against opponents with really low approval numbers. I think some of what they had to say was spot on and some was a bit too politically correct. They said repeatedly that the problems in the Democratic party "aren't ideological, they're biological, Democrats need to grow a spine". This is a polite way of saying Democrats have to be willing and able to put together a list of talking points and hammer away on message to the exclusion of all else, as has become a hallmark of the Republican party since the advent of the Contract With America in the early 90s. It saddens me that such tactics are what politics are reduced to in this country, but the sad fact is that while we all deplore negative campaigning, in case after case, if one candidate goes negative and his opponent does not, the one who goes negative wins.

But really, I hate to pick on Ms. Matalin, she's clearly aged a lot more in the last 13 years (or even the 9 since Clinton vs. Dole) than either of the other two, so unless someone specifically asks me to, I won't go through her words point by point. But they were just party line talking point lies.

(Unlike some people, I don't feel the term "talking point" invalidates something per se. Obviously good arguments will become talking points. The problem is that more and more often lately talking points have changed from a list of true things that support your side to a list of false or deliberately misleading points.)

The one in particular I wish would go away: The Jack Abramoff scandal is a REPUBLICAN scandal. Would some Democrats behave in like fashion if they were in power? Certainly. But the Republican party is trying to paint this as a big bi-partisan scandal, and they point to the "Abramoff related" money that has gone to Democractic candidates.

Let's be clear on this: So far, the money trail on all of the money indicates that the money that was directed by Abramoff and his group all went to Republicans. Yes, some of his clients also gave money to Democractic politicians, but at the heart of the scandal are two things:

1) When Abramoff gave money from his clients, it was often to people who had never supported those clients' issues before, in states where those issues had no real benefit to the citizens (whom the politician was supposed to be representing).

2) When Abramoff gave money from his clients as mentioned in #1, it often resulted in policy and votes in favor of his clients, even when that was in conflict with the best interest of the constituents of the voting politician.

In contrast, the so-called "Abramoff-related money" that went to Democratic politicians came DIRECTLY from those same clients, went only to Democrats who lived in the states those Abramoff clients were also in, and went mostly to Democrats who had long standing relationships with those clients.

So, is it true that some of Abramoff's clients gave money also to Democrats? Yes. But was it through Abramoff, and did he then use that money to buy influence? No.

I'm rambling now, fever will do that to a brain. I'll stop now.

Liam.