Chris Matthews Uses Dubious Historical Analogy to Tar Conservative Republicans on Debt Ceiling Issue
According to Chris Matthews, conservative House Republicans who are holding steadfast on resisting a debt ceiling deal that includes tax hikes are like the apocryphal bovine of doom behind the 1871 fire that destroyed much of Chicago (video follows page break):
Pat [Buchanan], are you happy with your party being the party of Mrs. O'Leary's cow, basically starting the fire that was just mentioned?
[...]
These guys are running around burning down houses. It's a different kind of Tea Party.... This is Mrs. O'Leary's cow politics.
But not only was Matthews's claim insulting to principled Republicans, it is, surprise, surprise, historically inaccurate (emphasis mine):
No. Mrs. O'Leary and her cow were not responsible for the Great Chicago Fire.What really caused the massive blaze which destroyed much of Chicago in October 1871 were perilous conditions: a long drought during a very hot summer, and the fact that the city had been built almost entirely of wood.
However, Mrs. O'Leary and her cow did exist, and the legend about them being the cause of the fire endures to the present day.
A fire did begin in O'Leary's barn at about 9:00 pm on Sunday, October 8, 1871.
Catherine O'Leary and her husband Patrick, a Civil War veteran, later swore that they had already retired for the night and were in bed when they heard neighbors calling out about the fire in the barn. By some accounts, a rumor about a cow kicking over a lantern began spreading almost as soon as the first fire company responded to the blaze.
Another rumor in the neighborhood was that a boarder in the O'Leary house, Dennis "Peg Leg" Sullivan, had slipped into the barn to have a few drinks with some of his friends. During their revelry they started a fire in the barn's hay by smoking pipes.
No one will ever know what really happened that night in the O'Leary barn. What isn't disputed is that the blaze spread beyond the O'Leary barn. Assisted by strong winds, the barn fire turned into the Great Chicago Fire.
And within a few days a newspaper reporter, Michael Ahern, wrote an article which put the rumor about Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a kerosene lantern into print. The story took hold, and was circulated widely.
[...]
An official commission investigating the Great Chicago Fire heard testimony about Mrs. O'Leary and her cow in November 1871. An article in the New York Times on November 29, 1871, describes Mrs. O'Leary's account of the night of the fire, and notes that she testified that she was in bed when the fire broke out.
The commission concluded in its official report that Mrs. O'Leary had not been in the barn when the fire began. The report did not state a precise cause of the fire, but mentioned that a spark blown from a chimney of a nearby house on that windy night could have started the fire in the barn.
One hundred forty years after the cow-started-the-Great Fire legend was debunked by an official inquiry, Chris Matthews apparently holds to the tale as historical fact.
Yes, this is the same Chris Matthews who's lambasted Republicans for a poor command of history.
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Comments
Welcome.....
Submitted by almostacowboy on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 6:13pm.
Welcome to Planet Tingles, population 1.
But tingles has invited one other...............
Submitted by OldJarhead77 on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 1:36pm.
His man Barry so they can be happey together... as Con and Prison wife!
"This is Mrs. O'Leary's cow
Submitted by tcm14 on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 6:31pm.
"This is Mrs. O'Leary's cow politics."
No, this is (male) cow-poop journalism.
NOW THATS FUNNY......
Submitted by OldJarhead77 on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 1:36pm.
made me do a spit take!
Well, if the question is, "who started the fire," and
Submitted by Gary Hall on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 6:33pm.
Well, if the question is, "who started the fire," and who first poured the fuel on the fire, it's the Clinton administration:
After ordering that lending standards for poor minorities be lowered to linoleum level, and after signing up Countrywide Financial to market the crap (Countrywide became the country's leading lender to minorities by the end of 2000), Clinton's HUD (say hello to Andrew Cuomo - the MSM's favorite son for 2016):
(;~> gary
O'Leary's house
Submitted by David N MO on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 6:43pm.
I believe O'Leary's home was the only house left standing in the area. I'm sure that didn't help them. Today they would burn their house to be "fair"... You know... "shared sacrifice".
David
Save me from the Good People!
If Mathews had to discuss and
Submitted by jkwtrading on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 6:52pm.
If Mathews had to discuss and talk about the Chicago fire, I'd say he has "udderly run out of anything else to talk about"
That picture of Tingles for this story
Submitted by djwolf12 on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 7:19pm.
looks like he is leaning forward all right........and getting ready to belt out Moon River (Fletch reference).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPStwD1C8-c&feature=related
I don't understand the point of Matthews' labored mistelling . .
Submitted by Galvanic on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 7:42pm.
. . . of the Chicago Fire story, but then Matthews has gotten goofier and goofier each week.
The best example I can come
Submitted by Van Halen on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 7:59pm.
The best example I can come up with for the JournOList media today is that they are like Hitler's inner circle. Defend Hitler at all costs. The war is doing fine. Attack anyone who disagrees with the reality they don't want to be bothered with. Remember when we heard how the Obama White House was bringing the media figures up for briefings? This is a result of that.
Has anyone told Matthews?
Submitted by pbthinker on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 8:02pm.
Not one Democrat Senator, not one, voted to raise the debt ceiling in 2006, not one!!! Not Barack Obama, not Harry Reid, not Chuck Schumer, not Tom Harkin, not Barbara Boxer, not John Kerry, not Dick Durbin, not one Senator, with a "D" after their name. Now I know these jerks will say, "We were wrong and did it just for political reasons and we shouldn't have." and our sycophant free press will let them get away with it. The point is they did it, they did it and the press let them get away with it. Why? Can anyone say election year? Can you imagine if the sycophant press played the same game then as they're doing now with this vote?
There are reasons I don't subscribe to my local newspaper. There are reasons I don't watch network news. Until these people understand that the founders gave us freedom of the press so we wouldn't end up with nothing but propaganda, then we'll keep getting nothing but propaganda from them.
Chris Matthews is ignorant, but he's only a commentator. His ignorant, liberal views are re-inforced in the NY Times and Washington Post every day, and they're wrong.
Mrs. O'Leary's cow????
Submitted by USMC8411 on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 8:57pm.
Really Chrissy? WTF? Anyone really know what that obscure reference was on the air? Shows you the audience that Pissy caters to. Old, establishment democrat, left wing, always voted democrat cause my parents made me, geriatrics.
Who knows, maybe that cow will jump over the o'bama and get this economy back on track where it belongs!
So that makes Obama the new Nero.
Submitted by drsamherman on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 10:41pm.
Playing his policy fiddle while the economy burns.
Analogies play both ways, Tingly.
Mrs. O'Leary's cow
Submitted by AGreer on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 12:42am.
Hate to be the one to prove Godwin's Law on this thread but...Goebbels (and Stalin) said "If you repeat a lie often enough it will be the truth".
No proof against Mrs. O'Leary.
Also applies to the Evolution "THEORY" and the Global Warming, Climate Change, and Man Made Climate Destruction (if the libtards can FINALLY decide which it is) "THEORY".
Funny thing is that the Great Chicago Fire got rid of the cow (farts), a part of the population, and Urban sprawl. Matthews should be celebrating it as a liberal wet dream.
Freaking morons !
Matthews - Mr. Historian
Submitted by Boil It Down on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 2:27am.
Any rational human being would have been too embarrassed by their past historical blunders to keep it up like Matthews does.
He's every bit as oblivious to his history flubs as he is to half of the other subject matter he attempts to tackle. Maybe someone should make him aware of the embarrassment he should be feeling with a remix video of his history comedy.
Doesn't he have any good friends who would help him quit looking foolish? bidn-
There are times when a point
Submitted by Jer on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 3:05am.
There are times when a point can be better made and more easily conveyed by utilizing a flawed yet firmly entrenched and commonly accepted historical account rather than complicating the issue with an extended, scholarly elucidation on the actual scientific and evidentiary findings which tend to debunk the more familiar version. The latter exercise would be more properly reserved for other venues.
Jer
Commonly accepted by who
Submitted by Injest on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 4:43am.
“commonly accepted historical account”
Commonly accepted by who?
When I was in high school back in the 70's we knew the cow story was bunk!
The reporter for The Chicago Daily Tribune, Michael Ahern admitted, in 1893, that he had made it up because he thought it would make colorful copy.
“colorful copy” means blame it on the Irish!
Injest...
Submitted by Jer on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 4:58am.
I too have been aware of the general debunking of the O'Leary cow story for decades. I could be mistaken, but my guess it that the majority of the American public still believes it to be authentic history.
Jer
was this a Freudian slip
Submitted by Injest on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 4:16am.
"Republicans who are holding steadfast on resisting a debt ceiling deal that includes tax hikes are like the apocryphal bovine of doom behind the 1871 fire that destroyed much of Chicago"
What?
A cow had nothing to do with the Chicago fire 1871! That's a fabricated story!
“Catherine "Cate" O'Leary, a resident of Chicago's South Side who, along with her cow, was unjustly blamed for starting the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, largely because of a story fabricated by a reporter for The Chicago Daily Tribune, Michael Ahern.
Recent research has confirmed that the culprit likely was Daniel "Peg Leg" Sullivan, although another possible culprit is area resident Louis M. Cohn. In 1997, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution exonerating Mrs. O'Leary--and her cow.
Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/disasters-accidents/fires/mrs.-olear...
Is Tingles a complete idiot or was this a Freudian slip?
“Republicans who are holding steadfast on resisting a debt ceiling deal that includes tax hikes are like the apocryphal bovine of doom behind the 1871 fire that destroyed much of Chicago.”
Much like Catherine "Cate" O'Leary and her cow was falsely accused by a journalist who simply made up the story, possibly due to Racism! Irish, 1871
Yes, I made the point in my
Submitted by Ken Shepherd on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 10:12am.
Yes, I made the point in my post that the cow story was not true and linked to an item on the Web about it. And the bovine of doom line was mine, not Matthews. The Matthews quotes follow that, indented to set them apart from my introduction.
Freudian slip part 2
Submitted by Injest on Tue, 07/19/2011 - 4:28am.
Freudian slip part 2
"Though the fire was one of the largest U.S. disasters of the 19th century, the rebuilding that began almost immediately spurred Chicago's development into one of the most populous and economically important American cities."
Did ya get that Tingles?
The apocryphal 1871 fire that destroyed much of Chicago lead to the rebirth of Chicago as one of the most populous and economically important American cities.
Is Tingles saying the Republicans if they get what they want, it will lead to the rebirth of the America economy?
"One of the tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts. ...”
La Rochefoucauld, François duc de, 1613-1680