Neither MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews nor any of his panelists for the February 10 program could bring themselves to using the L-word to describe President Obama's deceiving the public regarding his true feelings on same-sex marriage. By contrast, MSNBC host Chris Hayes repeatedly referred to Obama's lying in the opening segment of his February 10 program.
Indeed, for his part, Matthews kicked off the discussion by seeking to put Obama acolyte David Axelrod in the crosshairs for revealing Obama's mendacity in his new memoir:
You know, this is an interesting knock that, David, who is a nice guy in many ways, seems like a great guy, he, taking a shot at the president, you know, Michael [Steele], on something that didn't seem -- why is it so vastly important to him that the president didn't come out and say, "I'm for marriage equality" in 2008, which would have been difficult, I think even then as late as 2008 it was still a tricky position to be in.
Steele replied that he didn't read Axelrod's revelation as a "shot" at Obama but rather that it was a mere "political calculation" made during the 2008 campaign and that eventually it paid off dividends because Obama was able to "change the conversation" on same-sex marriage after getting into the Oval Office.
"Do you think this is like a mortal or a venial sin, politically, that he didn't come out earlier" on the issue, Matthews asked Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart, who happens to be an openly-gay man.
"I am shocked, shocked that a presidential candidate played politics on a highly vexing social issue like marriage equality," Capehart replied, insisting that "a lot of gay people knew that then-candidate Obama was in favor of it," and that as early as 2007 at private fundraisers "the candidate [Sen. Obama] said, listen, I'm there with you" on gay marriage.
"You kind of wish that public officials would always say exactly what they think, right," Susan Page of USA Today offered, adding, "That's not always realistic."
Wrapping up the conversation moments later, Matthews compared Obama's fudging the truth on same-sex marriage with how FDR campaigned in 1940 as one who would keep America out of conflict with the Axis Powers all the while "all the time he was hoping to get us involved in Europe."
"He wanted to fight the Nazis, everybody knew he wanted to fight them," Matthews added.
Of course, Obama didn't merely dance around or obfuscate on the issue, he outright lied to voters, particularly religious ones, like this statement to Rev. Rick Warren in 2008:
I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian…it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.
By contrast to Matthews and much to his credit, Chris Hayes started off his 8 p.m. Eastern All In program by noting Obama's mendacity.
From the teaser (emphasis mine):
CHRIS HAYES (voiceover): A Barack Obama bombshell.
DAVID AXELROD: The president, uh, uh, does oppose same-sex marriage.
HAYES (voiceover): President Bush lied the country into a war, and now we know President Obama lied America into same-sex marriage.
BARACK OBAMA: I struggle with this.
HAYES: David Axelrod reveals for the first time he got the president to oppose marriage equality to get elected.
Moments later Hayes continued (emphasis mine):
Today something truly rare happened. We got a look at the inner workings of a premeditated, politically-calculated, ends-justify-the-means lie.
It involves candidate and then President Barack Obama knowingly, willfully misleading the public. Now, no one died, it is not a case of corruption, it is politics at its most elemental and morally treacherous.
Kudos to Hayes for the intellectual and journalistic honesty to make clear to his viewers that the president did in fact repeatedly lie over a course of some 16 years about his views (emphasis mine):
Quoting Time magazine. As a state senate candidate in 1996, Obama filled out a questionnaire saying, "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages."
That was state senate candidate Barack Obama way back in 1996. Bear in mind, that President Barack Obama didn't voice support for same-sex marriage until 2012, 16 years later. So, what happened in between? Political calculation, carefully-articulated campaign position, lying.
