Matthews Dredges Up Old Bush Lines to Offset Stark

A few days after 9-11, President Bush, in an impromptu moment on the White House lawn, referred to the war on terrorism as a crusade. What does that have to do with the vile claim Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) made this week that Pres. Bush sends our soldiers to Iraq to have their heads blown off for his "amusement"?

Nothing that I can see. But on this afternoon's "Hardball," Chris Matthews dredged up that and a couple other statements from the president's past and staged a segment asking whether they were worse than Stark's line. Note the graphic in the screencap, in which MSNBC absurdly asks "who should apologize, Rep. Stark or Pres. Bush?"

View video here.

This is what passes for "balance" in the MSM. For the record, the president's other statements that Matthews compared with Stark's were "bring it on" from 2003 and "the Axis of Evil" from the 2002 State of the Union.

In to debate this contrived comparison were liberal radio talk show host Stephanie Miller and conservative radio talk show host Kevin Miller.

The segment was not without entertainment value. At one point Stephanie Miller [who did acknowledge that Stark's "amusement" crack crossed the line] revealed that:

98% of the callers to my show this morning were saying 'you go, Mr. Stark.'