From the moment Tom Matzzie, the Washington director of Moveon.org, turned up on this afternoon's Tucker Carlson, something just didn't feel right. Matzzie just didn't fit the Moveon mold. There was no whiff of the angry zealot about him, no sense that Tucker was one misstep away from witnessing a meltdown. Mattzie came across as one more pleasant-enough fellow with a DC organizational gig. Someone who might even have fit in an outfit as conventional and boring, say, as the 2004 John Kerry campaign. Which is precisely where, as the record reveals, Matzzie did spend the last presidential season, working as the Kerry-Edwards director of online organizing.

Matzzie was on to discuss the issue of whether, from the perspective of the left, Hillary needs to do a full-frontal mea culpa for her 2002 vote authorizing the war in Iraq. Carlson began by playing the clip from this past weekend in New Hampshire of a man at a campaign event solemnly informing Hillary that until she admits to a "mistake" on the vote, he and other like-minded people aren't going to hear all the other "great things" she's saying. Hillary trotted out her shopworn line about having "taken responsibility" for her vote -- whatever that means -- while claiming that "the mistakes were made by this president." The specific issue at hand aside, I would encourage people to view the video of Hillary's remarks. Her tone, and her tendency to blame others, are unappealing, and underline her shortcomings as a candidate.

View video here.

When Carlson asked "why can't Hillary Clinton just apologize?", I fully expected Matzzie to enthusiastically agree. But, au contraire, MoveOn's man responded "I don't think it's about apologies; I think what people really want to hear is how Senator Clinton is going to help get America out of Iraq."

Matzzie did allow that he thinks that Hillary along with many others, should admit the vote was wrong, and focus on what can be done to get the US out of Iraq not when she takes office in 2009, but now.

Carlson then asked Matzzie whether it made him "sick to his stomach" to hear Hillary "roadtesting her new lie," misrepresenting her 2002 vote as merely "authorization to go back to the UN and do something or other," whereas everyone in DC at the time knew it was a war vote. Matzzie again evinced a very forgiving attitude:

"I'm not going to relitigate the past . . . the real challenge we face is how to get the United States out of Iraq."

Wait a second! I thought Matzzie's organization was founded for purposes of encouraging America to "move on" from Bill Clinton's straying from his marital vows, not from the straying by politicians from leftist orthodoxy. Matzzie wouldn't bite even when Carlson, taking Moveon's theory to its logical conclusion, challenged him this way: "so you forgive Bush for his mistakes up until this point? You just want to know what to know what he's going to do from here on out?"

Trapped, Matzzie played it with a light touch: "forgiveness is up to George Bush and his maker." Please. This is an organization that has spent the last four years heaping vitriol on the president over Iraq.

At one point, Carlson stated the obvious truth: "it seems to me that [Hillary's] getting a pass from liberal groups cause they think she can win."

Matzzie: "I don't think that's true at all."

Sure.

Mark was in Iraq in November. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net

—Mark Finkelstein is a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net.