In one fell segment, Chris Matthews pulled back the curtain and revealed his view of America's foreign policy intentions as fundamentally pernicious. For him, far from the liberator of Iraq, the United States is no better than a 'colonial master.'

Matthews' guest on this evening's 'Hardball' was John Batiste, one of the former generals calling for Donald Rumsfeld's removal as Secretary of Defense. Not long ago, the Today show accorded Batiste a platform to make his Rumsfeld-must-go pitch. The topic at hand tonight was the failure to anticipate the insurgency with which we have been been faced in Iraq.

Describing the miscalculation, Matthews said: "It's like the British coming in to New York at the beginning of the Revolution and saying they weren't going to face any resistance."

A bit later, he added:

"Every Third World country, in Africa, Asia, Latin America, has thrown off its colonial masters, because they don't want outsiders telling them what to do. And we didn't think we would face that reality in Iraq? Why did they think there wasn't going to be a resistance?"

Batiste was happy to second Matthews' notion: "I don't think they studied the past."

Apparently Matthews doesn't believe that America's goal is to help establish a democracy in Iraq. He does not distinguish between the aim of the United States in Iraq and the goal of the the British attempting to crush a democratic revolution in America. We are nothing but 'colonial masters.' This is the profoundly negative view of America harbored by Matthews. One suspects it is a view shared by many in the MSM and the Democratic party.

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