And when did Matthews start criticizing NBC figures for making political assessments? Every other sentence out of his mouth is a political one, for crissakes. Not to mention the rest of the "reporters" for the network.

Bizarre.

You just have to love this:

That set Matthews off [Lauer : "What are they going to do, suggest they cut funding while troops are still in the ground in Iraq? They can't do that."].

Clearly flashing some anger, he [Matthews] responded: "Well, that's a political assessment by you, Matt. I think the Democrats have to decide whether they want to climb aboard this catastrophe or not."

"I think the Democrats have to decide whether they want to climb aboard this catastrophe or not." So,  that's not a political assessment by you, Chris?

THE POT CALLS THE KETTLE BLACK

Chris is probably still smarting from Lauer's "elitist" New Year's Eve comments! Are you with me people!?

Mark - I don't think Lauer really disagrees with Matthews, he was just doing is job for once. It's hard to recognize because we are used to him not grilling Democrats. He may think twice next time with Matthews now that he realized he upset him. He doesn't want to get the Chris Wallace treatment or miss out on party invitations. Matt is too cool for that. ; )

From what I understand, right now the Dims don't have any say on funding for Irag.  The 2007 budget is already in place so Sept would be the earliest Dims could cut funding.  That and I'm sure Bush would veto any bill that attempted to derail Iraq.  Anyone know for sure?

This will all be funny to watch, because I've always felt that the Democrats' main point behind the criticisms of the war in Iraq (and Bush's terror war in general) had nothing to do with the actual war and EVERYTHING to do with regaining power.

Now, you're going to see them all run the other way and spin it like "we must do something about terror." They all know it; it's obvious they all felt the same way about Iraq and Saddam as far back as the mid-90s, which the media refuses to mention anymore (they whistle and roll their eyes hoping that history will go away). Since they're the ones conveniently covering the present and recent past, the recent inconvenient evidence that they supported being rid of Saddam does conveniently go away, because they never replay those old press conferences where people like Kerry were shouting about Saddam and doing something about him!

What's going to be fun is watching the rising ultra-left in their party (the Sheehan types) flop around like fish out of water; we've already seen it just the other day when their news conference was taken over by the nutjobs, including Sheehan. The real Democrats (those who are trying to walk the line of "moderation" to hold power and possibly regain the presidency) are going to have to spin all this carefully; let's see if the media plays along like the biased little donkey chorus that they are.

The Democrats now in power are going to have to fight viciously against Islamic fundamentalism to impress the security skeptics for future elections (or at least appear to fight hard), while at the same time professing pacifism for their wacko base whenever they can find a spot to fit it in. The real yin-yang is soon to appear.

Cunservatyve military medical guy

If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul's vote!

CLASSIC!

Matt Lauer argues that Dems can't use the same tactic they used to end the Vietnam war to end the Iraq War, and Chris Matthews tries to take the position that they can, and that somehow pulling the rug out from under the troops is a GOOD path for America to take.  After all, just look at how respected America was after the Dems cut funding for Vietnam.  I've got two words for Chris Matthews when it comes to the intelligence and morality of using that tactic:

KILLING FIELDS

Face it Chris, you've been pwned by your own pandering political party, lied to by lawyers, and you don't have the balls to face the reality of it.