Former CIA director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta should have at least waited until after the 2014 midterms to publish his memoirs, seeing as they contain sharp criticisms of President Obama's foreign and national defense policy, Hardball host Chris Matthews argued on his October 7 program, lamenting Panetta's lack of "loyalty" to the administration. "Why's he doing this?!" Matthews whined.
Fellow liberal Democrat and Hardball panelist Steve McMahon chimed in by pining for the good ol' days of Camelot:
The folks who left the Kennedy administration didn't write books. Folks who left Ted Kennedy's staff didn't write books.
"Loyalty's still a good thing. You only get appointed by one president to do one job," Matthews concluded.
Actually, Panetta is a seasoned Washington hand who has worked for three presidents (Nixon, Clinton, and Obama) and who also served multiple terms in Congress. He's an elder statesman who, far from being a "disloyal" Democrat has done Americans of all political stripes a favor by giving his honest assessment -- whether you agree with it or not -- of the deficiencies of the current administration.
But all that matters to Matthews and company, it seems, is crass partisan considerations for a midterm election.
