On tonight's Hardball Chris Matthews invited on actor Ben Affleck to pontificate on the 2008 presidential race and while the liberal actor stuck to safe, conventional wisdom observations on the likes of Rudy, Hillary and Barack he couldn't resist a pointed jab at the current administration. When Matthews recited an emailer’s question about impeaching President Bush, Affleck reasoned it wasn’t necessary since Bush and Cheney are "going to go down in history as having presided over one of the worst administrations in American history."
The following is the full exchange as it occurred on the June 7th edition of MSNBC’s Hardball:
Chris Matthews: "Scott Trent of North Carolina: 'Mr. Affleck, what is your opinion on the possibility of impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney? Do you support impeachment for the crimes of the administration?' That's Trent, Scott Trent of North Carolina."
Ben Affleck: "While I understand that, that feeling of being angry and feeling kind of frustrated and, and I really do, you know that seems kind of unlikely and probably counterproductive. And, you know, so, so I get that but it doesn't seem like it's something that's probably gonna happen. And probably a place we have our, our energies would be better spent. There's no, President Bush and Vice President Cheney and they're wildly unpopular and they're going to go down in history as having presided over one of the worst administrations in American history. Failed impeachment is not going to really change that, other than to kind of make the, the Congress seem kind of petty and vindictive and spiteful and I don't think that's gonna help anyone at this point."