Bumbling Tweety Bird?

I often find myself in a position, when attempting to write something, where my fingers end up clicking away words and phrases on the keyboard that my brain never intended to trigger. The good thing about writing is the editing process where you get to correct your textual gaffes. Live TV or a hot-mic somewhere off camera is not as forgiving.

After last night's Presidential address to West Point, Chris Matthews decided he would try to "read" the faces/the body language of the crowd ( a tactic that Bill O'Reilly and Fox"News" love to employ constantly ) and he made a statement that has every corner of the conservative world wondering what the hell he was talking about.



From the very start, conservatives have claimed that Obama has no love at all for the US military, and some within the US Armed Forces have been very vocal
to that effect. So when Matthews makes the assesment, based solely on how the relationship between Obama and the military, that he is in the enemy camp, it's predicated on readily established rhetoric coming from the Right.

The only problem is that it's an incredibly stupid thing to say. Not in-so-much as it's completely false, but that it does nothing but provide ammunition to the reactionary Right who are always searching for even the slightest verbal/physical slip-up they can use. And that is precisely what is going on today. Conservatives aren't so much appaulled by this, they are celebrating the very fact that he said it. As certainly as they are allowing themselves to forget how often they have used the military as their own personal, rhetorical, weapon when attempting to discuss the issues of the nation, conservatives are literally overjoyed that they can reap the fruits of their labor now that Matthews has ran with their ham-fisted storyline.