August 1, 2007 at 11:29:58

Hardballer Matthews Goes Soft in the Head Over Giuliani's Gold Digging

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By Sandy Sand (about the author) Page 1 of 7 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Sandy Sand - Writer

"...when Rudy Giuliani decided to go from recovery to full excavation, it was within 24 hours after they recovered the $230 million of gold and silver bars in the Bank of Nova Scotia's vault. It was within 24 hours -- eight weeks into that incident -- that he decided that the incident was too dangerous for firefighters.", Harold Schaitberger, President International Association of Firefighters.

What was it about those two simple declarative sentences that Hardballer Chris Matthews didn't understand?

Although this heated and often Matthews-interrupted exchange between the hard-headed host of Hardball on MSNBC and Schaitberger took place on July 11th, it's worth noting for two reasons.

The first is because Matthews did not grasp the essence of the statement, and all of its ramifications.

The rumored Bank of Nova Scotia's gold and silver stashes valued at $230 million was discovered and suddenly Rudy's vaunted, extolled and cried over firefighters' remains were forgotten, and literally relegated to the trash heap, and excavation of the site went into full swing.

A 24/7 conga line of trucks hauled the debris off to the city dump, where Schaitberger maintains also lie the remains of firefighters. Although Schaitberger couldn't come up with an estimate of how many remains have been lost to the city dump, we know from news reports that body parts that were missed during the excavation of the World Trade Center are still being found at the site.

The fact that the gold-digging Giuliani kicked all the rescuers off the site the minute the bank vault was discovered, and declared it "too dangerous" for any further search for bodies or body parts, proves the lie to all his public tears over the firefighter and their families. It would appear that the firefighters were no more than cover for the rush to find the gold.

The more I watch Matthews the more mystifying he becomes. Sometimes he is unbelievable preceptive and on the mark, but these moments of lucidity are becoming more frequently marked by moments of thick-headedness.

The way Matthews lit into Schaitberger, one would think Schaitberger was an advocate of child-molesting priests or a devotee of Michael Vick and cruelty to dogs.

Or, is Matthews such a good friend of Giuliani that he must play devil's advocate ad stupideam for the sake of...of...of what?

Making us think his guest is a dimwitted ghoul who's thrashing around in a gory minefield of body parts?

Or, is Matthews simply playing to his dumbed-down base, who since the days of "Crossfire," have gotten used to an hour of inaudible opinion, due to either the guests shouting each other down, or a host who has a list of questions with no thought to logical follow-up, because he's too busy focusing on the next question and not listening to the answer?

Or, is he a host who is so anxious to get to the next question, he doesn't allow the guest time to finish answering the first question? Perhaps it's a simple matter of Matthews not having learned to work within the time constraints of each televised segment. Whatever, it's becoming more and more of a curiosity.

This brings me to reason two.

Because, when someone is running for office, especially one as awesome as the presidency of the United States, their foibles, incompetence, bad decisions, lack of common sense, lack of good judgment, and choice of friends who either work for them or he recommends for high positions in the government should be scrutinized for major flaws more carefully than that new car we're planning to buy.

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Sandy Sand began her writing career while raising three children and doing public relations work for Women's American ORT (Organization for Rehabilitation through Training). That led to a job as a reporter for the San Fernando Valley Chronicle, a (more...)

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