Senator McConnell, let me ask about today.
What's the importance of the president's amazing display of leadership tonight?
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What do you make of the actual visual that's people will see on TV and probably, as you know, as well as I, will remember a lot longer than words spoken tonight?
And that's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when he was younger, obviously.
What does that image mean to the American people, a guy who can actually get into a super sonic plane, and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin, like an actual jet pilot?
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Do you think this role, and I want to talk politically for just a secretary, the president deserves everything he's doing tonight in term of his leadership. He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics. Do you think he is defining the office of the presidency, at least for this time, as basicly that of commander-in-chief. That is role, that if you're going to run against him, you'd better be ready to take away from him.
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Let me ask you, Bob Dornan, you were a congressman all those years. Here's a president who's really non-verbal. He's like Eisenhower. He looks great in a military uniform. He looks great in that cowboy costume he wears when he goes west. I remember him standing at that fence with Colin Powell. Was the best picture in the 2000 campaign.
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And later, Pat Caddell and Ann Coulter. What a duo.
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And we're going to talk about the president's incredible performance, flying into the USS Abraham Lincoln today. More on that when we come back with HARDBALL's buzz.
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Look at this guy!
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MATTHEWS: OK, let me run through the names, Ann. Lieberman -- can you see him in this picture? Ann?
COULTER: What about him?
MATTHEWS: Can you see him getting into an F-18...
COULTER: Oh, no!
MATTHEWS: ... an flying onto an aircraft carrier?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Joe Lieberman, can you see him there?
COULTER: No possibility. I -- I have...
MATTHEWS: Can you see John Edwards doing it?
COULTER: No possibility.
MATTHEWS: Can you see Dick Gephardt doing it?
CADDELL: Yes. No. Yes.
COULTER: No.
MATTHEWS: Can you see John Kerry do it?
COULTER: I can think of very few Republicans I could even see doing it. But no, not even Kerry.
MATTHEWS: Can you -- Pat Caddell, are there any Democrats that could go for this part, if this were a Hollywood casting director? Who could play this part as a Democrat, besides the president? Pat?
A little later Matthews went on Countdown:
We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple.
Even more Chris Matthews fun here.