Two Sides to Every Interview

It's a good thing that journalists are so devoted to the truth. Via Atrios, Chris Matthews owns up to being a shill for the Administration position on the war:

What I keep doing here is asking people on and off camera who come on this program, high-ranking officers, enlisted, former officers. I get sometimes, not all the time, two different versions, the version they give me on the air and the version they give me the minute when we're off the air.

The version they give me when we're on the air is gung-ho, we're doing the right thing, everything is moving along. The version they give me off the air is, Rumsfeld is crazy. There aren't enough troops over there. We're not taking this seriously enough, or, we shouldn't be there, sometimes.

No, nobody's putting words in Matthews's mouth. This isn't an extrapolation based on random comments or a quote taken out of context. This is from the transcript of Hardball from August 1 (scroll way down, it's near the end). He's in the middle of a conversation about how it's so difficult to get an accurate picture of what's going on in Iraq. Well, of course it is, if the people charged with telling us the truth roll over and enable the liars to prevaricate to their hearts' content. I have no illusions that Matthews would be able to get one of these people who tell him one thing on the air and another thing off to level with the American people on television (leveling with the American people--who'd be gullible enough to believe in a pipe dream like that?), but isn't it Matthews's responsibility to let us know that the "truth" in Iraq actually has two tracks? What's the point of having a free press if they're not going to do anything but parrot the official government line anyway?

The truly astonishing thing about this is that Matthews just blithely makes his statement, not realizing that he's just given the whole game away. This is simply how the system works, and he's not aware that there's anything unusual in what he describes. And maybe he's right. After all, here we are two-and-a-half weeks later, and we're just noticing it. This is absolutely the first I'm hearing of the fact that Matthews has multiple sources testifying to Rumsfeld's craziness. If Atrios hadn't posted about it, maybe it would've slipped under the radar altogether.

Could somebody in the press corps please wake up and do their job?