The story so far:
Matthews declares that the Abramoff scandal is not partisan, a proclamation that neatly dovetails with the operative but demonstraby false GOP talking points about the scandal: "Dems got money, too". (A front page post earlier today details that Matthews himself was a part of the story, participating in fundraising for an Abramoff front.)
Could it be that Matthews is just trying to be "evenhanded" and "objective"? Surely, if a similar scandal primarlily but not exclusively involving Democrats were uncovered, his statements would be equally cautious and evenhanded?
Fat chance. Documented evidence of Matthews' one-sided bias below the fold ...
Back in 1997/98, during the previous round of campaign finance scandals rocking Washington, Matthews absolutely savaged involved politicians. But, surprisingly, only the Democrats.
The so-called Chinagate investigations, which turned out to be a total dud. The Washington Post called the investigation "its own cartoon, a joke, and a deserved embarrassment" (Mar. 20, 1997). (An illuminating statement by Henry Waxman here. )
Did the wider "scandal" just involve Democrats? Certainly not:
The Washington Post wrote in 1997:
The Republican National Committee and two other GOP organizations announced Thursday that they are returning $122,400 in campaign donations after learning that the source of the funds was a Hong Kong company with little or no assets in the United States.
The action came after months of GOP pounding on Democrats for questionable fund-raising tactics among Asians and Asian Americans. Republican officials strenuously denied any parallels with the tribulations of the Democrats, and one GOP official said accepting the contribution from the Hong Kong company was "the equivalent of inadvertently stepping on the out-of-bounds line in a basketball game."
As Republicans sought to explain the Hong Kong connection, however, it was learned that GOP officials tried to solicit funds from a range of foreign businesses for a defunct nonprofit political organization tied to the RNC and its former chairman, Haley Barbour. Records of the organization, The National Policy Forum, have been subpoenaed by the Senate committee investigating campaign fund-raising abuses.
The New York Times (pay link) wrote at the same time:
In the first confirmation that the Republican Party accepted substantial illegal foreign donations, the Republican National Committee announced today that it was returning more than $100,000 in donations from a Hong Kong aviation-services and real estate company.
This did not stop Matthews, even a year or more later, between 1998 and 2000, from savagely attacking ONLY Democrats, repeatedly misrepresenting GOP allegations and talking points as established facts.
In fact, Matthews penned an outrageous hit piece in a known right wing smear rag:
PRESIDENT CLINTON scolded the press last week for throwing "the word 'scandal' around... like a clanging teapot." "Let's be careful," he instructed reporters. "Let's be very specific."
Let's.
...
Let's check those Clinton assertions against the Justice Department's own busy record:
Matthews then goes down the laundry list of allegations, careful to emphasize the connections to Democrats in each paragraph:
... Johnny Chung, a Democratic fund-raiser
... John Huang pleads guilty to felony charges that he conspired to make campaign contributions to the Democrats ...
... Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie, a Little Rock, Ark., businessman, is found guilty of making political contributions to the Democrats ...
... In December 1999, Democratic donor Yogesh Gandhi is sentenced ...
... In March 2000, Maria Hsia, a Gore fund-raiser, is found guilty ...
... The Justice Department had charged Ms. Hsia with arranging to have nuns and monks write checks to the Democratic National Committee ...
... Pauline Kanchanalak pleads guilty in federal court to raising $690,000 in illegal foreign money for the Clinton-Gore '96 re-election effort ....
Hmmm. It seems he was trying to make a point. And, by explicitly ignoring the Republican's well-known problems (see above), a one-sided, partisan point.
How was Matthews handling aspects of the scandal on his TV show? According to the Daily Howler, Matthews was spewing disinformation damaging to the Democrats in 1998, constantly alleging and insinuating a quid-pro-quo involving the delivery of American technology for campaign contributions.
Tuesday, May 19: In his second reference to a "state-of-the-art" technology transfer of the evening, Matthews posed the following question to former Labor secretary Robert Reich:
MATTHEWS: ...Moving state-of-the-art weapons technology overseas to people who might be a problem. What do you make of that--hearing that the President of the United States granted a waiver after being told not to engage in this transfer of technology by Warren Christopher, one of the most responsible members of your cabinet in those days?
Our review: Matthews seems to be saying that Clinton chose to allow the transfer of state-of-the-art weapons technology to China; and he seems to be saying that he granted a waiver for this weapons transfer after being told not to do so by Warren Christopher. For the record, Warren Christopher opposed transfer of authority over missile launches from State to Commerce; but no missile-launch waiver is ever granted without approval from Defense and State. Meanwhile, there is no allegation in the standard record that President Clinton ever signed a waiver to "move state-of-the-art weapons technology overseas to people who might be a problem." Hardball viewers, however, get to think that he did. Howler extraordinaire.
Wednesday, May 20:After speaking about money that was allegedly moving from China into Democratic coffers, Matthews made the following statement about "what we now know:"
MATTHEWS: ...Now you know that, at this end, there was a decision made to give a waiver on technology at a very tricky, critical level of technology, state of the art, it could be used in warfare, in delivery of nuclear weapons, etc., could be used to unsettle the balance of the nuclear arms race in South Asia, in terms of India, all kinds of implications...
Our review: Viewers are being given the clear impression that a decision was made to transfer "a critical level of technology" to the Chinese. But there is no allegation on the standard record that any such technology transfer was ever given a waiver, or even occurred. The Clinton administration denies that any technology is transferred in the satellite launches.
Thursday, May 21:By now, Hardball viewers are being told that technology is simply being sold:
MATTHEWS: And now we know, of course, that Bernard Schwartz, one of, in fact the largest contributor to the Democratic Party soft money, was in fact successful in getting a waiver to allow him to sell technology, his Loral Corporation, his technology, high technology, to the Beijing government.
Our review: Obviously enough, there is no allegation on the record that Bernard Schwartz sought or received a waiver that allowed him to sellhis technology. Loral pays the Chinese to launch their missiles; but the procedures are designed to assure that no technology is transferred in the process--let alone "sold."
From the information above it should be clear that Tweety plays hardball only with Democrats. For the GOP, he puts on his satin gloves. His current characterization of the Abramoff scandal as non-partisan is not in line with his past behavior with respect to a comparable scandal on the Democratic side.