Chris Matthews is the epitome of inside-the-beltway punditry. He is the pundit's pundit. He goes to the cocktail parties, knows the politicians and more importantly tries to be friends with them as well. They use him for their talking points and once in a while, to his credit he'll ask a tough question or two. But he is no journalist. Now he has a book about life being a campaign, appropriately titled "Life's A Campaign."
Thankfully we have Jon Stewart in our lives to dissect the book, have a chance to interview Tweety and promptly bash him for his thesis that we should all live our lives like we are on the campaign trail. Campaigns are fun (for me at least) but they shouldn't rule our lives.
From RawStory:
"What you are saying is, people can use what politicians do in political campaigns to help their lives. ... That strikes me as fundamentally wrong," Stewart said at the opening of the interview. "It strikes me as a self-hurt book, if you will. Aren't campaigns fundamentally contrivances?"
Matthews extolled the virtues of listening and insisted that people can learn much about success from the tools employed in successful political campaigns.
"It's always a campaign," Matthews said. "It's a campaign to get the girl of your dreams; it's a campaign to do everything you want to do in life."
"But there has to be some core of soul in there," Stewart retorted. "What campaigns are, are photo opportunities that are staged, and there's nothing in this book about, 'Be good; be competent.'"
Matthews said that information was in the Bible -- "it's been written," he said.
"This book has been written too, it's called The Prince," Stewart retorted, referring to Machiavelli's treatise. "I thought that (your book) was a recipe for sadness. ... If you live this book, your life will be strategy, and ... you'll be unhappy."
Comparing Matthew to Machiavelli? I don't know who is hurt more by that statement.
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