Chris Matthews

We've got to recognize that when we march into Iraq, we're setting up the card tables in front of every university in the Arab world, the Islamic world, to recruit for al-Qaida.

You don't say, like the Bush crowd, 'I got this guy over here and I don't like him and I'm gonna get him, whether you back me or not.'

It doesn't serve an American interest. It really doesn't really serve Israeli interests - it serves the interests of the political party that's getting the votes of the settlers on the West Bank.

My audience is much more center right, or centrist.

Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is, 'We are above that now. We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something.' I mean, in a way, Obama's standing above the country, above - above the world. He's sort of God. He's going to bring all different sides together.

Why didn't we recognize how much it bothered them spiritually and politically?

We've always had a dual role in the region - friend of Israel, and honest broker. We've given up the honest broker role completely.

I mean, the idea that Bar could have sent him off on a Grand Tour. But he wasn't the least bit interested. Why? Why isn't he interested in the world? Because here's the bad news for him: He's in the world now.

I don't know why his lawyers didn't tell him, 'You don't have to answer any questions about your private life, Mr. President. Let them sue you. Take the heat. You don't have to answer.'

I tell my staff, we're riding a tour bus around, and we're going to stop and look at some weird stuff - but we're taking our viewers around safely. They're just looking out the window at it. I'm trying to create a sense of comfort for my center audience.

Well, the right-wing policy with regard to Israel - the people who don't want to deal with Arafat, who don't want a Palestinian state - the whole sort of right-wing view is consistent with the view toward Iraq. It's the same policy and the same people.

Once it was suggested that Saddam Hussein might give his weaponry to terrorists, or might use weapons himself in the region, then it became hard for the Democrats to say, 'Well, that can't happen.'