Chris Matthews Goes After GOP Hack: "Republicans Trying to Claim They're Not Republicans"

Watch Chris Matthews verbally dismember the sneering, dishonest GOP hack Eric Cantor, showing a rare glimpse of the real "hardball" that his show is supposed to represent. Excerpts:

MATTHEWS: The way we keep score in American politics is the party that`s in power for eight years and runs the White House and three quarters of the time ran the Congress and the White House takes the heat when things go bad. Congressman Cantor, you`re trying to change the rules now and saying, Oh, if we take off our uniforms and don`t say we`re Republicans this week, the people will be fooled.

CANTOR: Absolutely not.

MATTHEWS: I`ve never heard of that happening in politics!

CANTOR: Absolutely not, Chris. What...

MATTHEWS: You`re taking off your uniforms!

CANTOR: Absolutely not, Chris.

MATTHEWS: You`re saying you`re not Republicans!

CANTOR: Chris, absolutely now. What I tell you is there is a...

MATTHEWS: Are you a Republican?

CANTOR: Absolutely.

...

MATTHEWS: Congressman Cantor, we`re in a national crisis right now. I`m looking at the market every day, and it`s scary. And we have a president of the United States who`s still in office, he still lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The normal president at this time of a crisis would be on national television at 9:00 o`clock at night talking to the American people about the problems we face.

Do you still take -- have confidence in this president you`ve elected? You voted for Bush the last time. You supported him. Does your party still support President Bush and the way he`s leading this country economically? Do you like the job he`s doing?

CANTOR: Listen, no one...

MATTHEWS: Do you like the job that Bush is doing?

CANTOR: Chris -- Chris, no one likes an economic crisis. We have, as I said before...

MATTHEWS: Do you like the job the president is doing leading this country?

CANTOR: We have a crisis of confidence. What this president has done through his secretary of the treasury has reached out and tried to make a situation right itself so that...

...

MATTHEWS: The problem you have is that your colleague from Virginia, Tom Davis, who once ran your campaign committee, said if the Republican Party was a dog food, they`d take it off the shelves. And you haven`t used the word Republican tonight. Your party didn`t use it in the acceptance speech. John McCain never said the word Republican. He never said the word Bush. You`re trying to take off your uniforms and run from the field of political battle and claim you`re not Republicans.

You`re claiming you`re running against this administration, and I`m not going to let anybody get away with that kind of foolery! You have...

CANTOR: Absolutely not.

MATTHEWS: ... to take responsibility, sir, for the policies of this administration that has gotten us into this mess. You can`t walk away and say, Oh, we had nothing to do with it. Can you? Say it if you want to.

CANTOR: No. Listen...

...

MATTHEWS: I have never in my life seen a party run from its own record like the Republicans have. Sir, I like the way John McCain the other day said the fundamentals are strong because at least he was playing defense honestly. He was admitting that he had to play defense. You, sir, say you don`t have to defend the status quo. You can simply run for office, back Bush for two terms in a row, when he blows it, then you can run somebody else and claim, Oh, he was wearing a different uniform. You got to defend your party, sir, don`t you?

...

MATTHEWS: I know Harry Truman`s one of your heroes, sir, because he`s a hero of every Republican. And he said, "The buck stops here." I`m just asking you, where`s the president of the United States tonight? You had Paulson out there. Where`s the president? He`s pulling one of these Katrinas again! Where is he? The country`s worried like hell. When you lose this amount of value in the wealth of this country in a matter of days, you`d think the president would come on television to explain the situation to the American people. I`m just asking where he is.

People have had enough GOPBS. Oh, and good job "declaring war" on the media, Senator McCain.