Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think

Front Cover
Simon and Schuster, Apr 24, 2002 - Political Science - 220 pages
Chris Matthews has been playing "hardball" since the day he was born. From his first political run-in in the first grade to his years working as presidential speechwriter for Jimmy Carter and top aide to Tip O'Neill, Matthews grew up loving his country and dreaming of his chance to protect it. As one of the most honest, brash, and in-your-face journalists on TV, he has finally gotten the chance. The host of television's Hardball and bestselling author of such classics as Hardball and Kennedy & Nixon, Matthews is a political cop who insists on the truth and nothing but. In this latest work, Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, Chris Matthews is at his brilliant, blunt, bulldogged best.
From the Cold War to the Clinton years, Matthews gives the straight-up account of what it means to be an American. Matthews tells us about his "God and Country" Catholic school education in Philadelphia complete with Cold War air-raid drills and his early enthusiasm for politics. He shares with us his life's adventures: two years in Africa with the Peace Corps, the challenge of running for Congress in his twenties, and his three decades deep in the "belly of the beast" of American politics.
Matthews has made his name as a razor-sharp journalist who cross-examines the politicians in Washington and takes on the Los Angeles and New York elite who view America's heartland as "fly-over country."
In Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, Matthews rallies those who "work hard and play by the rules" and celebrates the wisdom learned from a U.S. Capitol policeman more than twenty years ago, "The little man loves his country, because it's all he's got." A hard-to-categorize maverick with an uncool love for his country, Matthews gives an irreverent look at who we are and whom we trust to lead us.

From inside the book

Contents

This Country
19
Introduction Why I Interrupt
21
Chapter One An American Attitude
27
George W Bush
37
Chapter Two The Man with the Sun in His Face
43
Al Gore
50
Chapter Three God and Country
57
Bill Clinton
67
Chapter Five Freedom Is Contagious
93
Winston Churchill
110
Chapter Six Common Ground
119
Chapter Seven The Worst Form of Government
135
Tip ONeill
154
Chapter Eight Truth
167
Ronald Reagan
184
Chapter Nine Worldly Wisdom
195

Chapter Four People Who Work Hard and Play by the Rules
73
John F Kennedy
89
Chapter Ten Playing Hardball
211
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2002)

Chris Matthews is a distinguished Professor of American Politics and Media at Fulbright University Vietnam. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit; Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero; Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked; Kennedy & Nixon; and Hardball. For twenty years, he anchored Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC

Bibliographic information