The last time Mary Matalin wandered off her GOP talking points, it was to declare:
"I was there, we inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation’s history."
Thankfully, those trial balloon talking points were shot down in the days that followed, in a rare instance of actual journalistic follow up.
On Thursday evenings edition of the Report, the ever reliable Stephen Colbert wrung the sarcastic whine right out of Ms Matalin when he announced at the beginning that they'd be playing a little game of GOP Talking Points BINGO!
If only all interviewers would play his new bingo game!
New York Magazine found the "interview" noteworthy, saying:
"Last night Stephen Colbert provided the "Oh Snap!" moment of the evening when he shut down Republican superflack Mary Matalin mid-argument. His rebuttal was so perfect that it made her completely drop her line of reasoning and complement him, which is no small victory."
watch
This was in response to the one attempt Matalin made to revert to her standard talking points in service of the Dick Cheney legacy, and Colbert left her stammering with his quick retort.
Far more fun for me was watching her babble on in an attempt to keep Stephen from screaming "BINGO!"
Here's a rough, highly edited transcript of some of my favorite snippets from the interview:
SC: "I've never had a republican strategist of your caliber before and if
you don't mind, I want to play a little game I've wanted to play for
years. It's called Republican Talking Points Bingo."
MM: "Ooohhh...."
SC: "Uh, everytime you say something that's a Republican talking point,
I just mark it off. You mind?"
MM: "No."
SC: "Okay, that's great. First question...Why are you wearing a cross of
Jesus, he preached social Justice, He was a communist, right?"
MM: "Yes He did. He also preached 'teach them how to fish, don't
give them a fish, right? You don't work, you don't eat."
SC: "He said 'I will make you fishers of men.' I don't believe Jesus
said 'If you don't work, you don't eat.' I believe that was from
Cool Hand Luke. (snip) I believe you're paraphrasing."
Try as she might, Matalin was not actually able to refrain from the talking points, though Stephen mostly gave her a pass.
SC: "Talk me down the nightmare path. What happens if the Democrats
push thru reconciliation?"
MM: "Well, they already passed reconciliation, you know. Today was when
the aptly named 'SLAUGHTER RULE' took place and you get to be
self-executing now... you don't have to vote on this now."
SC: "Self-executing...that's committing suicide!"
MM: "We'll see. It might be that they are committing suicide. They
don't want to vote on this bill but they want to say they voted for
Health Care, so that's called 'The Slaughter Rule' and that's
self-executing so we're past reconciliation, which..."
SC: "What happens to America if this goes through, Madame? How long do
we have?"
MM: "Can I glance at my BINGO! card?"
SC: "No. Not yet. It doesn't work if you know what the answers are."
I never saw Stephens BINGO! card, but I imagined it must have looked like this:
After some banter about the upcoming mid-term elections and Rahm,
SC: "If the Democrats get this through will the Republicans run on
repealing Health Care? I've heard that..I've heard that..
McConnell said that. Well do you think they should run on
repealing Health Care?
MM: "They will run on repealing this kind of architecture that is this
expansionist. They will also run on the targeted reforms that are
in this architecture.
SC: "I don't know what you mean. I'm not an architect. What do you
mean?"
MM: "I'm trying to knock you out of BINGO! So far..."
SC: "You've done very well at not saying any of the things that everyone
says. You haven't said much, though.
You've talked real s-l-o-w-l-y."
Feel free to add ideas in the comments for Republican Talking Points I overlooked in my version of Republican Talking Point BINGO!.
I'll post the video of the interview when it comes up later today, if the diary survives. Otherwise, watch for it here.
Update: Colbert Nation now has the video up here
h/t BBQ Chicken Madness and Scarce
I still can't get the embedding right though.