If you missed the end of the last hour of Hardball with Chris Matthews, you missed and eloquent knock-down of Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney by Melissa Harris-Perry about their speeches referencing the Declaration of Independence today.
Chris Matthews: You know what I have against him [Paul Ryan]? He voted against the debt commission. He sat on that commission, there were compromises offered, he's supposed to be the big budget cutter, he let that thing die, and he voted against it. Guys like Coburn and Durbin voted for it, and he didn't.
Melissa Harris-Perry: And I'll take that as a good thing to have against him, but the thing I really have against him [Paul Ryan], actually has to do with how both he and Governor Romney have misused the Declaration of Independence today. I am deeply irritated by their notion that pursuit of happiness means ...
Chris Matthews: Money?
Melissa Harris-Perry: ... means money for the richest, but that we extricate the capacity of ordinary people to pursue happiness. When they say that God and nature give us our rights, not government, that is a lovely thing to say as a wealthy white man. But when you sit in a body like mine, as an African-American woman, you know that God and nature may have, in fact, made us inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but we could not have them until there was a civil war that allowed a federal government to impose that those nature and God given rights would actually be respected by our government. And I think that they can not continue to go down this line on the Declaration of Independence.
Chris Matthews: You mean the American Revolution continues as we speak?
Melissa Harris-Perry: Ya think?
Chris Matthews: Yeah, that's my speech. Not as good as you, but I say it all the time. This revolution continues, and the battle and the dialetic goes on between those who like the old way still today.
I only half listened to Ryan and Romney speak today, but I think it was Romney who talked about the Declaration of Independence. I'm struggling to listen through it again online to find the direct comments one of them made about the Declaration of Independence. If I find the comments, I will add them here. Meanwhile, Ryan and Romney should listen to this guy for a change. H/T to Barbara Morrill for posting this video in an Open Thread on the front page last night.
Update: Okay, I found the part of the speech where it was Mitt Romney talking about our rights coming from the Creator, but he doesn't mention the Declaration of Independence. What a word salad! He doesn't give any details about how he's going to delivery anything he's promising. He's just making lots of big promises.
America was founded on a principle that our rights did not come from government, our rights came from the Creator. [Pause for lots of cheering.]
And among those rights, among those rights were life, and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In this country we're free to pursue happiness as we choose. And people striving and achieving are what make America the powerhouse that it is. This is the nature of America. The president's changing it into something which is government dominated, government centric. It will not work in America. It will not work anywhere. What works here. What works around the world is free people pursuing their dreams. We want those dreamers here. We can accomplish our dreams. [Pause for lots of cheering.]
And so looking at that kind of record that the president has, and contrasting it with our vision of optimism, bringing back a dynamic powerful, economy with more jobs and more take-home pay.
Update II: If you missed Rachel Maddow last night, and you're just now coming online to read about what's going on, please take some time to read my other diary about Mitt Romney:
Rachel Maddow Talks About The Obama Ad Romney Doesn't Want to Talk About. This is important information, and it is not about the Priorities USA ad that has been talked about all week. It's about an official Obama Campaign Ad, that Mitt Romney doesn't want to talk about.