MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Wednesday offered bizarre, revisionist history, insisting that Ronald Reagan “wasn’t a social conservative.” In an attempt to denigrate the goals of the Tea Party movement, the Hardball host inaccurately asserted that the 40th president “accepted Roe V. Wade.”
Matthews, who fancies himself a presidential historian, appeared on the Martin Bashir show and asserted that Reagan wouldn’t be comfortable in the “church tent” of today’s GOP. He spun, “Although [Reagan] would address the pro-life rallies every year in Washington, for example, he would do so through public address. He never showed up.” Matthews added, “He accepted Roe V. Wade under the Constitution.”
Actually, he didn’t. Writing in the Spring 1983 Human Life Review, Reagan endorsed efforts to overturn the ruling that legalized abortion:
The Congress has before it several measures that would enable our people to reaffirm the sanctity of human life, even the smallest and the youngest and the most defenseless. The Human Life Bill expressly recognizes the unborn as human beings and accordingly protects them as persons under our Constitution. This bill, first introduced by Senator Jesse Helms, provided the vehicle for the Senate hearings in 1981 which contributed so much to our understanding of the real issue of abortion.
…
I believe if the Supreme Court took another look at Roe v. Wade, and considered the real issue between the sanctity of life ethic and the quality of life ethic, it would change its mind once again.
[Emphasis added.] Trying to moderate Reagan’s beliefs, Matthews sanitized, “…But he wasn’t a social conservative. He was basically a guy who believed that the best thing about America was freedom.”
Of course, this is the same President who appointed Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court, elevated William Rehnquist to Chief Justice and tried to get Robert Bork approved.
Matthews was probably drunk again when he said that.
I will never forget him slurring his words and verbally stumbling over and over as he reported on the election Scott Brown won. He was reporting from a bar. You do the math.