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Matthews to Republicans: 'Do you really feel proud?'

Let me finish tonight with this: "We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown

Let me finish tonight with this: 

"We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." 

This was the Democratic candidate for president William Jennings Bryan, accepting the 1896 nomination. 

What would Mitt Romney say of this? Would he say that the Great Commoner was out of bounds, that he was running a negative campaign?

The great irony, the great fact behind this latest Romney tact, is that all he says about Vice President Biden and his metaphor about "chains" and economic repression pale before the language of past campaigns. The phrase, Mr. Romney, is populism — the same populism we got from Andy Jackson and Harry Truman and Democrats since anyone can remember. So I can say: get used to it!

Now for your crowd. A word is in order about the words your fond cotillion has been employing out there in voter land.

Let's just say, it wasn't the Democrats who brought up the church the Republican candidate attended. It was the Republicans who attacked the church the Democratic candidate did.


It wasn't the Democrats who attacked the background of the Republican candidate, Mr. Romney. It was the cackling mob on the right that continues even now to question the President's American birth without a single demurral from the Republican candidate. Not a word does he say when his allies bark and bay in the twilight that the President is an illegal immigrant, snuck into the country after his birth to grab the White House. 

And it hasn't been the Democrats attacking the other candidate's loyalty. Not a word. You never hear a Democrat question or even mention the fact of Romney's Americanism. Never a peep. 

But, boy, do Romney and his verbal henchmen love bringing it up in their constant round of slurs against the President, about how he's "foreign," how he doesn't know what means to be an American, to his claim of birthright citizenship is someone a street hustler's "con." We've heard it all, this ugly rant from high and low that never ends.

And so, my fellow Americans on the right, get this: Before you start playing umpire, consider your own performance in this contest. Can you honestly say you're proud of the words your crowd has used? Can you honestly say this is good for the country — to bark over and over that the other guy who doesn't share your politics is also deserving of having everything fair game, from his birth to his church attendance to his basic American loyalty? 

Do you really feel proud?