KINDER'S COMMENTARY: WORDS GET STRONGER AS LIBERALS SEEK DISTANCE FROM CLINTON

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Sunday, September 6, 1998

The scene was Thursday night on CNBC's "Hardball," hosted by the incomparable Chris Matthews, formerly speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter and chief aide to the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill. Matthews was interviewing a journalist from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Bill Clinton's hometown newspaper. This guy did something you don't hear very often in the days since liberalism became the philosophy that dare not speak its name: Not once, but three times in a brief interview, he proudly proclaimed that he is a liberal. It was clear that he badly needed a haircut and generally resembled a graduate assistant at some university, circa 1969. He further stated that as a longtime supporter of President Clinton, he had voted for him twice for president and governor many times before that.

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