Matthews: With Rubio Out, Jewish Neo-Cons Will Support Hillary Over Cruz

March 15th, 2016 10:08 PM

When it comes to understanding Jewish neo-cons, Chris Matthews doesn't know a bagel from a hole in the ground . . . Speaking on MSNBC after Marco Rubio announced the suspension of his campaign, Matthews claimed that neo-cons like Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol and John Podhoretz will find Ted Cruz unacceptable and will instead support Hillary Clinton.

Let's put it this way: the day any of the above-named neo-cons endorses Clinton over Cruz, I will gladly send Matthews 10 lbs. of the finest lox and throw in a tub of first-class gefilte fish. Feh on your flawed prediction, Chris. Has Matthews been following any of the above lately? True, they detest Trump. But there's no reason they couldn't support Cruz. And Kristol has openly spoken of supporting a third-party conservative candidate if Trump's the GOP candidate. Speaking as something of a Jewish neo-con myself, this NewsBuster's odds of supporting Hillary over Cruz are approximately equal to those of me eating a ham sandwich at the Wailing Wall at high noon on Yom Kippur. 

Note: Matthews said the neo-cons would support Hillary over Cruz, but never explained why. Why wouldn't neo-cons be comfortable with Cruz? He has criticized Trump for saying he'd be  even-handed in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, stating he would not be "neutral."

Note Segundo: there was something off-putting about the way Matthews said the named neo-cons are "very smart,"and that "I like a lot of them personally" although they're "very active on the op-ed pages." Just say it, Chris: some of my best friends are Jews.


CHRIS MATTHEWS: Yeah, Brian, I think one of the big factors that have now been unleashed by the defeat, in the face of the elimination of Rubio tonight is this: there's a large--not a large, a very significant but a small number of people, they're called neo-conservatives, they're sons of immigrants, or grandsons of immigrants or granddaughters, they're very pro-Israeli, they're very pro-immigrant, they're not comfortable at all with the Republican party on the immigration issue because they're children and grandchildren of immigrants themselves. So they have been backing Rubio as kind of their hope, he's a hawk, he throws lines to people like references to Judea and Samaria, referencing the fact that that part of greater Israel, that the Likud party would never want to give away, they send all kinds of signals, but Rubio has been their sort of guy. Now he's gone. 

Now that group, a very interesting group of people. They're very active on the op-ed pages, they're very intellectual. I like a lot of them personally. People like Bill Kristol, John Podhoretz, Charles Krauthammer, Robert Kagan, very smart people who have neo-conservative culture and views behind them. They're going to be interesting to watch now. I don't think they're comfortable at all with Trump, with his latest line about even-handed position on the Middle East. That's not going to sell. They don't like him either, they don't think he's classy enough. They're not proud of his behavior. Who is, in many cases? 

So they're going to look for a candidate now. This is fascinating, because that candidate could very well be, could very well be Hillary Clinton. And that's where you're going to see a real sea change I think starting now in the op-ed columns in our major newspapers, in magazines like Commentary, and other kinds of magazines. You're going to see people, they're going to start writing with a very strong even-handedness about the Republican and Democratic party, who had been identified for decades now ever since Reagan with the Republican party. This is a big development night, their vessel has sunk and that's really important because now they're going to be struggling in the water to carry that metaphor, looking for a ship to go to and I think it's going to be Hillary Clinton. It's not going to be Ted Cruz.