The Chilean Mine Rescue, Chris Matthews, Two Presidents

While the world celebrated, Chris Matthews took this story as an opportunity to become completely unmoored from reality, declaring to the head of the AFL-CIO that if the miners had been tea-partiers, they would have been dead in two days.

Ann Althouse:

What that shows is that Matthews — in stereotypical liberal fashion — has forgotten the way private individuals cooperate and help each other. The government and only the government must be the source of all beneficence. If you don't want the government to solve all your problems, you must think you and everyone else can be 100% self-reliant.

A couple of simple questions for Mr. Matthews:

If Tea Partiers are so consumed by an “every man for himself” philosophy, why are their gatherings typically so well-organized and why do they leave, say, the National Mall spotless?

If unions, on the other hand, are so dedicated to cooperation and respect for others, why did so many of their buses leave before the OneNation rally was over, leaving some speakers to speak to a few stragglers? And why did they trash the National Mall?  

Unions are just as subject to corruption and decline as business and government are. When unions are protected in their declined state by government, decline is likely to get worse.

The President of Chile called for international help from the best and the brightest, promising to keep bureaucracy from interfering. As a result, the rescue came much sooner that the December estimate.  In contrast, during the Gulf Oil Spill, President Obama rejected most international help for months.  He refused to suspend the Jones Act, which kept the Dutch and others from helping directly. Apparently, in the President's mind, the interests of unions outweighed the interests of fishermen and  others whose jobs were threatened by the oil spill. The Jones Act specifies that foreign entities working with our government (including in disasters) must be unionized. It has been suspended by other presidents in the past in emergencies. (Oh, and EPA regulations requiring near-perfection in equipment for removing oil from water also prevented much oil from being removed from the gulf by the Dutch).  Many people were disappointed with the President's response. Chile's politics and culture seem to be in an ascendant phase, in comparison.