Playing Cutesy: Chris Matthews & Che Guevara

This week, the Media Research Center's Newsbusters blog noted an exchange between Chris Matthews of MSNBC and Kristinn Taylor of FreeRepublic.com. They were talking about kids in East Africa running around wearing bin Laden t-shirts and Taylor compared it to American kids wearing Che Guevara t-shirts.

Matthews failed to see the analogy ignorantly stating (emphasis mine), "Yeah, but they’re, they’re kind of cute at this point, aren’t they? They’re not about somebody out to get us now. I think there’s a difference. I mean, that’s kind of camp almost, isn’t it?...is Che Guevara the symbol of hate in the United States anymore?...I don’t think so. I mean, a lot of our kids wear them. I see kids wearing them all the time, I think my kids wear them. It’s like a Robert Marley T-shirt at this point."

Can we officially declare Matthews an imbecile, now? Being the Carterite he is, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he'd see Guevara as an endearing figure, but seriously, "cute"?!

Let's give Mr. Matthews the history lesson he should have given his kids before they started trotting out the Commie-fashionwear.

Here's a choice quote from Castro's former comrade, Mr. Guevara:

"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary...These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of The Wall!"

["The Wall", being where Che's victims were lined up and shot.]

Or, how about this one, pretty cute, right?:

"Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!"

Oh, and this is precious:

"I ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol, in the right side of his brain [...] His belongings were now mine."

-- Che Guevara, diary from Sierra Maestra (1957) [on the shooting of fellow Eutimio Guerra which he suspected of passing on information]

Journalist Nat Hentoff recalls a personal encounter with Guevara, when he asked him about democracy:

"The one time I met Guevara, at the Cuban mission to the United Nations, he expressed one of his convictions. Guevara professed not to understand English. So, looking at him and his interpreter, I asked this idealist: "Can you conceive — however far into the future — a time when there will be free elections in Cuba?"

Not waiting for his interpreter, Guevara broke into laughter at my naively ignorant question. He made it clear that I had no understanding of a true people's revolution, firmly guided by Maximum Leader Castro."

Charming fellow, that Che. Really makes you all warm and fuzzy, doesn't he? I wonder if they make a plush doll of Che, so the kids can curl up with it as you read Marx to them before bed?

But, you know, I can't just pick a few quotes and be done with it. No, I must point out another item. It might merit an oh-well shrug from Mr. Matthews, but it's worth mentioning.

It's a list of over 200 of Guevara's victims [PDF] - just the ones between 1957-1959 as documented by the Free Society Project. Che reportedly admitted to sending at least 2,500 to "The Wall" during his campaign of terror.

There's a reason the color of Communist "revolution" is red. The prison of evil it creates is painted with the blood of innocents.