>> this is the chris matthews show. >> ask not what your country can do for you. >> a time for change has come. chris: the medium is the message. it is 60 years since television began to be the way americans get their politician, and they've never turned back. could the cool immediate yam that made barack obama ever give us an abe lincoln. for good and ill, how would history be different today if tv images had not made michael

dukakis the object of ridicule and if chase had not lamb popped ford as a klutz. and teddy, truics watched him, gradually got to know him. his fears and his real concerns for others. what i discovered about the inner world of the last kennedy. i'm chris matthews. welcome. >> michele norris hosts "all things considered. bill plant from the "cbs news." and andrea mitchell covers foreign affairs for abc and howard fineman is with us. television now nonstop is a vehicle that gives us the news of the day and in many ways, it is what makes leaders and

demolishes and defines the losers. television has changed history because turning points have been played and replayed and now on the internet. let's look at how things have changed in the last 60 years. communism was at one time the number one fear. tv fed that fear but also destroyed the fear amongerer. it brought live hearings into the living room. here's what the lucky few that had tv, joseph mccarthy painting someone as a communist and the response from joseph welsch. >> i use this man's record and i want to say, it has been labeled long before he became a member, as early as 1944 -- >> have you no sense of decency, sir. at long last have you left no

sense of decency. >> when i came home from school in the afternoon, those hearings were on television. the mccarthy hearings. the first time we saw joe mccarthy in action. and he was going after a guy and what happened? >> is the television show, revealed mccarthy for the bully he was. and it showed the consequences of this. and those hearings dramatized that for the american public. >> the important thing, though, it was several years before those hearings actually took place. for all of those years, people re being destroyed. >> and the disinfectant of television came after that. chris: television went from one of every 10 to the got to have it essential in nine of 10 by the 1960's.

we saw vietnam in a way no human had ever witnessed war before. and at the democratic convention in chicago, riots in the streets outside the hall between protesters and the chicago police became the big story on tv, inside senator abe ribicoff tried to say it was all about mayor daley's cops. >> we wouldn't have to have gestapo tactics in the streets of chicago. >> michele, everybody thinks that killed the democrats in 1968. >> you see daley lip read later and you look another what he said and it was not kind at that moment. while they were showing pictures of the police man handling the protesters. r-, the protesters knew they were watching.

many people involved in the protests said then certain that the american public would be repulsed by what they saw. in fact, the opposite happened. the majority of people were repulsed by the anti-war movement. more repulsed by that than the treatment of those protesters at the hands of the police. >> for dick daley and the democratic machine, it had this exposed on national television. they were not used to the sunlight. chris: the national nightmare of vietnam gave way to watergate. hundreds of hours of house and senate hearings and 85% of americans were watching. here's a key moment. >> from 1970 then and until the present time all of the president's conversations and the officers mentioned and telephones mentioned were recorded, as far as you know? >> that's correct until -- until i left. >> now alexander butterfield, we're watching live television,

bill, and somebody says, guess what? >> what a bombshell. the watergate hearings might have amounted to very little, certainly not led to the resignation of a president but for the fact on national television, if everybody to see, a white house official says, well, there are these tape recorders. wait a minute. now we know what the president actually said. of course years later we heard the president say those things. chris: it is an vent that happened because of television because the pressure cooker of the hearings and practically every american watching at the time, somehow stuff happened. stories percolate out. >> it was a turning point also because unlike the mccarthy hearings which are entertaining in their own way, this is a case where the people asking these questions understood the power of the media much more. >> it was kind of the first reality series. it was so engrossing for so long, that it became woven into the nab i think rick of american

life the way few -- fabric of american life in the way few others did. chris: jimmy carter had these images. the capture of the members in tehran and held hostage for 444 days. every night ted koppel. >> the hostages were eventually released at the stroke of the swearing in and so jimmy carter had to go over as a former president and escort them back -- it was -- it was the most compelling. nightline was born out that -- out of this. it made the president. it diminished the presidency. it made the president seem wea and if you talk about the malaise, there never was a malaise speech. it was that drum beat of the president held hostage could not campaign for the election. chris: it was embarrassing. it was so embarrassing to be, to

be involved in the administration that couldn't do anything about this. >> the whole sense of -- of the embarrassment permeated the campaign as well. it wasn't until the last few weeks of the campaign that it became fairly clear that are not aled reagan was going to win. it was the hostage situation that overhung those last two weeks more than anything else. chris: the turning point that marked the beginning of the new century was september 11th. if every american back in 1941 knew where they were when they heard the news of pearl hasher on the radio, everybody today knows the horifying pictures. >> it is horifying to look at the pictures. what people remember is the buildings coming down and people walking around dazed. what it created was a collective sense fr and vulnerability, and in a country that prides itself on strength of character, that was an uncomfortable position for a lot of people.

their personal security was in question. what rose out of that was a collective sense of patriotism that imbued american politician and in some way innoculated the bush presidency from criticism. >> i watched this through the eyes of my kids as well. for the millennium generation, it is a deep herb and more searing thing that defines the adult tuds toward politician. chris: we turn to the way tv has defined politicians. here's one, as the vice presidental candidate back in 1952, a young richard nixon was attacked by a newspaper columnist for maintaining a slush fund. he was the first to use the new medium of tv to go over the heads of newspaper writers in their living rooms. he nailed his defense with this. >> one other thing i probably should tell you, because if i don't, thee probably be saying this about me too. we did get something, a gift,

after the election. a imagine down in texas heard pat on the radio mention our two youngsters would like to have a dog. black and white, spotted. and our little girl, the 6-year-old named checkers. regardless of what they say about t we're going to keep it. chris: brilliant use of the word they. he's talking on the tube to the biggest audience in history, up against us and the media. it was brilliant. >> the vice president knew there was a lot of pressure on president eisenhower to dump him for the second-term. so he gets on there and acts human. in a way that people can relate to. talking about his two small children and a dog. it was a brilliant performance. it sealed his -- chris: it is funny, because he didn't learn the lesson of how powerful television was. we'll see anyway.

in 2004, with television everywhere, barack obama used his keynote at the democratic convention in 2004 to vault from nowhere to an overnight sensation. >> i stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger american story, that i owe a debt too all of those that came before me and that in no other country on earth is my story even possible. chris: howard, what did you think when you watched that on division? >> we were there in boston for that. i don't think anybody in that city thought this guy would not be president someday. that was the attitude. it was a bombshell. he was so care -- careries matich and had hope for the future and that's what people thought. >> and before that event on television we all had different preconceptions. chris: i think it changed reality. >> completely changed reality, the fact he would be the star coming out of the convention, this very little known

african-erican, first-term senator. chris: he wasn't a senator yet. >> at the time, he wasn't a senator. they were giving him the platform. the fact that we looked at him and we were looking at the set together and he's a future star. none of us were brilliant enough to say 2008. >> many people were surprised by that, the people that knew him then and were close to him and actually talked to him. he recognized that in himself. >> politician is about time and seizing the moment. he did it on tv. chris: the galloping horse of history. you must mount it as it goes by. and how tv brought down the biggest may it please the court in politician. faster than you can say photo op.

chris: welcome back to our look at television and how it has shaped politician for 60 years now. now the horror stories. michael dukakis was brought down to a crushing defeat when he lost to the first president bush. the republicans used tv to character ties him as a hopeless liberal. >> his revolving door furlough policy gave weekend furloughs to murders. >> michael dukakis has opposed every defense system we developed and now he wants to be our commander and chief. america can't afford that risk. chris: the ads repeateded again and again. >> on that very day, dukakis went to chicago and gabe a defense policy speech, which would have been what ball of us covered that night from the democratic part of the campaign. instead, he then chose to get

into that tank. that's the image. it looked like snoopy with a helmet. and that is the image that absolutely is impresented in everyone's mind. atwater saw it. i was talking to him at that moment. i said we, got him. chris: what is the reality? the fact we have the guy that wasn't cool, with the helmet on and everything or was it just brilliant advertising by roger els in the case to put together the ads. >> the dukakis people gave them that moment by putting him in the tank instead of letting the media concentrate on his defense speeches. chris: i think there must have been 0 -- a thing on the tank, saying "wear helmet. >> and dukakis' backers did the same thing to kerry that his father had done to dukakis. >> john kerry has not been honest about what happened in

vietnam. >> it became a verb, to take a politician's strength and turn it into a weakness. there's a question whether this was a smear campaign or are you just playing hardball in american politician. what you saw there was effective advertising, that really took down a political candidate, but what you also saw, was an ineffective response. what people saw in all of those people that allegedly served with him were someone that looked like the people that they knew at the v.f.w. hall. >> they manipulated the image that those soldiers were getting. >> it is important to remember that much of what they said, was proven tony blair untrue or misrepresented. chris: then there was what tv did to bring down bush when he was photograph m.d. two unguarded moments after hurricane katrina. first the white house photo of the president flying over the scene three days after katrina hit and then this. this is his first visit several days later. >> you're doing a heck of a job.

fema director is working 24 hours. chris: howard? >> i wrote the newsweek cover story on that. it was the juxtaposition of the frat house george bush ignorantly praising this bureaucrat and the television scenes of what was going on in new orleans and louisiana and the gulf coast and the aim gs of -- images of people there juxtaposed against him. >> i saw those images. it was two or three weeks after the people left the city. >> ground level and helicopter shots. >> reality marries sometimes. >> anoer politician that was ruined by tv was sarah palin. tv helped her go from zero to 60 at the convention, she was finally forced to do interviews. she ran smack into katie couric. >> what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you tapped for this -- to stay

informed and to understand the world. >> i read most of them with great appreciation for the press and the media. -- >> what specifically? >> all of them. any of them that -- have -- been in front of me over all of these years. >> could you name a few? >> i have a vast variety of sources where we get our news. chris: and what do you make of that? >> it is brilliant because katie couric was asking what do you read? if there's not a got you moment in that question, her mod lation. it was perfectly framed interview. chris: how did it hurt sarah palin? >> it hurt as exposing her as not based on any substance and not ready for prime time. not ready to run as a national candidate. chris: we'll be back with

chris: welcome back. there are a few turning points

in politician, where the image clashed with the words. for one, the kennedy-nixon debate. people watching this saw a completely different thing that people listening on radio, people that thought nixon won on substance. and television declared nixon a loser because of how he looked. absolutely right. the kennedy people knew about that. they knew nixon did not ask for makeup and john kennedy got makeup. they were happy about toee -- to talk about it. chris: another time when tv images hurt was bush. he thought he did great when he strode to the microphone in front of the mission acmished banner. but it was premature.

>> they took the phrase mission accomplished out of the speech. they fixed the speech but it remained there on the big banner behind them. and it was obviously a premature declaration of victory. >> the white house tried to blame it on the navy at first. >> the director of the show, caught that par of the story. >> we were captivated by that image. the coverage was top gun. so that felt good to bush at the time but it ended up having a -- an opposite reaction. chris: be right back.

[captioning made possible by nbc universal] [captioning made possible by nbc universal] >> chris: back in the early 1970's, i would sit in the back of senate hearing rooms. i would be fascinated by any sight of senator edward kennedy, the surviving brother of thewo incredible figures, jack and bobby kennedy. i noticed how every time someone would enter the hearing room, the last brother would keep his eyes on them. i couldnderstand why, how could he know? how could he ever know who his lee harvey oswald or his sirhan would be? these were unknown people watching from a distance. this is how he lived all of those years after 1963 and 196

after dallas and los angeles. and on the lookout. that's why he took so many different routes from his office across the street to the u.s. capitol. never the same ruth. varying his routine to give him that little edge against horror. and republican allan simpson we buicked kennedy, saying that person could not possibly have endure whad kennedy had to endure. and still perform day in and day out and certainly not at such a high level of political excellence. actually simpson was a lit m tougher but you get the point. there's another thing about ted kennedy that nobody seems to get. the guy, we know his flaws really did care about other people. i saw on numerous occasions he made a point to see that some bewildered person got a seat or calling somebody like me when we were sick. he was a kennedy and had to live up to that, his historic

brothers, imagine that and then he had to survive and live with survival and the grief and the specter. here's the better tribute. he was born a human being, a recognizable one at that who looked all the better closer up.