Here's Matthews, Howard Fineman and Pat Buchanon's comments on Friday night concerning Ron Reagan's comments. Here's the link and some excerpts:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5210596/CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC ANCHOR: ...You know, Ron Reagan is something else, isn‘t he?
HOWARD FINEMAN, NBC CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: He really is.
I didn‘t get to know President Reagan well. I covered him. I met him, chit-chatted with him. But Ronnie Reagan, if you know the son, you know the father. And Ron Reagan is one of the most unaffected, most genuine, most direct and charming people that I‘ve ever met in politics and public life, a guy with enormous potential and great leadership and speaking ability, which he showed tonight.
This whole pageant of the week is a combination of a family story and a national story and a historical moment in time. And everything in this country is seen through the eyes of family. That‘s the way we operate in America. And this family became an emblem for all of us and a way for all of us not only to share in their grief, but to remember what is essential about our country and that, ultimately, freedom and family are joined together.
And I thought Ronnie Reagan expressed that beautifully and was able also to make gentle political points without seeming to be doing it, which was another hallmark of his dad, who was ever gentle, but always on point.
BUCHANAN:...I thought Ron‘s eulogy for his father demonstrated tremendous poise, and the reserved—and the words were beautiful, and they were spoken, and it was almost poetry.
And they were spoken not in sort of a declamation, but simply almost in a conversational tone and slowly. And I thought it was a very, very memorable eulogy, especially the clothes and the image that he presented of the kind of heaven that he sees for his father.
Much later in the show
MATTHEWS: ... I loved Ron Reagan‘s talk tonight. We‘ll hear from more of that later tonight.
A little later
FINEMAN: I‘m studying Ronnie Reagan, because he‘s the one I know.
MATTHEWS: Right.
FINEMAN: And I‘m just fascinated by him. He is our colleague here. And I‘ve gotten to know him a little bit, the most self-assured, relaxed, unaffected, yet devastatingly effective speaker.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FINEMAN: This is—he has the knack that his father had, which was, in the most genial way, to be utterly devastating. People would not know that they had been relieved of their...
MATTHEWS: Oh, do you want to see that now?
FINEMAN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Let‘s see that now.
This is a moment in which this wonderful eulogy by Ron Reagan, the son, offered the president. It‘s quite a serious moment. We‘re trying to get the tape ready now. But it was about the point of the feeling that President Reagan got after the attempted assassination, when he came back from that surviving it with a sense if not of destiny, of duty, of duty.
Let‘s take a look at how Ron Reagan portrayed that feeling.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RON REAGAN: Dad was also a deeply, unabashedly religious man. But he never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage. True, after he was shot and nearly killed early in his presidency, he came to believe that God had spared him in order that he might do good. But he accepted that as a responsibility, not a mandate. And there is a profound difference.
Humble as he was, he never would have assumed a free pass to heaven.
But in his heart of hearts, I suspect he felt he would be welcome there.
And so he is home. He is free.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Well, we heard the punch, didn‘t we.
Howard, explain the punch.
FINEMAN: Yes. And I would like to amend my former criticism of the week of pageantry for not having included a Democrat and a liberal.
MATTHEWS: And a dissent.
FINEMAN: And a dissent. There it was.
MATTHEWS: What was the dissent?
FINEMAN: Well, he was basically, without naming George W. Bush, I think, taking direct aim at him, because the president has said that he was inspired by and, in a way, told ministers he was chosen by God to lead the country and to lead us on the crusade that we‘re now on.
And I think it‘s fair to say, at least in Ronnie Reagan‘s view, this president wears his faith on his sleeve. And I thought that was a not-so-subtle, but classically Reaganesque critique, this time from the other side back.
MATTHEWS: Well, Ronald Reagan is an independent, but, clearly, I agree with the implied criticism that‘s there.
Yes, Patrick.
BUCHANAN: To be more specific than that, I think what this is a young Ron Reagan‘s direct, targeted thrust at what has been called the Armageddonites, those who believe with the president that this is God‘s work that he‘s doing in the Middle East and in the Iraq war to remove this retched regime and that that‘s their duty here on Earth.
And I think it was a clear statement that the president, Ronald Reagan Sr., would not be doing this.
MATTHEWS: I‘ll tell you, my hunch is—and it‘s a pure hunch—that this entire family we saw tonight would not be part of this particular cause we‘re involved in right now. But that‘s pure hunch.
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