Politics & Power Quote by Chris Matthews

The candor here is almost accidental, the kind that slips out when Washington talk stops pretending it has a moral philosophy and admits it has a playbook. Matthews is defending a particular kind of meddling by shrinking it into a category: “not against all opposition,” “not against all paramilitary operations.” The phrasing is bureaucratic on purpose. It doesn’t argue that the contras were righteous; it argues that the U.S. reserves the right to pick favorites in other people’s civil wars.

The subtext is the Cold War’s moral laundering system. “Opposition to government” sounds like democracy’s heartbeat until you remember the government in question might be elected, and the “opposition” might be armed, externally funded, and implicated in atrocities. “Paramilitary operations” is the tell: a euphemism that turns violence into policy, like calling a punch a “kinetic option.” Matthews’ line normalizes covert power by treating it as a generic tool rather than a scandalous exception.

Context matters because “supporting the contras” isn’t an abstract exercise. It evokes Reagan-era Central America, Iran-Contra, and the broader U.S. habit of framing intervention as anti-tyranny while operating through proxies precisely to dodge democratic accountability at home. The quote’s intent is to keep the door open: if you concede this was wrong in principle, you jeopardize a whole foreign-policy tradition.

What makes it work is its chilling pragmatism. It’s not asking you to admire the contras; it’s asking you to accept the premise that America’s legitimacy includes sponsoring irregular war when it suits the story we’re telling ourselves.