Hardball

John O'Neill, the Vietnam veteran who debated John Kerry in 1971 on the Dick Cavett show, is out with a book calling into question Kerry's war record. He was on Hardball with Chris Matthews on Thursday evening. At one point, after a few long diatribes against Kerry, he whined to Matthews about being repeatedly cut off. Here's the whole transcript: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5694561/
Here's the portion of the transcript where O'Neill gets bitch-slapped by Matthews:

MATTHEWS: All of this is true. And you‘re building a case against the guy
on behalf of a guy running for president with absolutely no military experience
in the field. So what is the point?

O‘NEILL: First of all, when you start off with the assumption everything is
true and refuse to allow it to be questioned...

MATTHEWS: No, I listened to every point you made, but the main
point...

O‘NEILL: You haven‘t let me talk about most of them. We talked about his
first Purple...

MATTHEWS: You talked about each one.

O‘NEILL: His first Purple...

MATTHEWS: One of the oldest tricks on this show is for somebody to come on
the show after talking for 20 minutes and say they haven‘t had the chance to
talk.

O‘NEILL: Well, the first...

MATTHEWS: I‘ll be glad to clock you, John...

O‘NEILL: OK.

MATTHEWS: ... on how many minutes you spoke on the show. So don‘t try that
old trick. It is a particularly conservative trick, OK?

So let‘s move on here.

What is the main thrust of it? You‘re saying that all of this is smoke, the
guy is not a hero.

O‘NEILL: You‘re right. I‘m saying...

MATTHEWS: All smoke?

O‘NEILL: I‘m saying that the third Purple Heart was another self-inflicted
wound. I‘m saying he lied about the Bronze Star. And I‘m saying that you, Chris,
could read the documents yourself, if you would take the time.

MATTHEWS: And his crewmen back him up and the Navy backs him up.

(CROSSTALK)

O‘NEILL: Wrong.

MATTHEWS: And you‘re it‘s all...

O‘NEILL: Wrong, Chris. The Navy, his actual commanders, virtually all say
that those awards were improperly issued.

MATTHEWS: Why am I reading these citations all day from the Navy?

What are you talking about? They don‘t exist?

O‘NEILL: Well, wait just a second. What you‘ve done is...

MATTHEWS: I read the citation for the Bronze. I read it for the Silver.
I‘ve studied up on the Purples. And you‘re saying all this is smoke, that he‘s
not really a hero of any kind.

I went to CSPAN's website but could only find a clip of the Dick Cavett show from 1971, not a transcript. I think that this debate between O'Neill and Kerry shows a lot about the motivations of each one. You can judge for yourself.