On his show Tuesday night, MSBNC host Chris Matthews said Republicans would have blamed the September 11 terror attacks on President Barack Obama if he were in office at the time.

The liberal TV host began by calling on Republicans to stop blaming Obama for failing to clean up the mess they created during the Bush administration. He also accused Republicans of stoking so-called birther conspiracies about Obama.

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“Imagine if Democrats played this rough,” Matthews said. “Imagine if they blamed the Republican Party for a failure of national security on the eve of 9/11? Does anyone doubt they’d have done it to the Democrats had the horrible attacks occurred on Obama’s watch? Really. Can’t you hear the birthers and tea partiers gyrating with righteous indignation over that one?”

He said Republicans were “dying” for voters to “reward them for the single virtue of having lost the last election so they didn’t have to be here cleaning up the mess they left behind.”

Watch video, courtesy of MSNBC, below:

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