Fareed Zakaria

A rather extraordinary thing happened on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday.

The host actually defended Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney from the media's proclivity to take his statements "entirely out of context" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

New York Times reporter Mark Landler’s lead story for Saturday’s National section boosted Obama (and slapped down Mitt Romney) via the unlikely topic of the president's reading material: “Obama Buttresses Case for U.S. Resilience With Book From Unlikely Source.” Landler reveled in what he called a "delicious coincidence for the White House."

When Senator Barack Obama was photographed clutching a copy of “The Post-American World” as he left his campaign plane during the Democratic primaries in May 2008, some critics viewed it as a telling sign that he embraced a view of the United States as a waning world power.

CNN's liberal anchor Fareed Zakaria whacked Republicans in an interview clip that aired on CNN Friday, asserting that the GOP primary "wants people to say incendiary things." Zakaria's full interview with faux-conservative presidential candidate Jon Huntsman will air Sunday on Fareed Zakaria GPS.

Zakaria set the table for Huntsman, the liberal media's favorite GOP candidate, to blister the rhetoric of the GOP field as unsustainable. "[T]here is a market for people to say slightly outrageous things," Zakaria noted of the GOP primary. "So you just refuse to say those kinds of incendiary things?" he asked of Huntsman. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

The European Union might completely fall apart any day now as the countries in that region implode under their massive debt.

Despite this, CNN's Fareed Zakaria offered another America-hating love letter to the struggling continent Sunday actually claiming, "The American dream seems to be thriving in Europe not at home" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

After his much-publicized interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week, CNN's Fareed Zakaria thinks America has to change its attitude towards one of its biggest enemies.

On Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday, the host began the show declaring "Obama's Iran policy looks a lot like George W. Bush's - pressure and more pressure," and that "Obama should return to his original approach and test the Iranians to see if there is any room for dialogue and agreement" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As the media did a victory lap over Friday's announcement by President Obama that all American troops would be removed from Iraq by the end of the year, Fareed Zakaria took a surprisingly contrary position.

Speaking from Tehran with a variety of CNN hosts throughout the day, Zakaria said this development was a disappointment for the United States and a victory for Iran (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Barack Obama took a lot of heat last week for saying America has "gotten a little soft."

Not from Fareed Zakaria who when not advising the president on foreign policy acts as one of his propaganda czars every Sunday on CNN (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Fareed Zakaria got more than he bargained for in his Sunday interview with guest Donald Rumsfeld.

As he pushed the former Secretary of Defense on America's need to cut military spending, the "GPS" host blushed when Rumsfeld smartly said, "There are people who think we're living in the post-American world, to coin a phrase. There are people who believe that we should step back and lead from behind" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It certainly wasn't a Paul Krugman moment, but is the tenth anniversary of the biggest attack on our mainland a good time to say, "Fifty years from now, we might even look at 9/11 as simply the beginning of the decline of America?"

That's what Fareed Zakaria said Sunday on the CNN program bearing his name (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Sometimes I wonder how liberal media members could possibly live in the same country as I do and hold such startlingly absurd ideas about it.

Take for example Fareed Zakaria who on the CNN program bearing his name this Sunday is going to tell viewers that America would likely still have a AAA credit rating if we had a parliamentary system of government with a prime minister rather than a president (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Liberals need to grow up and stop criticizing President Obama.

So said Fareed Zakaria Sunday on the CNN program bearing his name (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Oh those whacky liberals.

On Sunday's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," New York Times columnist - and, ahem, Nobel laureate - Paul Krugman actually advocated space aliens attack earth thereby requiring a massive defense buildup by the United States that would stimulate the economy (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Fareed Zakaria made it quite clear last summer that he supported the construction of the Ground Zero mosque. He was much more neutral in an interview with the mosque's developer Sunday, but was content to let his guest tell his side of the story without any scrutiny from the CNN host.

Although the once-proposed mosque is no longer making headlines, Zakaria decided anyway to feature the mosque's developer Sharif El-Gamal for a soft interview one year after the controversy ignited. El-Gamal received fawning coverage by CBS and NBC last summer for his work.

[Video below the break.]

UPDATE AT END OF POST: AOL HuffPo responds.

Joining our growing list of media members willing to flat out lie on national television to advance their political agendas is Arianna Huffington who falsely claimed this week that securities firm JPMorgan warned its clients the debt ceiling agreement "is going to reduce our growth by a point-and-a-half."

Such was dishonestly said during a segment of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" aired Sunday (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Thursday's The Situation Room, Fareed Zakaria said the tactics used by Tea Party congressmen in the debt ceiling debate were akin to holding the country hostage and threatening to "blow up" the economy.

"So nobody has ever held a country hostage and say [sic] if you don't pass our policies, we'll blow up the economy, we'll blow up the credibility of the United States," Zakaria remarked on CNN Thursday. He called the recent debt ceiling fight "unprecedented" and slammed the Tea Party for its refusal to compromise.

[Video below the break.]

In a "Fareed Zakaria GPS" segment to be aired on CNN Sunday and posted at the network's website Thursday, the host flat out lies about the current debt ceiling debate as well as when and why credit rating agencies began expressing concern about our nation's finances.

"Please understand that none of these things are happening because the United States is running deficits," Zakaria falsely claims. "We face downgrades and investor panic not because of our deficits" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Fareed Zakaria Thursday called the debt ceiling battle a "sideshow" caused by the Tea Party.

Appearing on "In the Arena" as a supposed "astute observer of the economy," Zakaria proceeded to bungle economic and historic facts like a high school dropout (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Eliot Spitzer used his last day at CNN to take a shot at cable news and decry the debt ceiling debate as a "new low for American politics" – although he himself was embroiled in an ugly scandal as governor of New York only three years ago. And he made sure to include a lengthy Constitutional conversation with two of his favorite guests, liberals Fareed Zakaria and Simon Schama.

Schama, a professor of History at Columbia University, has criticized the Tea Party's reverence for the Founders' "infallibility," and snorted that they believed the Constitution to be "quasi-biblical revelation." The Columbia University professor wrote in a June 26 Newsweek piece that "True history is the enemy of reverence."

CNN foreign affairs analyst Fareed Zakaria – who has recently had off-the-record conversations with President Obama on foreign issues – noted the president's "restraint" in his dealing with the "Arab Spring" and the conflict in Libya Wednesday. Zakaria previously gave a thumbs-up for Obama's Mideast speech in May and later defended the president's plan for removing American troops from Afghanistan.

The point-of-note is that this is the same analyst whom, according to the New York Times, President Obama "sounded out" while shaping his foreign policy. The two simply had "off-the-record" conversations on foreign issues, according to Zakaria, and the CNN host claimed he was not an advisor to the President.

There are times when the idiocy oozing from the mouths of America's television commentators sickens me.

Consider Fareed Zakaria, who after telling NPR Friday, "CNN is getting smarter," actually said on the program bearing his name two days later that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire "would provide the federal government with $3.9 trillion in revenues over the next decade and basically solve the deficit problem" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Fareed Zakaria made a bit of a Kinsley gaffe Friday.

On NPR's "Morning Edition," Zakaria said, "The people who watch Fox are not going to watch CNN...Our competitors should properly be The New York Times, the BBC, NPR" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Continuing his push to "modernize the Constitution for the 21st century" by talking about "a few revisions," CNN's Fareed Zakaria hosted legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin for a liberal gripe session on his Sunday show Fareed Zakaria GPS. Both criticized the current Electoral College and state representation in the Senate, and also slammed the "grammatical mess" that is the Second Amendment.

One of the "kinks" of the American Constitution, Zakaria complained, is that "the Second Amendment is a grammatical mess, whatever you may think of the right to bear arms." This is liberal code for the amendment needs to be "updated" to their standards.

[Video below the break.]

On Wednesday, CNN's "Obama Adviser" aka Fareed Zakaria praised the current White House resident's Afghanistan address as a "remarkable speech for an American president."

On the CNN program bearing his name Sunday, Zakaria continued lavishing praise on our Commander-in-Chief saying, "Obama has basically made the right call" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Journalists in Washington don’t want just to write. They want the top government officials to take their advice, to use their wisdom to govern. Here’s what happens next: a dance between journalist and government official to build a mutually beneficial relationship. The official provides access, makes the journalist feel important and consulted, and then the journalist announces that the official is wise and is making all the right moves.

This is exactly what CNN host and Time columnist Fareed Zakaria has been doing with President Obama. He’s advising Obama (informally, of course) and then going on CNN and declaring the president’s speeches are quite good.  In an interview with Keach Hagey of Politico, Zakaria tried to deflect critics:

Fareed Zakaria, CNN's world affairs analyst, hailed President Obama's Afghanistan speech as a "remarkable speech for an American president" Wednesday and defended the president's decision to ignore the advice of his generals on the target dates for pulling troops out of Afghanistan.

"It was a remarkable speech for an American president in the caution, the strategic emphasis, rather than the idealistic emphasis," sounded Zakaria, no stranger to praising Obama's foreign policy speeches. He lauded the president's May 19 Mideast speech as "remarkably comprehensive" and "fair" and "balanced."

[Video below the break.]

CNN's Fareed Zakaria regurgitated his conservative-bashing Time magazine piece on his Sunday show Fareed Zakaria GPS. He opened up his program with the same barrage against conservatives that he launched in Time on Thursday, namely that today's conservatism is woefully divorced from reality like the Marxists of the 19th century.

Zakaria writes that "conservatives now resemble the old Marxists who refuse to look at actual experience." Instead, he argues, they are hopelessly enamored with "policies that are simply recitations of some free market theory taken out of some book based on no actually-existing national economy."

[Video below the break.]

CNN host Fareed Zakaria, also the editor-at-large for Time magazine, derides today's conservative movement as out-of-touch and too abstract in a scathing Time article "How Today's Conservatism Lost Touch With Reality." He argues, "Conservatives now espouse ideas drawn from abstract principles with little regard to the realities of America's present or past."

Of course, if Zakaria is to paint with broad strokes and dismiss the modern conservative movement as entirely lost and ineffective, the reader would expect him to expound upon his point in detail and provide plenty of facts and evidence to support his thesis. His argument is largely devoid of substantial evidence and filled with debatable historical assumptions.