Afghanistan

Previewing the President's speech tonight, NBC's Matt Lauer invited on Karl Rove, on Tuesday's Today show, and pressed the former White House senior adviser if the reason Afghanistan still required the U.S.'s attention is because the previous administration "took its eye off the ball in Afghanistan," and "concentrated too heavily on Iraq." Rove hit back, accusing Lauer and Bush administration…

Serving as a stenographer to Obama operatives trying to magnify the import of the President's schedule for the week, CBS anchor Katie Couric on Monday night trumpeted: White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel says this will be an 'historic week in an already historic year,' with the Afghanistan decision, the Senate opening debate today on a health care reform bill, and the President's schedule jam…

A week after calling Barack Obama "Carteresque," Chris "Tingles Up My Leg" Matthews said the former object of his affection is "Too much Chamberlain and not enough Churchill."I'm honestly not sure which is worse -- being compared to Jimmy Carter or World War II appeaser Neville Chamberlain.Regardless, I guess Matthews really has lost that lovin' feeling. As the discussion about the President's…

Want to understand the liberal mind?  Check out Daily Kos creator Markos Moulitsas on this evening's Schultz show . . Why does Kos say he hates the Taliban?  Because they aided and abetted Osama Bin Laden in the murder of thousands of Americans?  Nope.  That they are actively engaged in killing American troops in Afghanistan? Guess again.  No, the Taliban's real crime—the only complaint Kos…

On Wednesday’s Good Morning America, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos highlighted House Democrats’ opposition to any troop increase in Afghanistan on budget grounds, but did not address the inconsistency of this position, since most of these congressmen support spending hundreds of billions on health care “reform.”Before bringing up the budget issue, Stephanopoulos preemptively apologized for…

Speaking with Brookings Institution analyst Michael O’Hanlon on Tuesday about President Obama’s upcoming decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, CBS Early Show co-host Harry Smith worried: “...how much is this going to cost him on the Left? Because I’m – I’ve got this sense that there will be people on the Left of President Obama who are not pleased by this.”Despite representing a…

At this point, there should be little doubt that there is a concerted attempt underway to use the war in Afghanistan as a justification for punitively taxing high earners. Last weekend (noted at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), the New York Times discovered that wars cost money. It cited Wisconsin Democratic Congressman David Obey's concern that funding the Afghanistan effort at the level requested…

You've got to hand it to the propagandists at the AFP. When heavy-hitting members of the party they favor announce an idea whose main purpose is, as the New York Times suddenly "discovered" last weekend, to remind people that wars cost money and distract from supposedly more important priorities, the wire service leaps into action. Even AFP acknowledges that the tax proposal by several top-tier…

Really, who knew? In what appears to be the opening round of a rearguard action against what leftists used to call "the good war" (only because they felt they needed to pretend they had pro-war bona fides to make their anti-Iraq War arguments look stronger to the general populace), the New York Times's Christopher Drew reported last Saturday for the Sunday print edition that sending more troops…

The Washington Post's Anne Kornblut (saved here in case her report is modified or disappears) captured a comment Obama made to U.S troops at Osan Air Base in South Korea while heading back to Washington after his Asian trip. I believe that the comment (bolded) could be seen as shining a less than flattering light on the president's mindset: Obama arrived on the base 3:19 p.m. local time (1 a.m.…

Citing an interview the President gave to White House correspondent Chip Reid, at the top of Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith declared: “An outraged President Obama says heads may roll when he returns from Asia, telling CBS News he’s furious over leaks about Afghanistan.” The leaks in question have highlighted the administration’s inaction on the war. Rather than press the…

On CBS’s Sunday Morning, New York Daily News Washington correspondent James Meek related President Obama’s visit to the graves of Iraq and Afghanistan war dead at Arlington National Cemetery: “Now, cynics may say this was just an Obama photo-op. But they weren’t there looking him in the eye. I saw a man fully carrying the heavy burden of command on a weighty day.”In an article Meeks wrote for the…

In an interview published November 11 at Salon.com, titled, "Woody Harrelson on war, death, LBJ and Obama," by Andrew O'Hehir, actor Woody Harrelson, who stars in the new film, The Messenger, recounts his conspiracy theory that America invaded Afghanistan not because of the 9/11 attacks, but because Chevron wanted to overthrow the Taliban and build an oil pipeline. Harrelson:The guys from Chevron…

News that President Barack Obama is demanding new Afghanistan options and answers, after months and eight meetings with top officials on General Stanley McChrystal's request for more troops, led ABC anchor Charles Gibson to express exasperation Thursday night: “What new questions are there to be asked after all this time?” CBS and NBC, however, weren't so dubious. Though Katie Couric painted “a…