Cuba

Surprising news that President Obama would normalize relations with Cuba by establishing full diplomatic relations while easing restrictions excited reporters and editorial writers at the New York Times, who saw the demise of the "dinosaurs" and "aging...hard-liners" who opposed liberalizing ties to the authoritarian Cuban government.

Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas is exultant that we are “finally moving on” from the embargo “despite the wailing and teeth gnashing of the [Marco] Rubios and [Bob] Menendezes of the world, and the new generation of Cuban Americans is leading the way.”

On Thursday night, NBC continued to shower praise in the direction of President Barack Obama’s move to normalize relations with the communist country of Cuba and brush off any criticism of the policy shift.  NBC Nightly News had two additional segments on Cuba that, with a tease in the program’s opening, totaled 5 minutes and 12 seconds, but only 28 seconds of that involved mentioning those…

World News anchor David Muir on Wednesday scored an exclusive interview with Barack Obama to talk about normalizing relations with Cuba. While Muir offered a couple pointed questions about the poor human rights record of the communist nation, he mostly lobbed softballs. 

Kudos are in order for the Daily Beast's Michael Daly and his attention to how "Cuba Protects America’s Most Wanted." While many in the liberal media are uncritically heralding President Obama's push for normalized relations with the Communist dictatorship, Mr. Daly points out the matter of how the Castro regime has granted asylum for American fugitives from justice.

On Wednesday, David Gergen ranked a supposed foreign policy accomplishment of President Obama higher than the killing of Osama bin Laden during CNN's special coverage of the Democrat's "historic..decision to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba." Gergen contended that "ultimately, he's going to be judged very favorably by history...on climate change. It probably is the most significant…

During the five minutes of coverage that Thursday's NBC Today provided on President Obama reopening diplomatic relations with Cuba, only twenty-three seconds was devoted to critics of the controversial move. In addition, the only opponent featured was Republican Senator Marco Rubio, despite Democratic Senator Robert Menendez equally condemning the presidential action.

Those who rail at Fox News for allegedly being a haven of unbridled, uninterrupted conservatism usually and conveniently fail to remember that Shepard Smith is there. Smith's take yesterday on the potential pitfalls of a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations, particularly on the commercial front, was nothing short of astonishing. His primary fear, expressed in an interview with Gerri Willis of the Fox…

The journalists of Good Morning America on Thursday cheered Barack Obama's efforts to "help thaw a Cold War" and offered little in the way of criticism for the President's actions to normalize relations with Cuba. Reporter Jim Avila hyped, "Well soon many more Americans will be able to hop a plane to Havana, take a tour, even legally buy one of those famous cigars."

On Thursday, CBS This Morning interviewed Colin Powell, former Secretary of State and supporter of President Obama, to discuss whether or not the president made the right call in normalizing relations between the United States and Cuba. Despite Powell being an open supporter of Obama, CBS ignored his close ties to the president. Instead, co-host Charlie Rose introduced him by noting how “…

It's good that we live in a country where citizens feel free to criticize elected officials to their face.  Just wondering, though: when was the last time that freedom was exercised on MSNBC to tell a Dem official that something he said was "inane?" On today's Morning Joe, Donny Deutsch angrily asked Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Miami "why do you say an inane thing like that?" Deutsch's…

In the lead editorial for Thursday’s paper, The Washington Post blasted President Barack Obama’s decision to move toward normalized relations with the communist regime in Cuba as “naive” in awarding “an undeserved bailout” and “new lease on life” to “a 50-year-old failed regime.”

The Esquire blogger is pleased that with Obama’s executive action on immigration and the shift on Cuba, “the Republicans now have two major freak-outs in their base that will do nothing except inflame the implacable Right, and thereby cripple the party's ability to reach out to the new Hispanic voters it claims it wants to attract.”

Following the trend set when news broke early Wednesday, the major broadcast networks continued their praising of the move by President Obama to seek normalized relations with Cuba on their Wednesday night newscasts.  Between the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC, they made only a few, brief mentions over the course of their 30-minute programs that Cuba was both a communist country and brutal in…