Foreign Policy

The Washington Post’s editorial board slammed the Obama administration Thursday evening over the framework for additional negotiations with Iran concerning its nuclear program that “fall well short of the goals originally set by the Obama administration” and would allow Iran to “instantly become a threshold nuclear state.” Set to run in the Friday print edition of the newspaper, the editorial…

On Thursday night, ABC and NBC cheered the “historic” agreement of an outline for continued talks with Iran and declared that “the United States could be entering a new era in its relationship” with the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reflected on the “18 months of tough negotiations” that “end[ed] with an all-nighter” with the possibility that “the United States…

On Wednesday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Scott Pelley devoted a few moments after a news brief on the Iran deal negotiations to explaining the centuries-long divide between the Shia and Sunni branches of Islam and, in the process, also took time to reflect on President Barack Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo. After noting that the negotiations are taking place “against a backdrop of a disintegrating…

On Monday, as has been their habit going back at least to the Clinton administration, Investor's Business Daily's editorialists once again broke a story the establishment press likely could have reported years ago. IBD revealed that the Obama administration "was secretly negotiating the Taliban Five's release without (Bowe) Bergdahl." IBD reasonably believes that coming up with any reason to get…

Sometimes you just want to shake the TV and say "enough with the cutesy facial expressions, already: spit it out, Mika!"  Morning Joe mavens will know what I mean: Mika Brzezinski has the annoying habit of letting a series of sighs, raised eyebrows and facial tics substitute for a clear articulation of her position on a given issue. There was a prime example of the phenomenon on today's show,…

On Tuesday, NBC’s chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell took time out of her NBC Nightly News report from Switzerland on the Iranian nuclear talks to hail Secretary of State John Kerry as someone who “doesn’t give up easily” and gush that a local pizzeria in the town where the talks are being held has decided to name “a pizza after him.”

In an exclusive interview with new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie grilled the Pentagon chief on the Bowe Bergdahl exchange: "Do you think that the White House made a mistake in wrapping its arms around Bowe Bergdahl and saying, for example, that he served with honor and distinction, when the administration knew there were at least questions about…

Bush Derangement Syndrome is alive, well, and living in the head of Nancy A. Youssef at the Daily Beast. In a March 26 item tagged "Fallen Hero" (?!) about the Army charging Bowe Bergdahl with "desertion and misbehaving before the enemy," the web site's Senior National Security Correspondent wrote that "the administration celebrated negotiating his release after years of failed bids by both the…

While reporting on Monday’s NBC Nightly News with the latest from the Iranian side of the international talks in Switzerland over their nuclear program, Ann Curry smeared U.S. conservatives by likening them to radical hardliners in Iran’s Islamic regime: “As in the U.S., Iran has conservatives who don't trust the other side and they are ready to pounce if they believe negotiators give up too much…

Not even a lifeline could have helped her . . . There was a telling moment on today's Morning Joe when Joe Scarborough challenged April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks to cite some of President Obama's foreign-policy successes. Ryan was reduced to replying "that's kind of tough. Hmm, that's a tough one . . . I have to really ponder that."    

One of the first rules of genuine comedy is that to be funny, a joke or skit needs to have some basis in truth. On that primary measurement, the cold open on "Saturday Night Live" last night failed miserably on so many fronts, it's hard to know where to begin. Its most offensive aspect is its portrayal of a Democrat inflicting violence on three Republicans to the audience's pleausre. It is…

Many people fantasize about what they’d try to accomplish if they were president of the United States. Some even write it down, and a few publish their thoughts, as Moore did earlier this week in the 150th-anniversary issue of The Nation. A few of the ítems on Moore’s list of twenty seem to be meant humorously (e.g., “free HBO for everyone”) but he’s serious about the clear majority of them,…

Mark Halperin just compared the way Hillary has been foisted on Dem voters to the empty "choices" that Cubans have when it comes to their leaders. On this evening's With All Due Respect, when Dem strategist Steve McMahon claimed that Dems are happy with "the" choice they have in the person of Hillary,  Halperin retorted "like the way Cuban voters are happy with their choices."

Employing a variant of the old surgeon's joke — "The operation was a success, but the patient died" — White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, on friendly ground on MSNBC this morning, essentially told viewers that the administration still considers Yemen a success, even as its government is on the fast track to being forced into indefinite exile. Earnest told the "Morning Joe" show's Mika…