Foreign Policy

On Tuesday, ABC’s Good Morning America previewed President Obama’s 7th State of the Union address and the network did its best to play up President Obama’s recent unilateral actions aimed at normalizing American relations with Cuba. During a brief report that sounded more like a White House press release, ABC’s Jim Avila insisted that “tonight at the State of the Union President Obama will tell…

Your truly noted yesterday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) how Michael Moore tweeted, in part, that "We were taught snipers were cowards." Earlier today, Geoffrey Dickens at NewsBusters observed that Seth Rogen, whose "The Interview" movie was at least partially salvaged financially by freedom-of-speech supporters on the left and right who watched it online and in person in select areas, tweeted…

The popularity of "American Sniper," the story of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, has "shocked" Hollywood. Estimates are that by the time the four-day Martin Luther King holiday weekend ends, the Clint Eastwood-directed film will gross over $100 million and smash records in several R-rated film categories. That such a movie has been so well received, causing long waiting lines in both red and blue America…

Ann Jones has doubts about allegations that America is “crazy,” but adds, “Some people who question me say that the U.S. is ‘paranoid,’ ‘backward,’ ‘behind the times,’ ‘vain,’ ‘greedy,’ ‘self-absorbed,’ or simply ‘dumb.’  Others, more charitably, imply that Americans are merely ‘ill-informed,’ ‘misguided,’ ‘misled,’ or ‘asleep,’ and could still recover sanity.  But wherever I travel, the…

The nation's establishment press is virtually ignoring the existence of horrifying and officially approved Islamic State videos showing the executions of accused homosexuals and adulterers.  A search this morning at Google News on "Islamic State gay" (with "Islamic State" in quotes, showing duplicates) for items appearing since January 14 returned 83 results. Roughly 30 of them are directly…

On Friday, while all three network morning shows covered Secretary of State John Kerry arriving in Paris to offer U.S. condolences following the recent terrorist attacks, none of the broadcasts mentioned one of the most embarrassing moments in American diplomatic history that occurred during the visit – Kerry bringing musician James Taylor to a press conference to sing "You've Got A Friend" to…

Interesting: Cuba's Bureau of Tourism sponsored a three-minute promo on today's Morning Joe. Oh, wait, no.  That was NBC itself, in the person of Kate Snow, with a smiley, unrelentingly upbeat segment promoting the glories of tourism in Cuba that will now be possible for Americans under President Obama's executive order relaxing former restrictions. Snow's segment—entitled 'Bienvenidos a Cuba'…

Europe has been the target of numerous acts of Muslim terrorism, while its economies suffer and unemployment is rampant.  The United States is still recovering from 9-11 and has been the object of a number of terrorist attacks/attempts since then.  Yet in neither country is there a voice in mainstream television saying that right-wing parties might have a point when they advocate limits on…

The latest report out of Venezuela by the Associated Press's Hannah Dreier has a time stamp of 1:15 p.m. today. This means that the wire service has had plenty of time to report, and has chosen not to report, a powerful pastoral letter issued yesterday by that country's Catholic bishops (original in Spanish; full Google Translation) denouncing that country's descent into a system they described…

"We Blame George W. Bush" is a recurring category in James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" column at the Wall Street Journal.  The meme mocks the penchant of progressives to blame the former president for everything under the sun.   The phenomenon was illustrated in an ugly way on last night's Rachel Maddow Show. Dem Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut blamed the existence of the Charlie Hebdo…

On Monday's CBS This Morning, as Florida Senator Marco Rubio denounced President Obama's decision to reopen diplomatic relations with Cuba, co-host Charlie Rose attempted to push liberal spin on the topic: "But what about the argument that in fact – if in fact Cuba is opened up, it will change? Vietnam changed." Rubio quickly shot him down: "It did not change politically. Nor has China, for that…

Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and host of MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports, sat down with Gerard Araud, France’s Ambassador to the United States, on Monday afternoon to discuss the fallout from last week’s terrorist attack on a French satirical newspaper. While the majority of the interview focused on the intelligence risks facing France following the attack, the…

On Friday's CNN Tonight, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen contended that moderate Muslims were partially to blame to the ongoing threat of Islamist terrorism. Host Don Lemon spotlighted a Tweet from Rupert Murdoch, where the media magnate wrote, "Maybe most Muslims peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer, they must be held responsible." Cohen replied, "I…

On Monday, all three network morning shows surprisingly devoted full reports to President Obama being strongly criticized for not attending – or not at least sending a top official to attend – an anti-terror march in Paris on Sunday. At the top of NBC's Today, co-host Matt Lauer announced: "While world leaders join millions for a massive anti-terror rally in Paris, the President is under fire for…