Foreign Policy

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…

It's not enough to read the transcript.  You really need to view the video to appreciate the depths of Christopher Dickey's world-weary, dismissive, preening political correctness. Asked on today's Morning Joe to comment on Muslim preachers inciting violence from their pulpits, Dickey of The Daily Beast sniffed that the problem is "exaggerated," claimed that the number of violent Muslims is "…

The ability of tiny numbers of far-left fringe group demonstrators to get undue press attention virtually any time they want continues to be intensely annoying. In mid-2007, Barack Obama made closing the prison at Guantanmo Bay a core promise of his 2008 campaign. That was 7-1/2 years ago. Obama has been in office six years. Gitmo is still open. So naturally, the aggrieved professional…

Three results returned in a search at the Associated Press's national site on "Venezuela" tell us almost nothing about that country's deepening economic crisis. An unbylined January 10 item reports on the visit of Nicolas Maduro, the country's de facto dictator, to Iran in hopes of "stabilizing" (i.e., raising) oil prices. A second unbylined report on January 9 tells readers that there's really…

CNN's Jim Clancy has been with the network for 32 years. His network's bio says that he "brings the experience of more than three decades covering the world to every newscast on CNN International." He also apparently has a lot of pent-up feelings about the Middle East. Those feelings boiled to the top over Twitter early Thursday. Clancy started it all by claiming that the cartoons published by…

Sand, meet head of Hollande.  In his just-concluded speech on the terrorist attacks in his country, Socialist French President Francois Hollande claimed that the terrorists "have nothing to do with the Muslim religion." Of course.  Terrorists run through Charlie Hebdo, shouting "allahu akbar" as they murder, and proclaim themselves to be acting in the name of al Qaeda of Yemen.  Why would anyone…