NY Times Reporter Discusses Squelching of WikiLeaks, Leaves Out Her PR
In her Tuesday posting on the New York Times's Internet-news blog “Bits,” the unusually named Jennifer 8. Lee (a food writer and former Times staff reporter who now occasionally shows up to write posts for “Bits” and the paper’s local “City Room” blog) interviewed Rebecca MacKinnon of the left-leaning New America Foundation. MacKinnon was speaking at the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh about…
AP's Rugaber Conveniently Fails to Note June Regression in Federal Fin
At the Associated Press, the task of reporting on the official results of Uncle Sam's June Monthly Treasury Statement fell to Christopher Rugaber instead Marty Crutsinger.
Next time, Chris, tell us what happened in the month you're covering instead of going almost exclusively with the federal government's year-to-date results.
If Rugaber had looked more closely at June, he would have had to…
WaPo, AP and NYT Furiously Spin Panetta's 'You're Here Because of
He said it, he meant it, and there's no denying it.
On Monday, in a statement carried at the Washington Post, the Associated Press, the New York Times (Page A8 of Tuesday's print edition), and elsewhere, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told U.S. troops at Camp Victory in Baghdad: "The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked. And 3,000 Americans — 3,000 not…
Open Thread: Is Libya Intervention Undermining War Powers Flouting the
During former President George W. Bush's time in office, he was regularly described as fascist, murderous, and a war criminal for his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even if people didn't support the wars, though, Bush obeyed the law and received congressional approval to be in the countries. President Barack Obama is the one acting above the law, having yet to seek approval for being at war with…
Open Thread: How Long Will US Be Involved in Libya
After nearly four months of a costly military intervention in Libya to oust leader Muammar Gaddafi, little progress has been made in assuring the quick exit President Barack Obama promised in March.
With no end to the conflict in sight, either, Obama's NATO coalition looks like it could fall apart before Gaddafi's regime does.
Let us know what you think of the US involvement in Libya in the…
Fareed Zakaria Praises Obama's Mideast Foreign Policy 'Restraint
CNN foreign affairs analyst Fareed Zakaria – who has recently had off-the-record conversations with President Obama on foreign issues – noted the president's "restraint" in his dealing with the "Arab Spring" and the conflict in Libya Wednesday. Zakaria previously gave a thumbs-up for Obama's Mideast speech in May and later defended the president's plan for removing American troops from…
Obama’s State Dept. Nominee: North Korea's Kim Jong-il ‘Smart, Cap
President Obama’s nominee to a top State Department post is one of the few American diplomats to have met North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, whom she later described as “smart, capable and supremely confident.”
Wendy Sherman traveled to Pyongyang in 2000 in her capacity as counselor to then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Visiting South Korea four years later – when she was no longer in…
Clinton: Obama Will Keep Twice As Many Troops in Afghanistan as Were T
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that even after President Barack Obama withdraws 33,000 soldiers from Afghanistan by September 2012, there will still be “twice as many” U.S. troops in the country as there were when he took office.
NBC Touts 'Sober' Obama 'Fulfilling His Promise' of Troop Withdrawal i
On Thursday's NBC Today, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd recited Obama administration spin as he gave a fully positive assessment of the President's Wednesday announcement of an Afghanistan troop withdrawal: "The President went with the most aggressive compromised withdrawal plan he could get commanders at the Pentagon to sign off on."
Moments later, Todd declared: "It was a sober…
Richard 'War of Fear' Engel Tells Jay Leno: 'End the Global War on Ter
Just days after demagoguing the war on terror as a "war of fear," NBC's Richard Engel told Jay Leno "it's probably time to end the global war on terrorism."
The NBC News chief foreign correspondent, discussing Mideast policy on the June 22 "Tonight Show," also pushed for withdrawal from Afghanistan and an end to "this chapter in our history."
Video follows break
Open Thread: Obama Announces Plans for Troop Withdrawal
President Obama announced last night that he will withdraw his entire 30,000 troop surge from 2009, bringing home 10,000 troops from Afghanistan this year, and an additional 20,000 troops by the end of next summer.
The plan is a much more aggressive withdrawal than recommended by the Gen. David Petraeus and other Pentagon officials, who recommended one more fighting season against the Taliban…
GOP Criticism of Libya Misadventure Is Not Isolationist
Sen. John McCain, whose life is a continuing exemplar of the American heroic ideal, regrettably has got it quite wrong when he says that growing GOP opposition to the Libyan and Afghan wars is evidence of isolationism. In his words on weekend television:
"Well, I was more concerned about what the candidates in New Hampshire the other night said. This is isolationism. There's always been an…
Big Gov's Taylor and King: Van Jones and His Group Organized 9/12/01 A
At Big Government yesterday, Kristinn Taylor and Andrea Shea King compiled overwhelming evidence refuting one key element of a cease-and-desist letter sent to Fox News by lawyers for former Obama administration "green jobs" czar Van Jones. In doing so, they referenced and credited a video I posted in September 2009 of an anti-American rally in Oakland, California on September 12, 2001 where…
Hillary Reluctantly Expresses ‘Support’ for Saudi Women Drivers
Although Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has championed women’s rights from Azerbaijan to Zambia, it took her weeks to respond to an appeal to publicly support a campaign by Saudi women to be permitted to drive.
Even then, her comments on Tuesday came not of her own initiative, but in response to a question at a press availability – and after Saudi women activists and journalists had…
