Foreign Policy

Between its January 31 and February 20 reports on developments in the "interrogation memos" saga, the Associated Press may have learned a lesson in basic journalism from a NewsBusters commenter. I'll describe; readers can decide. The wire service's unbylined report three weeks ago opened with this paragraph: NB commenter "TE" took justifiable umbrage at that opening:

Yvo de Boer resigned yesterday as Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Here are three key passages from the official announcement at the UN's web site: The top United Nations climate change official said today that he has made the “difficult decision” to step down from his position, citing his desire to pursue new opportunities to advance progress on the issue in…

In a February 17 online article entitled "Charity Case," Newsweek's Issac Stone Fish declared: "Whether they like it or not, China has been very good for Tibetans." Fish's outrageous claim came on the eve of President Obama's Thursday meeting with Tibet's religious leader, the Dalai Lama. While Fish noted how: "Tibetans feel chafed by the restrictions on their political and religious freedoms;…

The New York Times has apparently discovered its inner patriot. The paper decided after a request from the White House to hold off publishing key information about the war effort in Afghanistan for fear of alerting the enemy to key U.S. intelligence.The Times and its executive editor Bill Keller, who defended the decision, have left the nation collectively uttering, "It's about time." Now that's…

On Monday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith wondered if there was any credibility to Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the Christmas Day bomber: "...the point that he seems to be trying to make...that this administration, the Obama administration, is not taking terrorism seriously enough. Is this theater or is there a real point to be made?"Smith directed that…

New York Times columnist David Brooks says that what Vice President Joe Biden told NBC's David Gregory Sunday concerning the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City doesn't pass the laugh test."What Joe Biden said on ['Meet the Press'] today will be laughed at around the Arab world."Maybe even more shocking, speaking during the panel discussion segment that followed Biden's interview,…

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell went into an unhinged attack on a former Bush administration official Friday, and was eventually shut out of the discussion by Joe Scarborough.Appearing on "Morning Joe" with former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen who was brought on to discuss terrorist interrogation procedures, O'Donnell began by first calling him a liar, and then accused the Bush White House of…

A website owned by the Washington Post on Monday accused Fox News host Bill O'Reilly of racism. O'Reilly's slight? Informing his viewers of the widespread corruption in Haiti. The accuser, meanwhile, omitted key facts undermining his charge.O'Reilly had the audacity in a January 13 "Talking Points" segment to make the "not particularly constructive" suggestion (in The Root's words) that his…

On Monday’s Rick’s List program on CNN, Slate’s Fred Kaplan attacked Republicans for politicizing national security, accused the GOP of being in an alternate reality, and blasted Sarah Palin for “talking...complete and utter nonsense.” Kaplan also wrote off the tea parties as not a “mass movement,” and, along with anchor Rick Sanchez, accused Palin of forwarding “anti-intellectualism.”The Slate…

Well if you can't win the propaganda war by twisting the content of something you don't like, you can at least plant a presumptive seed in the heads of those who will only see a story's headline. That seems to be the logic behind an unbylined Associated Press report this morning. Its headline ("Report: No sanctions for lawyers who OK'd torture") would tend cause anyone not reading further to…

Based on the two pictures seen at the right, it doesn't exactly take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the people at the Associated Press who decide on what pictures to use to tease the wire service's assorted video clips are not all favorably inclined towards Tony Blair. Rather than show a picture of the former UK Prime Minister, the AP chose pics of a demonstrator outside where the inquiry…

In his State of the Union address last night, President Barack Obama had this to say about the Supreme Court's recent ruling on campaign finance: With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations - to spend without limit in our elections. I don't think…

I don't know why I'm relaying this to readers. After all, according to former White House Communications Director Anita "Mao Inspires Me" Dunn, it's not coming from a real news organization. Her successor, Dan Pfeiffer, agrees. So does David Axelrod. But on the off chance that what follows might actually mean something, here is an excerpt from a lengthy piece of investigative journalism from Fox…

Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and author of "Courting Disaster," blasted Christiane Amanpour for comparing American interrogation techniques to what the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia after the Vietnam War. Appearing on CNN International Wednesday, Thiessen took issue with Amanpour's April 2008 piece "Scream Bloody Murder" in which she made the case that waterboarding was…