Foreign Policy

Speaking with Brookings Institution analyst Michael O’Hanlon on Tuesday about President Obama’s upcoming decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, CBS Early Show co-host Harry Smith worried: “...how much is this going to cost him on the Left? Because I’m – I’ve got this sense that there will be people on the Left of President Obama who are not pleased by this.”Despite representing a…

On Fox's Nov. 22 "Fox News Sunday," former "Special Report" anchor and Fox News senior political correspondent was dead spot on target in many regards when it came to criticizing the tack President Barack Obama has taken with his foreign policy gestures. First, Hume reflected on how Obama reacted on his trip to Asia last week. He noted that Obama was in a tough position, having to rely on…

At this point, there should be little doubt that there is a concerted attempt underway to use the war in Afghanistan as a justification for punitively taxing high earners. Last weekend (noted at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), the New York Times discovered that wars cost money. It cited Wisconsin Democratic Congressman David Obey's concern that funding the Afghanistan effort at the level requested…

You've got to hand it to the propagandists at the AFP. When heavy-hitting members of the party they favor announce an idea whose main purpose is, as the New York Times suddenly "discovered" last weekend, to remind people that wars cost money and distract from supposedly more important priorities, the wire service leaps into action. Even AFP acknowledges that the tax proposal by several top-tier…

Really, who knew? In what appears to be the opening round of a rearguard action against what leftists used to call "the good war" (only because they felt they needed to pretend they had pro-war bona fides to make their anti-Iraq War arguments look stronger to the general populace), the New York Times's Christopher Drew reported last Saturday for the Sunday print edition that sending more troops…

The Washington Post's Anne Kornblut (saved here in case her report is modified or disappears) captured a comment Obama made to U.S troops at Osan Air Base in South Korea while heading back to Washington after his Asian trip. I believe that the comment (bolded) could be seen as shining a less than flattering light on the president's mindset: Obama arrived on the base 3:19 p.m. local time (1 a.m.…

Citing an interview the President gave to White House correspondent Chip Reid, at the top of Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith declared: “An outraged President Obama says heads may roll when he returns from Asia, telling CBS News he’s furious over leaks about Afghanistan.” The leaks in question have highlighted the administration’s inaction on the war. Rather than press the…

At the top of Monday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric teased a story on the President’s trip to China by casting him as Reaganesque: “Mr. Hu, tear down that firewall. President Obama challenges China’s government to allow unfettered access to the internet.”Couric introduced the segment that followed by continuing to play up the idea that Obama took a hard line on Chinese censorship: “In…

The New York Times dismissed the controversy over Obama’s long, deep bow before the Emperor of Japan over the weekend -- a story all over the Drudge Report and conservative blogs -- in its Monday story praising Obama’s “progress” in getting Russia on board for sanctions against Iran: “In China, Obama to Press For Tough Stance on Iran -- Seeking to Replicate Progress With Russia.” And if that “…

Joe the Plumber was certainly on to something when he got then-candidate Barack Obama to admit he wanted to redistribute the wealth, according to former Republican presidential candidate and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.  Huckabee, who now hosts a show aired on the weekends on the Fox News Channel, told "On The Record" host Greta Van Sustren on Nov. 16 that Obama's policies go beyond just the…

On Friday, this NewsBuster noted how Pres. Obama, questioned at a news conference in Japan, twice refused to say whether he thought the United States' dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was "the right decision."Yesterday on Fox News Watch, Jim Pinkerton noted the NewsBusters nugget.  The Fox News contributor and New America Foundation fellow observed that PBO's failure had huge…

It's one thing to avoid the "terrorist" label when reporting on Ft. Hood suspect Major Nidal Hasan. It's quite another to say that those who do use it are making a political calculation to "paint the Democrats as soft terror." Yet that's what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow insisted on her Nov. 11 broadcast. Maddow launched into a minute-and-a-half soliloquy on why it is bad for the Democratic Party when…

Defending the decision of the United States to drop nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII is not a comfortable thing to do when you're in Japan.  But if you're President of the United States, you must do it. Diplomatically, yes.  With sympathy for the civilian victims, yes.  But you must do it.But when it came time today for Barack Obama to fulfill that fundamental duty, he failed…

On last night's "Rachel Maddow Show", the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh commended President Obama for taking the reins in Afghanistan. Hersh stated that Presidents must decide their own war strategies. But in the early stages of the war in Iraq, Hersh was a leading critic of similar actions by the Bush administration. Hersh's hypocrisy suggests he is more concerned with the political implications of…