Foreign Policy

What's gotten into the NBC/MSNBC water?  Chris Matthews's verbal miscue on this evening's Hardball makes a triple-header of gaffes on the family of networks today.  As we've noted, Joe Scarborough kicked off the slip parade, unintentionally dropping an f-bomb on Morning Joe.  About an hour later on Today, Meredith Vieira stumbled into asking Matt Lauer a question that invoked the uncomfortable…

Expatica is an overseas publication for US expatriates in Europe with six country-customized editions. It betrays many of the biases that permeate mainstream US journalism. What follows is a prime example of that. The publication's Germany version today has an article celebrating the 19th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall that makes it appear as if it, well, y'know, sorta just…

I don't begrudge Obama supporters a celebration.  After eight years in the presidential wilderness and an election that was, yes, historic, it's natural to whoop it up.Even so, if Frank Rich were an NFL player [willing suspension of disbelief required], his end-zone dance of a column today would earn him a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.Annotated excerpts:

You might not be thrilled by the election of Barack Obama, but look on the bright side: it's made life a lot easier for Maya Angelou when she hangs out with her European friends.  Asked by Andrea Mitchell during MSNBC's 1 PM hour what was going through her mind as the results rolled in, the poet mentioned, among other things:I realized, almost within the minute, I don't have to apologize for my…

This just in: Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama makes us feel better. That's the way marketing guru and host of CNBC's "The Big Idea" Donny Deutsch sees it. Deutsch appeared on CNBC's Election Night coverage to explain how the country needs a hug and Obama was just the right guy to do - in his psychoanalysis of the nation's temperament. "I'm going to go back to his dad," Deutsch…

Obama’s Flips Head to Head With His Flops What the Lord Sayeth He then taketh Away… sometimes the very next day! If this video doesn’t show clearly how the media has allowed Obama to shamelessly flip flop on the issues, nothing does. Sometimes even from day to day Obama “nuanced” his way from one side of an issue to the other. Yet, the media never called him on it.

From Beirut, Chawki Freiha reports* on a provocative editorial that appeared in the Al Quds Al Arabi newspaper on November 3 written by Abdelbari Atwan, the first journalist to have met with Osama bin Laden. Titled “Obama’s Historic Intifada,” Atwan praises the probable election of Barack Obama to the White House and claims that with Obama installed in Washington, Islam will be able to “impose…

Give them credit for noticing. Pass out demerits for incompleteness.Friday's USA Today carried a slightly inaccurate Page 1A tease ("Iraq is safer for US troops; October is on track to tie July for the month with fewest combat deaths"). It went to a top of Page 7A story ("US Deaths in Iraq on track for record low") that noticed how relatively well the month of October has gone for our troops in…

On Tuesday, Editor & Publisher released daily and Sunday newspaper circulation figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations as of September 30, along with percentage changes from the preceding year. Showing that the press can't even report accurately about itself E&P's accompanying commentary vastly understated the situation:Most Major Papers Continue Circ DeclineAccording to ABC for the…

If the leader of one of America's major NATO allies had serious concerns with John McCain's stated position on Iran, would the Obama-loving press report it?Probably every hour on the hour until the day after Election Day, right?Well, according to Israel's Ha'aretz, France's Nicolas Sarkozy views Barack Obama's political stance toward Iran "utterly immature" and made up of "formulations empty of…

Whoopi Goldberg’s solution to winning the War on Terror: talk to "Shum Jum Yum Yum," whoever that is. On the October 24 edition of "The View," the aforementioned co-host defended Barack Obama’s call for unconditional talks with rogue nations like Iran. Whoopi concluded that dictators such as "Ahmadinejacket" and "Shum Jum Yum Yum" (presumably she meant Kim Jong Il?) have become "less rational"…

Let's take a break from the tedious MSM spin on the latest polls, and settle back and enjoy the televised spectacle of two people who patently dislike each other going at it on live national TV.Former UN Ambassador/current Obama backer Richard Holbrooke was a guest on today's Morning Joe.  Observing Holbrooke over the years, he's struck me as someone with, shall we say, a deep and abiding…

Spreading the WordAs we reported earlier, former CBS news anchor Dan Rather noted on today's Morning Joe on MSNBC that the traditional media is largely ignoring Democratic Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden's alarming comment on Sunday:  "... (M)ark my words, within the next, first six months of this administration if we win, you're gonna face a major international challenge,…