Foreign Policy

On July 16, Andrew Malcolm at the Los Angeles Times's Top of the Ticket Blog wrote the following (bold is mine): When President Bush ordered the surge in January 2007, (Barack) Obama said: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse," a position he maintained throughout 2007. This year he…

** Now With Update... A Soldier Speaks ** The New York Times is miffed. They aren't happy that there has been a dearth of news photos showing dead American soldiers in the war in Iraq. The Times is lamenting that there have been "4,000 U.S. Combat Deaths, and Just a Handful of Images," so more carnage and death is their druthers. Well, more American dead, anyway. They aren't interested in the…

Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy after their meeting at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, Friday, July 25, 2008. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

A report by correspondent Mark Phillips on Friday’s CBS "Early Show" gave a glowing review of Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin on Thursday: "...there is a bit of a morning after feeling here in Berlin after what they're calling the 'Obama show.' But if the intent of this trip was to raise Barack Obama's foreign profile, it could hardly have been raised any higher...The stage could not have been…

Is the religious affiliation of a presidential candidate's backers important?According to Time's Joe Klein, it is.In his July 23 piece entitled "McCain's Foreign Policy Frustration," Klein seemed to cross the line from geo-political analysis into anti-Semitism (emphasis added):

Is Sen. Obama too protectionist for Europe? Maybe. If you were watching "CNN Newsroom" July 24 you may have caught Christiane Amanpour telling you why. "[Europe] wants to see an [American] president committed to free trade," cautioned CNN Chief International Correspondent from Berlin, Germany, the site of a speech by presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama. Amanpour pointed to…

Are reporters in the business of reporting fact or rumor?  Andrea Mitchell, for one, doesn't scruple to circulate "scuttlebutt" that if true would be deeply damaging to John McCain.  Barack Obama's cancellation of plans to visit injured military members at bases in Germany has drawn considerable attention and criticism.  On today's Morning Joe, Mitchell passed along an Obama-campaign inspired…

Obama's speech today in Berlin, hailed as a "major" address, has at least one major, glaring error that shows that nether Obama nor his handlers and speech writers were thoroughly familiar with the facts. Obama's main theme was about the "walls" that separate all of us one from another. He claims that many of these "walls" have been taken down and hails that as progress. But in at least one…

The screencap captures it nicely: Heather Wilson, smiling.  Robert Wexler, mouth agape. On this afternoon's Hardball, the feisty, brilliant GOP representative from New Mexico took on the duo of the combative congressman from Florida and host Chris Matthews, and walked away a winner.  The subject was Obama's Berlin speech, and by extension his presidential qualifications.You'll find excerpts…

CNN’s chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, reporting on Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin on Thursday’s “The Situation Room,” expressed her shock that the European crowd didn’t seem to have the same mania for the Democrat that the media has: “I did ask some people as they were leaving what they thought. Everybody said good, good. But I was surprised that there wasn't this sort of…

Many McCain fans are no doubt bracing for the waves of European adulation that are about to break over Barack Obama, the MSM avidly reporting the scenes.  With polls showing Obama with a 50+ percentage-point lead across the Old Continent [the French leading the Obamaphile way at 64-4%], the Dem candidate is assured of ecstatic crowds wherever he goes.  Euro-Obamamania begins in Berlin today, with…

In a interview with Louisiana’s Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, on Wednesday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith asked: "...you have been an advocate for Senator McCain. He's committed a number of verbal gaffes over the last couple of weeks and the last couple of months. What does that tell you? Are they just mis-speaking -- is he just mis-speaking, or is it -- read something more?" Smith…

On Wednesday’s CBS "Early Show," correspondent Sheila MacVicar described Barack Obama’s visit to Israel’s Holocaust memorial during his continuing Middle East tour as: "...yet another chance to see how the Senator looks in statesman clothes." MacVicar imbued Obama with the mantel of "statesman" just last Friday when she described the upcoming trip: "...Senator Obama is taking to the skies to…

Is the Washington Post starting to take columnist Howard Kurtz's concerns about an Obama-loving media to heart?An editorial in its Wednesday edition entitled "Mr. Obama in Iraq: "Did He Really Find Support for his Withdrawal Plan?" makes one wonder. In fact, this piece was so skeptical of the differences between what the press have been reporting about the presumptive Democrat presidential…