Foreign Policy

Update at bottom of post.Leave it to CNN to worry that the Colombian government committed a war crime in its recent rescue of FARC hostages, including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.This morning in the Latest News menu on CNN.com, I found this teaser headline (shown in screen capture at right): "Did Colombia skirt law in hostage rescue?"My curiosity piqued, I followed the link to…

I have my issues with Pat Buchanan.  Anyone who writes a book arguing we should have found a modus vivendi with Hitler isn't necessarily high on my list. Still, when it comes to spot-on analysis of the political scene, Pat is without peer. But when Buchanan—his own opposition to the Iraq war notwithstanding—argued on this evening's Hardball that McCain's support for the surge is a winning issue…

The current New Yorker story on the political problem that Barack Obama faces now that Iraq has turned the corner and victory is within our grasp grossly misleads readers about the role of "the surge" in that growing success: At the start of 2007, no one in Baghdad would have predicted that blood-soaked neighborhoods would begin returning to life within a year. The improved conditions can be…

A couple days ago at the gym, listening to a Hugh Hewitt podcast and perhaps not paying as much attention as I should have while pedaling away, I heard Hugh mention that Barack Obama doesn't understand the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What was Hugh referring to? As the British would say: the penny just dropped.  A few minutes ago, CNN's Situation Room played a clip of Obama saying this…

Look for Mika Brzezinski outside the Danish embassy.  True, the Danes had nothing to do with the New Yorker's publication of the Obama cover. But what more time-honored locale to protest an irreverent cartoon of a figure adulated with religious fervor?Mika has condemned the New Yorker cover as "dangerous."  Why dangerous?  Mika doesn't quite say.  But by darkly musing about unspoken perils that…

French media loses big court case proving Palestinian propaganda false, New York Times ignores shocking story... Why? France TV 2 has lost a major court case in France that makes the lie to a major piece of Palestinian propaganda. In 2000 an incident occurred in the Palestinian areas that has since been used as propaganda for the Palestinian cause all across the world and the New York Times has…

You would be hard-pressed to find a "better" example of a walking, talking, typing Old Media double standard-bearer than New York Times columnist and International Herald Tribune (IHT) contributor Nicholas Kristof.Keep in mind as you read this post that Kristof infamously wrote the following in a 2005 New York Times book review about the person who was "the worst monster in world history," China…

The Armed Forces Press Service issued a press release on Thursday morning, July 10, in celebration of the fact that the U.S. military has had 13 consecutive months of meeting and/or exceeding recruitment goals. Sadly, the media stayed sullenly quite all day, taking no notice of the success of our military on OR off the field. Regardless of the fact that the media ignored the good news, there is…

Got to be good looking'cause he's so hard to seeCome together right nowOver me—The Beatles, "Come Together" (1969) [YouTube]Bob Herbert just doesn't get it.  As Noel Sheppard has noted, in his NYT column today Herbert accuses Barack Obama of "lurching right when it suits him, and . . . zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that’s guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash." The NY Times…

While most of the questions co-host Russ Mitchell asked Barack Obama on Wednesday’s "Early Show" were rather bland, he did challenge Obama from the left on the Senator’s commitment to a complete troop withdrawal from Iraq: "Last week you said you would refine your policy regarding troop withdrawal after you go to Iraq and have the chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground...What do…

Although the term isn't used, it's clear that the Obama campaign sees itself and their candidate as victims of a vast conspiracy of right-wingers. Going all the way back to the 1988 presidential election, Obama's "Fight the Smears" chart (featuring the campaign's new sort-of "presidential seal," replacing the one that was "dropped," at the top left) purports to tell us "Who's Behind These Lies."…

Surprise! Barbara Walters visits an anti-American dictator and returns with very nice remarks about him. Returning from the week long break on "The View" July 7, Barbara Walters described how she spent America’s birthday, and the celebration of a document denouncing tyranny, with an anti-American tyrant.While most Americans celebrated Independence Day with fireworks and barbeques, Barbara Walters…

With world leaders meeting in Japan for the G8 Summit, conventional wisdom would suggest high commodity prices - which are having a detrimental effect on world economy - would be the focus. But that wasn't so on the July 6 broadcast of "NBC Nightly News." Instead of reporting on what are seemingly more pressing issues, the segment about the summit highlighted "green" efforts from the host…

This post builds on Noel Sheppard's NewsBusters entry earlier this morning. Noel covered portions of Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha's Thursday interview with Pittsburgh TV Station KDKA used by CNN's "Situation Room" on Friday (transcript here [Murtha segment is about halfway through]; video here). CNN carried KDKA footage showing that Murtha has grudgingly acknowledged the obvious: That…