Iran

While Chris Matthews's April 21 interview with President Obama was not brimming with obsequious fawning nor visible leg tingles, he nonetheless squandered an opportunity that a more assertive journalist might have taken to scrutinize President Obama, particularly on his handling of the Iranian nuclear negotiations. 

Salon editor-at-large Joan Walsh is not worried in the least about Iran's arming/equipping of anti-Israel, anti-American Houthi rebels in Yemen, nor in the Islamic Republic obtaining Russian-made surface-to-air missiles which could take down American or Israeli jets seeking to bomb nuclear facilities. "This is a nuclear deal, it's not an everything deal," Walsh huffed in reaction to mild…

This week, reporters attempt to manufacture excitement over how newly-declared Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton used Twitter, rode around in a van and ate lunch at a Chipotle ("fun and new," opined Bloomberg's Mark Halperin). And, even as the media drooled over Hillary, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski disparaged GOP candidate Marco Rubio as a "little boy," while fellow MSNBC host Ed Schultz trashed…

You're a TV show host, and your guest has just suggested he'd like to "do" something to a sitting US senator such that he doesn't even want to describe it on air. Think you might challenge him about it? Not if you're Ed Schultz.  On this evening's Ed Show, renegade "Republican" Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell and a big supporter of President Obama's Iran deal, was…

CNN's Chris Cuomo played defense for the Obama administration on Tuesday's New Day as he interviewed Senator Bob Corker on his proposed legislation to "give Congress a say on the Iran deal," as the anchor put it. Cuomo wondered, "How can they negotiate a deal if the Iran side of the table says – well, you really can't give me any assurances, because you have to go to your Congress after this? You…

On Saturday evening (published in print on Sunday), the editorial board at the New York Times had an epic meltdown over the Republican Party's allegedly shabby treatment of President Barack Obama. Although its title claimed that the GOP had entered "A New Phase in Anti-Obama Attacks," nothing truly new seemed to prompt this rant. Its primary focus was the letter 47 GOP Senators led by Tom Cotton…

Ronald Reagan: "My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic. It is this: we win and they lose." Thomas Friedman on Barack Obama: "He actually knows what America looks like from the outside in. And he can actually see America even to some point from the Iranian perspective." So whom will history record as being more effective in countering America's…

For Iran, Mike?  On today's Morning Joe, reliable Obama fan Mike Barnicle managed to keep a straight face while lauding the Iran deal as an "extraordinary feat." He did so despite poll numbers displayed showing that a huge majority of Americans don't think the ayatollahs will keep their promises. Let's see: sanctions lifted while centrifuges keep spinning and nuclear scientists beaver away in…

While CBS This Morning and ABC's Good Morning America both covered the latest problems with the Iran nuclear negotiations on Thursday, NBC's Today skipped the story altogether in favor of touting how President Obama "plays tourist" in Jamaica.

Too bad the "framework" of a nuclear weapons deal with Iran didn't come four days earlier on April Fools' Day. It would have been more appropriate.

The networks on Monday night and Tuesday morning minimized Barack Obama's casual dismissal of the idea that any nuclear deal with Iran include an acknowledgment of Israel's right to exist. On Good Morning America, Amy Robach quickly touted the President's rejection: "[Obama] is not buying Israel's latest demand concerning the nuclear deal with Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says any…

Much of today's Morning Joe was devoted to a discussion of Rolling Stone's failed journalism on the UVa story. Maybe Mika Brzezinski should look in the mirror: she began her interview of Wendy Sherman, the chief US negotiator on the Iran deal, by offering her "congratulations."  Even Sherman herself had the sense to suggest that congratulations were not yet in order. In contrast, Joe Scarborough…

During its coverage of the Iran framework on Monday, NBC Nightly News touted the hopes of proponents and the Obama administration that the “details of a deal may be changing” the minds of “some” critics as President Obama and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz began selling the agreement in press conferences, interviews, and calls with world leaders. Lester Holt began by promoting Obama’s recent…

On CBS This Morning: Saturday, reporter Elizabeth Palmer did her best to channel the sentiments of Iran following the preliminary nuclear agreement between them and the United States. The CBS reporter proclaimed that “at Friday prayers there was the usual chant of death to America, but more habit than conviction."