Many a Truth: Obama Says 'I Don't Worry About Israel's Survival

August 9th, 2014 10:26 AM
Today's New York Times op-ed page includes a wide-ranging interview on foreign policy that Thomas Friedman conducted with President Obama.  Let's break down some of the low-lights.  Excerpts from interview in italics, with my comments following. And sure, when President Obama said "I don't worry about Israel's survival," he explained his insouciance in terms of Israel's military might.  But was…

Unreal: Language in Offensive AP Tweet on Israel-Gaza-Congress Led Its

July 29th, 2014 10:14 PM
Earlier today, I gave the Associated Press an unwarranted benefit of the doubt. I figured that there was no way the language contained in an offensive AP tweet on the Israel-Gaza situation would appear in an actual story by an alleged professional journalist. Boy, was I wrong. The language in question was posted at 6 a.m. ET and is still present at the wire service's official Twitter account…

AP's Matt Lee 'Jokes' in a Tweet That U.S. Strategy Is to 'P*ss Off Ev

July 28th, 2014 5:04 PM
Of all the Associated Press reporters out there, Matt Lee, whose beat is the State Department, appears to have the least patience with the pablum (and worse) he is expected to swallow from the Obama administration. In September of last year, as the situation in Syria escalated, Obama administration Secretary of State John Kerry proposed a non-mandatory request for a Congressional vote on U.S…

AP Plays Defense For Obama Admin 'Fuming' Over Israeli Anger at Kerry

July 28th, 2014 4:01 PM
The Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, wants Americans to know that the Obama adminisration is really, really upset — but not at Hamas for committing terrorist acts, using women and children as human shields, and digging tunnels for the purpose of mass-murdering civilians on Rosh Hashanah. No-no-no. Team Obama is "fuming" (i.e., their poor little feeeeewings are hurt) because…

Scarborough Gets Bad Case of Cold Feet When It Comes To Blaming Obama

July 18th, 2014 11:24 AM
It was strange.  Joe Scarborough had just completed a comprehensive indictment of failed American foreign policy  around the globe.  But at the very moment when he should have laid those disasters at the feet of the sitting President of the United States, Scarborough came down with a bad case of . . . cold feet. Scarborough laid out to David Gregory a tour d'horizon of failed American…

Andrea Mitchell Asks 'Why Shouldn't' Iran 'Develop A Nuclear Program

July 15th, 2014 5:00 PM
For an example of how MSNBC is leaning forward into biased coverage of the latest troubles Israel is having with the terrorist group Hamas, one need look no further than the July 15 edition of Andrea Mitchell Reports. After hearing from NBC foreign correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin about how the Egyptian cease-fire was rejected by Hamas because it “failed to address the comprehensive issues that…

MSNBC's Wolffe Suggests Obama Likes 'Intellectually Rigorous' and 'Sat

June 25th, 2014 7:09 AM
On Tuesday's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC, during a segment about foreign policy challenges involving Russia and the turmoil in the Middle East, MSNBC.com Executive Editor Richard Wolffe oddly suggested that President Obama finds it to be a "satisfying challenge" because it is "intellectually rigorous" to deal with such substantial foreign policy problems. He also not…

Iran's Anti-American Quds Force Already on the Ground Helping Iraqis

June 19th, 2014 8:42 PM
Anti-American commandos from Iran are already helping the Iraqi military by doing the sort of logistical coordination that President Obama promised from the U.S. Army today, NBC's Richard Engel noted in a June 19 Nightly News report from Baghdad. "The image I've had in my head all day, Brian, is of this driver's ed car with two steering wheels, with one with the U.S. Army now about 300 people…

AP Pair Continues the 'No WMDs' Lie, Defines Anyone Who Doesn't Suppor

June 17th, 2014 4:23 PM
The Obama administration doesn't have a plan for dealing with the crisis in Iraq. The left apparently believes it's up to obviously out of power "neocons" to have a plan. Though he has dispatched 275 military advisors to that country, his virtual ultimatum to that Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — no angel by any stretch, but still a better alternative to a civil war or an ISIS-run…

David Gregory Grills Mitt Romney As If He's Just Become President

June 16th, 2014 5:45 PM
The people at NBC who are agonizing over David Gregory's ongoing audience freefall at his Meet the Press perch need only look at the first half of his interview with 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to see why it's happening. Gregory basically refused to acknowledge the existence of Romney's core argument, which is essentially that he wouldn't have done what President Obama…

CBS's Steve Kroft in Iran: 'We Didn't Talk to Anybody Who Believes The

May 16th, 2014 10:40 AM
Returning from a trip to Iran for an upcoming 60 Minutes story on the authoritarian regime, correspondent Steve Kroft appeared on Friday's CBS This Morning to preview the piece and made an observation about the nation's nuclear weapons program: "...they're convinced that they're not building a bomb. They don't believe – we didn't talk to anybody who believes they're building a bomb. That the…

Contemptible: AP Story Again Keeps Lois Lerner's Name Out of Headline

May 8th, 2014 2:07 PM
Once again, as it did a month ago in two separate stories, the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, left the name of Lois Lerner, the former IRS official who ran its section on tax-exempt organizations, out of its headline and opening paragraph. This time, for good measure, AP reporter Stephen Ohlemacher didn't reveal Lerner's name until Paragraph 3. Before getting to Ohlemacher'…

WashPost on Ted Cruz's Iran Bill: One Reporter Impressed, Another Refu

April 12th, 2014 11:01 PM
On Thursday, Washington Post reporter Ed O’Keefe blogged: “An incredible thing happened this week: A bill written by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has passed Congress.” It was a bill designed to block entry into the country for Iran’s new ambassador to the United Nations, who aided the radical Iranians who held Americans hostage for 444 days in 1979 and 1980. On Saturday, the Post put the…

VOA Columnist: Ugh, Can't We Move on From the Iranian Hostage Crisis

April 2nd, 2014 6:47 PM
Because the United States should "focus... on preventing more war, terrorism and [nuclear] proliferation," it's probably time that we just "get over" the Iranian hostage crisis, argues Barbara Slavin in her April 2 Voice of America column, "Can We Ever Move on from the Hostage Crisis?" The career journalist was expressing her annoyance with how there is consternation in Washington over the…