Iraq

On Thursday’s CBS "Evening News" anchor Katie Couric teased an upcoming interview with General David Petraues: "Also tonight, General David Petraeus on the slow progress in Iraq." Couric later began the interview by asking Petraeus: "How frustrated are you?"Prior to asking about Iranian influence in Iraq, Couric offered this pessimistic observation: "There's been a spike in attacks against…

The winner of the MRC's 2008 Dan Rather Memorial Award for Stupidest Analysis went to the editors of McClatchy Newspapers for an October 16 headline that spun the good news of the surge's success in Iraq into a tale of woe for Iraqi gravediggers. See, with the success of the surge and the corresponding drop in violence and death, Iraqi cemetery workers were "feel[ing] the pinch" to quote the…

On Wednesday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Russ Mitchell began an interview with Senator Joe Biden on the testimony of General Petraeus before Congress this way: "As a long-time critic of the way the Bush Administration has handled the war, were you encouraged by anything General Petraeus said yesterday?" After Biden responded by saying "I'm not at all encouraged that the president has any plan to…

As accusations against Americans go, surely there's none more serious than that of responsibility for 9/11. Yet Maureen Dowd has seen fit to level just such a charge against Condi Rice en passant: as a simple afterthought, no explanation offered.There I was this morning reading Maureen's musings on yesterday's hearings with Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. Pretty standard Dowd fare: a…

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams led Tuesday's newscast by listing the burden of the Iraq war in years, troops, deaths and cost before Jim Miklaszewski, unlike reporters on ABC and CBS, found it newsworthy to show a man, in the Senate hearing for General David Petraeus, shouting “bring them home!” In the next story, Andrea Mitchell decided to highlight, again unlike ABC or CBS, how John…

In an interview with Hillary Clinton on Tuesday’s CBS "Early Show," about the upcoming congressional testimony of General David Petraeus on the Iraq war, co-host Harry Smith began by asking a question that perfectly toed the Democratic Party line: "David Petraeus is going to come before this committee this morning. He's going to say in more -- you know, more elaborate words than I will right now…

ABC, which wasn't so interested in 2004 in reporting overwhelming military support for President Bush over John Kerry, on Monday night aired a story on how soldiers in Iraq are split between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- with only an afterthought about how “some” prefer John McCain. Relating how “only moments before we talked to them, these troops had been listening to Vice President Cheney…

Liberal talk show host Ed Schultz, appearing on Monday’s "American Morning" on CNN, defended his labeling of John McCain as a "warmonger" at a recent Obama campaign fundraiser, despite the statement being repudiated by Obama’s campaign. Twice, Schultz stated that "the man [McCain] is a warmonger" and used the term a total of five times during the course of the interview. Not only did Schultz…

In a news brief on Monday’s CBS "Early Show" correspondent Lara Logan reported on recent violence in Baghdad as a result of militia forces of Muqtada al Sadr: "The streets of Sadr City in eastern Baghdad have become a bloody battleground...This eyewitness describing the fighting on his street says 'one person was killed, and a child was also killed there. Everything got burned up. Everything was…

Despite having officially left the White House in December 2006, the mere mention of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's name is almost as certain to evoke uncontrollable vitriol from liberal media members as someone saying in their presence "George W. Bush," "Dick Cheney," or "Halliburton."With this in mind, it certainly was not surprising to see Atlantic magazine's senior editor Andrew…

In yet another in a disgraceful series of indecent journalistic collaborations, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Hillary Clinton's Think Progress actually quoted al Qaeda's second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri to discredit Republican presidential candidate John McCain (video embedded right, use scrollbars to properly center). I kid you not.Our story begins on Thursday when Think Progress managing…