Libya

In 1427, a ship captain sailing for his Portuguese Prince, Henry the Navigator, discovered the Azores Islands. If the question of the significance of this event had been posed, at the time, to Sultan Murad Khan (the leader of the Ottoman Empire), or to Itzcoatl and Nezahualcoyotl (the co-leaders of the Aztecs) or to Rao Kanha (one of the princes of Jodhpur in India), it is unlikely that any of…

Would liberal journalist Karen Hunter have whitewashed President Bush's low approval ratings during his time in office? On MSNBC Wednesday, the ever-classy Hunter curtly dismissed President Obama's lowest approval rating to date, growling that "polls are for strippers." MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing highlighted a new Quinnipiac poll recording Obama's approval rating at 42 percent, an all-time…

Barack Obama, war president? The Times’s chief online political reporter Michael Shear gave the president, who ran on an anti-war platform, some militant reelection advice in his Wednesday morning “Caucus” post, “The Case for Obama Campaigning as a Foreign Policy President.” In the past several weeks, events outside the United States have commanded as much of Mr. Obama’s attention as the…

On Wednesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Chris Wragge interviewed former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and questioned President Obama's Libya policy: "...on Monday, the President said it would be a mistake to send U.S. troops to push out Qadhafi, saying quote, 'We went down that road in Iraq'...taking a shot at you and President Bush....Isn't the President being a bit hypocritical?" Even…

The broadcast evening news anchors all got ten minutes with President Barack Obama on Tuesday afternoon in New York City to press him about contradictions in his Libya policy, ceding authority for foreign entities and how he’s a hypocrite after his criticism of President Bush for unilateral actions and not getting congressional approval, but instead they simply prodded him to provide arms to…

What's next: MSNBC hawking "America: Love It Or Leave It" bumper stickers? The new fashion among the liberal network's anchors is to accuse critics of President Obama's Libya policy of being unpatriotic.  Last week, we documented how Cenk Uygur did it.  Now, it's Ed Schultz's turn.  The man recently relegated to the 10 PM slot went on an extended rant last night, repeatedly accusing…

When Democrats opposed war in Iraq, they were often presented by the networks as principled statesmen. But on Meet the Press Sunday, NBC host David Gregory asked Ted Koppel to suggest Republican opponents of Obama's Libya actions are just a feckless mess: GREGORY: Ted Koppel, what about the Republican opposition? I mean, is there, is it principled here? Or is it much more feckless and…

Look at the bright side when it comes to Libya, Ed Schultz said yesterday, "we haven't invaded anybody." Come to think of it, we have, Schultz quickly spun -- and I'm gung ho for the invasion! Here is Schultz on his radio show Monday doing a pirouette worthy of Nureyev while defending President Obama's decision to intervene in Libya (audio) --

Only Good Morning America's Jake Tapper on Tuesday pointed out the relatively low public support for Barack Obama's military actions in Libya and the harsh criticism from both the right and the left. On NBC's Today, Chuck Todd parroted, "[Obama] also took the opportunity to rebut critics on the left and the right about how and whether to target Qadhafi with the military. In total the…

President Obama's decision to bomb Libya is not even so multilateral as President George W. Bush's decision to attack Iraq. Nor is it ultimately driven by humanitarian concerns — and certainly not by any vital U.S. national interest. Despite Obama's vilification of Bush for his alleged unilateralism, "Obama's 'coalition of the willing,'" according to foreign policy reporter Josh Rogin, "is…

One sign that the broadcast networks aren’t vigorously opposed to President Obama’s air strikes in Libya is the utter lack of polls. There were no ABC/Washington Post or NBC/Wall Street Journal polls touted before Obama’s Libya address, and a Gallup poll showing only 47 percent support for military action has been barely mentioned. CBS News did a poll (without The New York Times) and briefly…

Many here at home may have criticized President Obama's speech last night on Libya.  But abroad, there was at least one man who dug PBO's remarks: Muammar Gaddafi . . . That was the educated estimation of NBC's Jim Maceda, reporting from Libya on Morning Joe today.  It was PBO's failure to call for regime change that would have buoyed Gaddafi, says Maceda.  He reported that regime officials…

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Monday went to great pains illustrating the similarities between President Obama's Libya address to the nation and his December 2009 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. Not surprisingly, the devout dove suddenly turned hawk chose not to discuss the irony (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

In discussing the present "kinetic military action" in Libya, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell and Contessa Brewer both tried to shift scrutiny away from President Obama and toward Republicans Monday afternoon, hours before the President's address to the nation on Libya. O'Donnell tried to pinpoint the hypocrisy of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for criticizing Obama's failure to…