North Korea

New York Times veteran foreign reporter John Burns has retired after 40 years with the paper, closing a career of covering hotspots like Afghanistan, China, and Iraq, where Saddam Hussein threatened his life for his brave reporting from Baghdad for the Times and CBS News. A friend gave him the title to this essay of recollections of some of the worst places on Earth: "It's not how far you’ve…

Things got chippy on Morning Joe today after Amy Holmes of The Blaze pointed out that President Obama has personalized and publicized his conflict with Benjamin Netanyahu in a way he hasn't done even with despots like Kim Jong Un or the Castro brothers. When Holmes added that "only Benjamin Netanyahu seems to be the focal point of this president's ire," former Obama spokesman Gibbs called Holmes…

Conservative columnist George Will appeared on Fox News Sunday to discuss the Sony hacking scandal and the fate of liberalism in America. Speaking during a panel discussion, Will argued that Sony’s decision to pull the Interview was “self-censorship” and “there are two great citadels of American liberalism unchallenged in America, Hollywood and college campuses.”

William Boot at The Daily Beast reported that before all the hacking and bomb threats, Sony CEO Michael Leynton showed a rough cut of their movie “The Interview” to U.S. officials before completing it. The State Department apparently agreed that the movie could help put an end to Kim Jong Un's reign over North Korea.

Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations: Alex Wagner has made the case that Barack Obama is no kind of emperor or dictator . . . compared to Kim Jong Un, the brutal ruler of perhaps the world's worst regime, North Korea. Wagner was riffing off the news that Kim has banned North Korean parents from naming their children Jong Un and ordered those already bearing the name to change it.  …

On Tuesday, all three broadcast network evening newscasts devoted full reports to President Obama honoring 24 members of the military – only three still living – with the Medal of Honor. CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley trumpeted how the President "righted a historic wrong. He presented the nation's highest military award to 24 Americans, after a review determined that they had been passed…

As of Monday evening, ABC, CBS, and NBC's morning and evening newscasts have yet to cover North Korea's firing of 25 short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan on Sunday. NBCNews.com did post an unsigned article from Reuters on Sunday about how the "missiles flew for 45 miles before splashing into the sea," and ABC News' website went with AP's write-up on the development, but neither outlet…

Is there anything MSNBC hosts won't compare conservatives to? Consider Chris Matthews who began Friday's Hardball likening conservatives such as Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Mark Levin, and Rand Paul - who have the nerve to oppose the budget compromise just passed in the House - to North Korean despot Kim Jong Un killing his uncle (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Walter Shapiro's column at Yahoo yesterday might as well be called, "My Hero -- xoxo." Its actual headline is, "Obama's history-defying decision to seek Congressional approval on Syria." As Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds noted a short time ago: "You can read this entire article about Obama going to Congress over Syria without seeing any mention that Bush went to Congress over Iraq and…

This Fourth of July weekend is turning into an unforseen laff-fest.  Yesterday we had NBC featuring a photo of President Obama making what he might have thought was an assertive hand gesture while discussing the situation in Egypt with his aides. Today treats us to historian Douglas Brinkley, on Morning Joe, claiming that when it comes to foreign policy, President Obama reminds him of, yes,…

The Big Three networks coverage so far of the Justice Department's questionable investigation of Fox News' James Rosen has followed a similar pattern to that of their coverage of the Kermit Gosnell case. Jan Crawford's report on Thursday's CBS This Morning was the first full report on growing controversy on ABC, CBS, and NBC's morning and evening newscasts. NBC briefly covered the investigation…

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was Jay Leno’s guest on the Tonight Show Friday, and he didn’t have kind things to say about the current White House resident or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. At one point in their discussion, Romney said, "I'm not a fan of the president - in case you didn't know that."

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman had some vulgar words for President Obama Thursday. Asked by TMZ about his recent tweet that asked North Korean despot Kim Jong Un to release detained American Kenneth Bae, Rodman said, "Obama can't do s--t...F--k him."

Soft labeling of Communist dictators ("enigmatic"?) has been a historical problem for the New York Times. On Wednesday, reporters Mark Landler and David Sanger described the late South Korea president Park Chung-Hee as a "strongman" as his "steely conservative" daughter Park Geun-hye, current president of the country, meets President Obama for the first time. In contrast, North Korea's new…