War on Terrorism

Appearing on Wednesday's NBC Today, former CIA Director Michael Hayden went after the network for hyping the so-called "torture report" released by Senate Democrats on Tuesday. After Hayden denounced the partisan report as something that "reads like a prosecutorial screed rather than an historical document," co-host Savannah Guthrie pressed him on what he disagreed with. Hayden replied: "Well, I…

Who were those guys on Morning Joe today—two Feinstein staffers? Nope, they were Mark Halperin and Jeremy Peters, making like Dem aides in defending the report on the CIA that Dem Senator Diane Feinstein released yesterday. Halperin, head of Bloomberg Politics, had the chutzpah to claim that the report was not "political."  Peters of the New York Times then chimed in to say that in releasing the…

During an exclusive interview with former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden on Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams felt that it was worth creating a moral equivalency by asking Hayden to explain “how” the United States is “better than our enemies morally” following the release of a report about the CIA’s use of “torture” following the attacks on September 11, 2001.       Minutes…

On the December 9 edition of his Hardball program, host Chris Matthews suggested that former Vice President Dick Cheney is a masochist who should not be trusted with the call about when to deploy potentially torturous enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorist detainees.

On Tuesday, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and the Democratically controlled Senate Intelligence Committee released a controversial report detailing the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program used against suspected terrorists in the years after 9/11. The report has drawn criticism from Republicans and many in the intelligence community but on ABC’s The View, co-host Whoopi Goldberg offered up a…

Appearing on MSNBC's NewsNation on Tuesday, NBC's chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel took the Democrat-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee to task for its so-called "torture report" slamming CIA interrogation tactics used against terrorist detainees: "I think this is really about changing the narrative of American history....everyone in the world knew what was going on, including by…

On Monday night, ABC News continued to report on the impending release of a report on the CIA’s post-9/11 interrogation methods as though partisanship had no role when, in fact, Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee are the very reason it was compiled and will be released.                                          Following a morning in which ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today …

On Monday, ABC and NBC's morning newscasts both touted the upcoming congressional report on the CIA's post-9/11 interrogation techniques as "explosive" and "damning." However, neither network pointed out that it was Democratic members on the Senate Intelligence Committee that commissioned the document. By contrast, CBS This Morning reported that "Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee are…

The New York Times continued its annoying, Winston Smith-like habit of rewriting history in virtually real time yesterday. Helene Cooper's original Monday afternoon report on Chuck Hagel's sacking as Secretary of Defense is no longer available at the Times. However, since I anticipated that the paper would conduct a comprehensive cleanup yesterday when I posted on the paper's original coverage,…

As is the case with so many executive changes in both the public and the private sector, there is vagueness in the circumstances surrounding the end of Chuck Hagel's stint as Obama administration Secretary of Defense. While it's not unusual for an exec to be asked to resign to avoid being formally fired, which was apparently the case with Hagel, the higher-ups involved are usually smart enough…

New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan reluctantly waded into the paper's coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict in her latest Sunday column, relaying criticism from both sides before throwing up her hands and defending her paper as fair and balanced. But anyone who's read Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren's coverage knows that's a sad joke.

CNN's Don Lemon refreshingly devoted air time on Monday's CNN Tonight to an ongoing atrocity being committed by Islamic extremist group ISIS – their sexual enslavement of hundreds of Yazidi girls and women. Lemon brought up the radicals' war crime during a segment with CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank.

CNN's Chris Cuomo expressed his nagging doubt on Monday's New Day about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Co-anchor Alisyn Camerota boasted, "I find it satisfying to hear about his last seconds – I got to say." Cuomo initially agreed with his co-anchor, but then reversed course: "Actually, I don't know that I do. I don't like the idea of anybody having to lose their life, but that gets into a…