Pity Party at AP: Obama Still Handicapped by Bush 43's 'Legacy'

Nearly six years into Barack Obama's presidency, it's still George W. Bush's fault. Early Wednesday morning, Julie Pace at the Associated Press proved yet again why it is more than appropriate to characterize the wire service where she works as the Administration's Press. The headline at Pace's story tells us that poor President Barack Obama still has to confront the "Bush legacy," and is still…
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Norah O’Donnell Insists CIA Tortured Terrorists

On Wednesday, Michael Morrell, former Deputy Director of the CIA and current CBS News Senior Security Contributor, appeared on CBS This Morning to discuss the Democrat-led Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists. While the former CIA official vehemently rejected the contents of the report, co-host Norah O’Donnell did…
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Hayden Slams NBC on 'Torture Report': 'You're Claiming It To Be News'

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 After Hayden denounced the partisan report as something that "reads like a prosecutorial screed rather than an historical document," co-host Savannah Guthrie pressed him on what he disagreed with.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…
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'Sober,' Not 'Political': Halperin and Peters Defend Feinstein Report

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…
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Williams to Ex-CIA Chief Hayden: 'How Are We Better Than Our Enemies?'

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…
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Pelley Asks Former Acting CIA Director If He Feels ‘Ashamed’ by Report

On Tuesday night, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley did little to hide his liberal bias when it came to supporting the release of the report by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee detailing the use of “torture” by the agency on terrorists following the 9-11 terrorist attacks. In addition to asking CBS News contributor and former acting CIA Director Mike Morell if he felt “ashamed…

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Chris Matthews Suggests Dick Cheney Takes Sadistic Pleasure in Torture

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.
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Whoopi Gives Lame Reason For Opposing Release of CIA ‘Torture’ Report

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…
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NBC Reporter: Senate Report 'Rewriting History' & 'Settling Scores'

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…
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ABC Continues to Omit Role of Dems in Release of ‘Graphic’ CIA Report

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 …
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ABC, NBC Hype 'Explosive' 'Torture' Report; Omit Its Partisan Origin

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…

NYT Sanitizes, Spins Report on Hagel's Sacking for Tues. Print Editon

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,…

NYT: Hagel 'Wasn't Fired,' But Obama 'Made the Decision to Remove' Him

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…

NYT's Public Editor's Sad Joke: Paper Is Fair with Israel Coverage

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.