Barack Obama

Steve Kroft's interview of Barack Obama was the focus of this past Sunday's episode of "60 Minutes" on CBS. It has become noteworthy primarily because of Obama's statement that U.S. intelligence agencies "underestimated what had been taking place in Syria." As several previous NewsBusters posts have shown (examples here, here, here, and here), the press is working mightily to minimize how the…

After ignoring criticism on Monday of President Obama's claim to 60 Minutes that the intelligence community was to blame for having "underestimated" ISIS, Tuesday's CBS This Morning finally caught up with the story as co-host Norah O'Donnell declared: "...intelligence officials sort of brustled [sic] at hearing the President say that the intelligence community may have underestimated this threat…

With about a month to go before the elections, let's loosen up our lever-pulling arms by inviting NewsBusters readers to vote on the lamest excuse offered by three Morning Joe panelists today for President Obama's failure to heed the intelligence about the threat ISIS posed. 1. Columbia prof Dorian Warren: congressional intelligence committees are to blame for not raising the issues with…

ABC's Jonathan Karl is on a tear — and his editorial bosses at ABC seem determined to ignore him. As Scott Whitlock at NewsBusters noted earlier today, Karl on Friday "grilled White House press secretary Josh Earnest ... about claims that al Qaeda had been 'decimated,'" mainly because it hasn't been. Instead, it seems like there are at least ten times as many versions. The network televised none…

"Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bulls***ting." That's what a "former senior Pentagon official who worked closely on the threat posed by Sunni jihadists in Syria and Iraq" told Eli Lake of the Daily Beast subsequent to his watching President Obama's September 28 60 Minutes interview with Steve Kroft.

Even as President Obama clearly attempted during a Sunday 60 Minutes interview to blame others for his failure to recognize ISIS as a growing threat in the Middle East, Monday's NBC Today spun the buck-passing as a "very candid" admission by the commander-in-chief. Co-host Matt Lauer opened the morning show by proclaiming: "Underestimated. The President admits his administration and U.S.…

National Journal’s Ron Fournier was apparently among those who endured President Obama's appearance on "60 Minutes" this evening. Fournier was able to succinctly summarize the contents of Obama's interview with Steve Kroft, the network's designated softball pitcher, in a tweet appearing shortly after its conclusion (HT Twitchy):

It wasn't that long ago that Obamacare defenders were ridiculing those of us who pointed out that the fully loaded cost of HealthCare.gov would surely top the $1 billion mark. Well, we were wrong — to be so conservative. The real number is "about" $2.1 billion and counting, according to a Bloomberg report which is mostly being kept out of the non-business press.

Leave it to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to eagerly defend President Obama following his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday. Appearing on Thursday’s Morning Joe, Scarborough insisted that on foreign policy Obama’s "been criticized from a lot of, you could say conservative circles, mainly neo-con circles for not doing enough and going into Syria a year or two ago. But he…

The Politico's Josh Gerstein wants readers not to have a problem with President Barack Obama singing the praises of American exceptionalism when in front of U.S. audiences but deep-sixing it when speaking at the United Nations. Though Obama has almost always avoided actually using the E-word, he has recenlly taken to speaking of this nation's "unique" abilities and capabilities, and for some time…

During his speech to the United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly on Wednesday, President Barack Obama made a striking, unusual and ridiculous comparison between the reign of terror taking place in the Middle East at the hands of the brutal Islamic terrorist group ISIS and the unrest that took place in Ferguson, Missouri last month after the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. As far as the any of…

Running defense for Barack Obama on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer touted "some of the President's defenders" pushing back against a video of the commander-in-chief sloppily saluting Marines while holding a coffee cup by "circulating this photo of George W. Bush during his presidency...saluting service members while holding his dog, Barney." [Listen to the audio] Lauer noted that…

Twitter users happening upon a Monday evening tweet by the Associated Press's Josh Lederman can be forgiven if they thought they were visiting a parody account. Lederman is a White House reporter for the AP. His LinkedIn profile indicates that his journalism career began about three years ago. His education, up to and including "a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s…