Benjamin Netanyahu

The major broadcast networks continued their defense on Wednesday night of the Iranian nuclear arms agreement and specifically President Obama’s press conference from hours before, ruling that the President was “on offense” in providing “a spirited defense” of the “history-making deal.” While all three network anchors interviewed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it was CBS Evening News…

Zbigniew Brzezinki is the man who infamously advised President Obama to shoot down Israeli warplanes should they attempt to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. So when David Ignatius asked him on today's Morning Joe what he thought of Bibi Netanyahu's condemnation of the Iran deal, Zbigniew knew he was being teed up to unload on the Israeli PM. By Zbigniew's vituperative standards, his response was…

Ronald Reagan: "My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic. It is this: we win and they lose." Thomas Friedman on Barack Obama: "He actually knows what America looks like from the outside in. And he can actually see America even to some point from the Iranian perspective." So whom will history record as being more effective in countering America's…

Sometimes you just want to shake the TV and say "enough with the cutesy facial expressions, already: spit it out, Mika!"  Morning Joe mavens will know what I mean: Mika Brzezinski has the annoying habit of letting a series of sighs, raised eyebrows and facial tics substitute for a clear articulation of her position on a given issue. There was a prime example of the phenomenon on today's show,…

One of the first rules of genuine comedy is that to be funny, a joke or skit needs to have some basis in truth. On that primary measurement, the cold open on "Saturday Night Live" last night failed miserably on so many fronts, it's hard to know where to begin. Its most offensive aspect is its portrayal of a Democrat inflicting violence on three Republicans to the audience's pleausre. It is…

The pundit class in the U.S. and much of the rest of the world is still seething over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's electoral triumph last week. On Monday, Dan Perry at the Associated Press took that hysteria to a new level, in effect attempting to discredit Bibi's win by writing that, after all, it may not really be correct to call Israel a democracy. That's because "Palestinians" who are…

Joe Scarborough, MSNBC’s solitary leaner toward the center-right, was unavailable for Monday’s broadcast of Morning Joe. Without him to restrain her, Mika Brzezinski proceeded to make a piñata out of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s election comments, repeatedly accusing him of “race-baiting.” This is odd, considering Mika insisted just a few days before that Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin…

Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer appeared on the panel for Fox News’s Special Report on Tuesday evening and blasted President Barack Obama for refusing to directly comment on the Wall Street Journal report that Israel has been spying on the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear deal as well as the administration for acting as if Israel’s actions are unprecedented.

Morning Joe went on the air in 2007. Think of all the outrage-provoking people and events that have popped up in the ensuing eight years.  Yet in the memory of this Newsbuster—who's been blogging the show since its debut—rarely has Mika Brzezinski seemed more upset than she was today on the subject of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.   Just what is it that drives Brzezinski so batty…

CNN is reporting tonight that the White House considers the "Of course, death to America" comments made by Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as merely statements "intended for a domestic political audience." That clueless take would be headline news everywhere right now if this were a Republican or conservative administration. The National Journal's John Kraushaar's tweet reporting…

Warning: readers are advised to hide the sharp objects before viewing the clip of Morning Joe's review of the Middle East today.  The picture painted is one of the utter failure of US foreign policy, leaving a devastated, deadly region in its woeful wake. We open with President Obama's "mission accomplished" moment from last year in which he called US policy in Yemen "successful." Cut to Jim…

This week, the New York Times laughably claims Hillary's "toughest foe" in 2016 will be the news media, even as CBS anchor Scott Pelley scoffs at the media "hyperventilating" over the ex-Secretary of State's e-mail scandal. Plus, the media rampage against Republican "traitors" after Senators point out they have a Constitutional role in approving treaties; and journalists have a sour reaction to…

Kim Messick believes America since its founding has suffered three serious breaches of political trust, the last of which is ongoing and results from “the readiness of Republicans to violate long-standing norms of institutional conduct in order to advance a highly divisive, intensely partisan agenda” that’s implacably hostile to most functions of government. Messick touches on Tom Cotton’s letter…

This week, the media’s reaction to the Israeli election seemed indistinguishable from the reaction of the Obama White House. Not only were journalists surprised by Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory on Tuesday (they apparently believed pre-election surveys showing his party trailing by 2 to 4 seats; they ended up winning by 6 seats), but they seemed distressed by the result.