Iraq

"Let's Clear the Fog of War," suggested Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Timothy Egan in a recent blog post for the New York Times. Egan criticized the White House's decision to simply stop talking about what happened at the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed on Sunday night. "They owe us a complete story, an honesty story, one for the record," Egan wrote. But in calling for truth, Egan…

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Thursday had a highly-contentious interview with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "The Last Word" host repeatedly interrupted his guest leading her to say after one such incident, "Lawrence, you have a bad habit with your guests. You never let them answer a question" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On NBC's Nightly News on Monday, chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel used a report on the history of the war on terror to attack the Bush administration for going to war in Iraq: "...when civil war in Iraq broke out, American troops were stuck....it was a distraction from the United States' original mission to find Bin Laden, stop Al Qaeda, and prevent another 9/11." [Audio available here…

As we watched President Obama tell us Sunday evening of Osama bin Laden's death, we knew the media would be starting the Mother of all victory laps. Not surprisingly out ahead of the cheering throngs was Huffington Post's senior politics editor Howard Fineman with his Monday love letter "Obama Gets Osama: Goodbye Vietnam":

Sunday was an historic day for America, an historic victory in the War on Terror - Usama Bin Laden, the man who had ordered the death of over 3,000 Americans on 9/11, had finally been  killed.   It was also an historic revelation that, conducting the war according to far-left liberal policies would have prevented this day from ever happening.

In his May 2 Swampland blog post "Osama Gone, and Now...", Time's Joe Klein makes some arguably contradictory assertions in his thoughts on the role former President Bush played in ultimately finding and killing Osama bin Laden:

Out of the mouths of babes... On Friday's "Inside Washington," during a discussion about American foreign policy in the Middle East and Africa, PBS's Mark Shields actually said, "The most urgent priority that we have is to find jobs somehow, not simply for Americans, which is an urgent priority, but for young Egyptians" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Former Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez is expected to be a Democratic contender in the Texas 2012 Senate race. However, when Politico's Mike Allen brought news of his probable candidacy to MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Monday,  he omitted the fact that Sanchez commanded the U.S. ground forces in Iraq while the infamous abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison took place. Sanchez, when he retired from the Army…

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller’s latest Sunday magazine column, “Team America,” asks in the subhead: “Less than a decade after invading Iraq, the U.S. has rediscovered its missionary spirit. Should we be troubled by this?” Keller is not completely on board with Obama on what’s shaping up as “regime change” in Libya. But he also claimed that as editor he doesn’t take stands for or…

Charles Krauthammer had quite a battle this weekend with "Inside Washington" host Gordon Peterson and fellow panelist Mark Shields. The fireworks began when Peterson quibbled about how we haven't raised taxes to pay for the wars we're currently waging leading Shields to call them unpatriotic as a result (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Admiral and former Democrat Congressman Joe Sestak (D-Penn.) has been an outspoken critic of President Obama's attack on Libya since the operation began almost two weeks ago. For some reason on MSNBC's "Ed Show" Thursday, Sestak radically changed his view (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Wednesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Chris Wragge interviewed former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and questioned President Obama's Libya policy: "...on Monday, the President said it would be a mistake to send U.S. troops to push out Qadhafi, saying quote, 'We went down that road in Iraq'...taking a shot at you and President Bush....Isn't the President being a bit hypocritical?" Even…

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Monday went to great pains illustrating the similarities between President Obama's Libya address to the nation and his December 2009 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. Not surprisingly, the devout dove suddenly turned hawk chose not to discuss the irony (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

For a mercifully fleeting moment, Ed Schultz was considered a possible candidate for Senate. It came in the wake of Sen. Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, announcing in January 2010 that he would not seek re-election. Speculation briefly centered on Schultz running to succeed Dorgan until Schultz adamantly denied he had any intention of doing so. On Friday, Schultz demonstrated why…