Syria

As the Islamic terrorist group ISIS seized Ramadi earlier this week and now the ancient Syrian town of Palmyra, the major broadcast networks have largely declined to even mention any criticism of President Obama and his so-called policy in dealing with ISIS and Thursday night was no exception as ABC and CBS declined to raise that point of view. While it was brief, NBC Nightly News did make time…

On Thursday's New Day, CNN's Chris Cuomo wondered if some in the 2016 Republican presidential field might be making the possible redeployment of U.S. troops into Iraq a political issue. When GOP strategist Kevin Madden underlined that "so many Republicans disagree with the President's [Obama's] approach on combating ISIS that so many of these candidates are going to want to draw as stark a…

On Tuesday, I wrote that "Every day seems to bring in at least one new example of alleged journalists who are really propagandists insisting that what is obviously false is true." Today's entry into that category will be extremely hard to beat, and may well stand as one of the worst attempts at an argument ever made by a leftist hack. Before I excerpt William Saletan's column at Slate and his…

CNN's Fareed Zakaria inserted a thinly-veiled shot at Fox News Channel during his Monday special on ISIS. Zakaria underlined that "the angry rhetoric of cable news fits right into the script [of ISIS]."  He continued that "CNN makes an occasional appearance" in the Islamist terrorist group's propaganda, but then played up that "Fox News is a favorite of ISIS, with commentators who demand boots on…

Hey Barack? Yes, Your Royal Majesty! Look, know what I said about coming to that thing at your place? Of course, oh Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. Not going to make it--turns out I have to rearrange my stallion's sock drawer. On today's Morning Joe, Andrea Mitchell acknowledged the undeniable: that the last-minute decision by Saudi King Salman not to attend the White House summit, after…

The Hudson Institute's Nina Shea spotlighted the plight of a Catholic sister who was denied entry to the U.S. by the Obama administration in a Thursday item for National Review. She noted how "every member of an Iraqi delegation of minority groups, including representatives of the Yazidi and Turkmen Shia religious communities, has been granted visas to come for official meetings in Washington,"…

Mary Anne Weaver appeared on today's Morning Joe to discuss her New York Times Magazine cover article "Her Majesty's Jihadists." On the one hand, Weaver paints a striking portrait of the radicalization of young Muslims in the UK, reporting for example that there are more British jihadists than there are Muslims serving in the British military. But when asked what could be done about the problem,…

Can you imagine if in 2008 a prominent conservative media member had said that Barack Obama looked like a "little boy" compared to John McCain?  The echoes of liberal outrage would still be resounding today. But there was Mika Brzezinski on today's Morning Joe saying of Marco Rubio "that's a little boy." Mika made the invidious comparison to Hillary's service as senator, First Lady and Secretary…

Last week, NewsBusters brought you "Stumped," as April Ryan struggled to cite a single foreign policy success by her super-fave, President Obama. In the best Hollywood tradition, this morning we bring you a sequel--Stumped II: Syria! On today's Morning Joe, lugubrious lefty Eric Alterman of The Nation mag was stumped when Joe Scarborough asked him what the US should do about Syria. After humming…

Not even a lifeline could have helped her . . . There was a telling moment on today's Morning Joe when Joe Scarborough challenged April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks to cite some of President Obama's foreign-policy successes. Ryan was reduced to replying "that's kind of tough. Hmm, that's a tough one . . . I have to really ponder that."    

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…

On Wednesday's All Things Considered, NPR's Ari Shapiro spotlighted Cage, a British organization that ran to the defense of "Jihadi John," the ISIS member who infamously beheaded several hostages on video. Shaprio slanted toward Cage by playing four soundbites from two talking heads from the organization, as well as a clip from the terrorist himself, who has been identified as Mohammed Emwazi.

It was almost a funny moment . . . until you realized that members of the press were openly laughing at the fecklessness of the ostensible leader of the free world. On today's Morning Joe, the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, his voice occasionally cracking with emotion, repeatedly insisted that President Obama would use military force if necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.  …

News concerning the mass kidnapping of Christians by ISIS in Syria worsened on Thursday with reports from multiple human rights groups that raised the initial number of those taken from 150 to now at least 220. If you watched the network evening newscasts, though, you would not have known that if you had tuned into CBS or NBC. This latest case of network bias by omission comes as NBC has yet to…