Syria

Appearing on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show on Monday, MSNBC host Joy Reid repeatedly refused to characterize either Russian president Vladimir Putin or Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as “evil.” During a contentious debate over Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine, Hewitt asked his guest point-blank, “Do you agree that what Russia is doing is evil?” [Video embedded below the break.] Reid hedged…

Kudos to the Daily Beast for reporting this story. Don't hold your breath for the network news outlets to pick up on it and doggedly pursue it. In an exclusive published at the website today, Josh Rogin and Noah Shachtman explain how there's credible evidence that regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad may have used chemical weapons in January 2014, something that U.S. intelligence…

At Wednesday’s White House press briefing, ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked point-blank if the Obama administration’s handling of Syria has been an “absolute failure.” ABC didn’t report the exchange on Wednesday evening, however. Karl asked White House press secretary Jay Carney, “isn’t it time to acknowledge that easing the humanitarian crisis in Syria, that the President’s policy has been an…

Journalists love to preen as human rights watchdogs, congratulating themselves publicly for their roles – real or imagined – in securing the life and liberty of the downtrodden. That is, as long as it’s the right sort of downtrodden.  Take, for example, NBC’s coverage in the run up to the Sochi Winter Olympics. Because of Russian restrictions on gays’ free speechfor homosexuals, the official…

Apparently to Time magazine and Reuters, using the term "martyr" to refer to a Christian slain for the sake of his or her faith -- often at the hands of "radical Islamists" -- is deserving of scare quotes. "Deaths of Christian 'Martyrs' Doubled in 2013," reads the top item in the "latest headlines" sidebar at Time.com. Clicking the link takes you to a story by Charlotte Alter at Time.com, who…

How shambolic of a smoking ruin is the Obama presidency?  When Tina Brown surveys the wreckage, the best—the best!—thing she sees, the thing she believes will be Barack Obama's shining legacy, is his handling of Iran and Syria, which she declares to be "smart," and of course, "nuanced." The Obamacare catastrophe? Not to worry.  On today's Morning Joe, Brown assured us that those problems are…

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has done some crazy things in her life, but what she did last month really takes the cake. Appearing live on Syrian television, McKinney said that Syria’s Civil War was part of a plot created by the United States shortly after 9/11 (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It goes without saying that the reason Susan Rice was scrapped from consideration to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State last year was due to the claims she made on numerous television programs the Sunday after our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked. Despite this, when CNN's Fareed Zakaria did a twelve minute interview with Rice Sunday, he didn't mention Benghazi at all.

On Monday's The Last Word show, after former chess champion and Russian political activist Garry Kasparov charged that President Obama had "blown up [the] reputation of his office" by allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to talk him down from his "red line" warning against Syria, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell tried to argue that Obama had not really lost face since he never specifically…

MSNBC’s Alex Witt loves to ask questions that try to steer her guests toward a certain response, and she was at it again on Saturday’s edition of Weekends with Alex Witt. The host attempted to get three separate guests to agree with her that President Obama was last week’s “big winner” for stumbling onto a potential diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis. When the third guest was critical of…

CNN has been hyping the return of Crossfire for months, but given the ratings the first week, it seems the public wasn't buying it. Quite the contrary, numbers reported by The Wrap Monday show this not so new venture by the supposedly most trusted name in news is a bomb of epic proportions.

Expecting Syria to live up to an agreement between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for the cataloging, inspection, removal and eventual destruction or sequester of chemical weapons is a subtle seduction. Why would a dictator like Bashar al-Assad relinquish his most potent weapon in the midst of a civil war? President Obama and his sycophants claim it…

It was bound to be overshadowed by breaking news of the fatal Washington Navy Yard shooting this morning, but today's Wall Street Journal front-pager, "Inside White House, a Head-Spinning Reversal on Chemical Weapons," would have likely gone unnoticed by the liberal broadcast and cable media regardless. In a 66-paragraph masterpiece, Journal reporters Adam Entous, Janet Hook, and Carol Lee…

CNN's Chris Cuomo teed up Sen. John McCain to bash fellow Republicans on Monday's New Day, for putting partisanship before the country on Syria and the budget. "Do you believe if there were President Romney that members of your party would have the same resistance to going in that they are showing right now?" Cuomo pressed McCain on a Syria intervention. Would Cuomo ask if Democrats were…