Syria

MSNBC hosts are skeptical if not downright opposed in principle to President Obama's push to bomb Syria, but the MSNBC.com Facebook page is doing its level best to present President Obama in a favorable light, complete with photo memes of the president adorned with quotes related to his Syria policy. [see screen captures below page break] On September 1, the day after President Obama…

Nightline, the show born out a crisis in the Middle East, has devolved into a superficial, tabloid-heavy program that has hardly bothered with the growing crisis in Syria and Barack Obama's handling of it. Since August 21, the program has allowed a mere four segments (18 minutes and eight seconds). In contrast, Nightline has devoted over 24 minutes to light-weight topics such as the Amish…

In an interview with former Bush national security advisor Stephen Hadley on her Thursday MSNBC show, host Andrea Mitchell pinned all of President Obama's problems selling military action in Syria to the Iraq War: "There is such a credibility gap between the White House and Congress, the leftover, the hangover from the Iraq War. So can you be at least a little sympathetic to what the…

As NewsBusters previously reported, MSNBC president Phil Griffin told the New York Times in June that his network is "not the place" for breaking news. This was evident again this past Saturday when MSNBC actually saw a 20 percent week-over-week decline during the busy news period when President Obama announced that he was going to Congress for approval to attack Syria.

On Wednesday's MSNBC Daily Rundown, minutes after President Obama denied setting a "red line" on Syria's use of chemical weapons, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd excused the obvious falsehood: "I think it was clear that the President was trying to depersonalize the Syria issue a little bit....to say, you know, 'Stop making this about the President personally, depersonalize this.'" […

Wednesday's CBS Evening News twice underlined President Obama's 2012 "red line" remark before playing a soundbite of the Democrat's "I didn't set a red line" reversal earlier in the day. Scott Pelley noted that "a year ago, he [Obama] warned the Syrian dictator that a red line would be crossed if the dictator used chemical weapons against his rebellious citizens." Major Garrett soon added that…

  According to Chris Matthews on Wednesday, there's one reason prominent Republicans will vote against a resolution allowing Barack Obama to bomb Syria. Of course, the motive behind 2016 conservatives such as Marco Rubio and Rand Paul is "hate." The Hardball host insisted that the situation in Syria "is offering a roadmap to the Republican nomination for President next time." Rather than…

As NewsBusters has reported for years, David Letterman is one of Barack Obama’s biggest supporters on television. You couldn’t tell that Wednesday, for on the CBS Late Show, the host said of the President’s flip-flop concerning a chemical weapons red line in Syria, “[T]he guy has learned how to bulls—t” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

When George W. Bush was president, America's media loved reporting international demonstrations against him once things in Iraq turned south. With this in mind, it will be interesting to see if the same historically anti-war press will cover a picture depicting Barack Obama as the devil published Wednesday in the popular Egyptian newspaper Al Wafd.

CNN has done a generally good job of covering the Syrian crisis over the past couple of days, with many of its analysts and anchors casting a skeptical eye on President Obama’s proposed military strike. On Wednesday morning’s CNN Newsroom, chief political analyst Gloria Borger called out the president for his ridiculous assertions that his red line is really the world’s red line and his own…

Washington Post political reporter penned a column for Thursday’s paper with the headline “Could Clinton’s position on Syria today resurface in 2016?” Balz spent a whole column recounting how Senator Hillary’s vote authorizing the Iraq war doomed her in the 2008 race. Unsurprisingly, Hillary put out a statement supporting Obama’s plans for military action. What was surprising is that Balz…

Yesterday in Stockholm at the G20 summit, President Barack Obama said the following in regards to the use of chemical weapons in warfare: "I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line." For years, the press obsessed over the alleged untruthfulness of President George W. Bush's "16 words" ("The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of…

Politics, we're often told, is the art of the possible. The potential for American intervention in the Syrian civil war is stretching what previously was believed scarcely possible. Liberal Democratic congressman Alan Grayson of Florida, one of the party's most strident voices, a man who once said GOP policy on health care boils down to wanting you to "die quickly," finds himself inexplicably…

Arizona Republican Congressman Matt Salmon told National Review Wednesday that only two of the 500 calls his office has received concerning Syria have supported President Obama’s planned attack. Far more shocking, Maryland Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings told MSNBC’s Ed Shultz Wednesday that 99 percent of the calls his office has received also oppose such an attack.