War on Terrorism

Appearing as a panel member on Sunday's Face the Nation on CBS, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus had sudden respect for former President George W. Bush as she declared that she was "nostalgic for the good old days" when President Bush had "soothing, calming responsible words about Muslims" in contrast with the "very ugly week for Republicans" since the Paris attacks.

With a nod to the terror attacks in Paris that cancelled last week’s live show and the attack on a Mali hotel, NBC’s Undateable’s newest live episode, “An Origin Story Walks Into A Bar,” began with a little shot of compassion mixed with a chaser of naivety. 

On Sunday's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos repeatedly brought up the debate over whether to bar guns from people on the federal terror watch list or the no-fly list without delving into any of the arguments against doing so. The ABC host brought up the issue with both guests Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson, and raised the issue again during the Roundtable segment, but never noted either…

The left tends to believe that Republicans, for whatever reason, are a lot better than Democrats at messaging and salesmanship. In that vein, Martin Longman argues that GOPers have a flair for fabricating issues -- “non-problems,” Longman calls them -- which distract the public from real problems. “There was the non-problem with Fast & Furious,” wrote Longman in a Friday post. “There was the…

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh blasted President Obama for treating Republicans as a greater enemy than ISIS terrorists: “Barack Obama's number one enemy is the Republican Party and the conservative movement. You see he gets animated, he doesn't need cue cards, he doesn’t need Teleprompter when he starts ripping into them.”

In the wake of the Paris terrorist murder sprees, a media narrative that the U.S. is somehow less vulnerable to terrorist attacks than countries in Europe has arisen. The reasons given for this contention would be uproariously funny if the stakes weren't so serious: "Geography and strict travel restrictions." Additionally, according to the report where the meme appears to have originated, there…

An appearance last night on Alan Colmes' radio show went from bad to barely better for a spokesman with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Hassan Shibly, executive director of the Florida CAIR branch at Tampa, made an earnest attempt to separate Islamic fanatics responsible for last week's carnage in Paris from genuine Muslims, despite a revealing gaffe right out of the gate.

I turned on MSNBC this morning in the admittedly masochistic hope of seeing Melissa Harris-Perry, only to find Harry Smith--of all people--hosting continuing coverage of the Paris attacks and related issues. After running clips of Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee questioning the admittance into the US of Syrian refugees, Smith immediately displayed on screen and read the passage of Matthew…

Readers of this byline have already suffered through the grandes pensées, respectively, of Univision's top anchors Jorge Ramos and María Elena Salinas. Now meet Enrique Acevedo, anchor of Univision’s late night national newscast Edición Nocturna, and his latest opinion column.

President Obama deserves high marks for his ISIS policy only if you’re grading on a curve and the other students are Republicans who “can't be bothered to take any of this seriously,” suggested Kevin Drum in a Thursday post. Drum charged that GOPers “blather about Obama being weak, but when you ask them for their plans you just get nonsense…Obama's ISIS strategy has [not] been golden. But…

The Public Broadcasting Service isn’t really a representative of the Public, as everyone should know. It’s the defender of liberal elite opinion, no matter what the polls say. This week, the polls are stacking up against President Obama on his ISIS policy and his Syrian-refugee policy. But the PBS NewsHour stands with Obama and in horror at the current Republican Party. Both liberal Mark Shields…

Why do right-wingers "panic "over the terrorist attacks in Paris, the Ebola epidemic, and Obama-care? Because they're bullies and cowards, Paul Krugman explained in his Friday column, "The Farce Awakens." While the news pages of the New York Times have been relatively sober in the aftermath of the attacks by radical Islamists in Paris, Krugman has been his same old nastily sarcastic self, to the…

On Friday's CNN Newsroom, Carol Costello badgered Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader over his vote in favor of additional scrutiny for Syrian refugees applying to enter the U.S. Costello spotlighted how "some on Twitter have not been kind — calling you a traitor to Oregon and...xenophobic," and how "some say the intent of this bill is to really create so many checks that it will be impossible for any…

On Friday, Sally Kohn took to The Daily Beast to argue that we should all be heartened by the fact that  “The Religious Fundamentalists Are Losing.” In making her case, Kohn compared Christian ‘hardliners’ – you social conservative ones who are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage – with DAESH, or ISIS as many in the West know it.