How unhinged has Howard Dean become? So bad that an MSNBC host had to gently walk him back off the ledge.
On Chris Hayes' MSNBC show tonight, Dean claimed that Scott Walker says Barack Obama was "born in Kenya." It took Hayes two attempts to break through Dean's blather, but eventually he was able to politely point out: "I should note, you mention the Kenya thing, he has not been asked that."
Friday's NBC Nightly News surprisingly (and perhaps, unwittingly) contradicted President Obama and his administration's talking point on combating extremism – that providing "job opportunities for these people" will discourage Muslims from joining terrorist groups. Correspondent Katy Tur's report on three British teenagers who may have traveled to Syria to join ISIS featured a counterterrorism expert who underlined that "they're not the disaffected. They're not necessarily unemployed youth. Instead, we're seeing educated young women who are engaged in politics."
Anderson Cooper spotlighted The Atlantic's Graeme Wood's thorough article on ISIS on his Wednesday program. Cooper wondered, "President Obama...said we're at war with people who have perverted Islam. The question, though, is: is that really true?" The anchor asked Wood about Mr. Obama's statement, and he gave a blunt reply: "Well, you know, he doesn't really have the authority to say that. I don't think any non-Muslim, really, has the authority to say that, or to convince others that that's the case."
While his fellow network news colleagues all but ignored any criticism of President Obama’s speech on Wednesday afternoon and his avoidance of using the term Islamic extremism, NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel ripped the current U.S. strategy for defeating ISIS during NBC Nightly News. “ISIS is spreading like a virus and months of U.S.-led air strikes don't seem to be containing it,” declared Engel at the onset of his report.
Latest dispatch from President Obama's Department of Terrible Deeds in the Name of Christ . . . Morning Joe invited the State Department spox Marie Harf on today to give her a chance to clarify what she said to Chris Matthews about the US being unable to "kill our way" out of the ISIS problem and the need to focus on the "root causes" of terrorism.
After brushing off the suggestion by General Michael Hayden that she'd like a "mulligan" on those remarks, Harf attempted to distract from the focus on Islamic terrorism. Discussing this week's White House summit on "extremism," Harf cited the Lord's Resistance Army led by Ugandan Joseph Kony. Huffed Harf: "I don't remember people talking about that as much anymore, but that's a Christian militant group."
In a rundown of the deteriorating situation in Libya in its February 23 issue, New Yorker Magazine's Jon Lee Anderson quoted "a senior (Obama) Administration official" (the capital "A" is Anderson's) who, incredibly, claimed that the country's descent into virtual chaos resulted from "the politicization" of the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack which killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others.
You see, because of that alleged politicization, Team Obama-Hillary claims that it, in the Administration official's words, "reduced our geographic scope and presence in the country," and, in Anderson's words, that it "wound down its diplomatic presence and essentially abandoned its role" there. A "senior Administration official" chimed in with how Benghazi "brought a 'broader chill'" to U.S. efforts.
Libya's descent into chaos troubles the New York Times editorial board. Naturally, the Old Gray Lady's Sunday editorial, even as it referenced the 2011 "civil war," didn't even try to make any association between the current mess and the administration which initiated it.
The editorial's recitation of the current situation, without any mention of President Obama, NATO, or the United States leaves one wondering why the Times even bothered publishing the piece (bolds are mine throughout this post):
The House Select Committee on Benghazi that is looking into the 2012 terror attacks in Libya held another hearing on Wednesday and focused on the lack of sufficient security that was in place in Benghazi which, based on the hearing, remains the case across many State Department facilities.
When it came to the major broadcast networks reporting on the hearing, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC all punted and refused to cover it in any capacity during their evening newscasts.
Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director and moderator of Meet the Press, spoke with Senators Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) on Sunday to discuss a variety of issues including President Obama’s recent executive action on immigration as well as the Benghazi terrorist attack. After discussing immigration for the majority of the interview, Todd brought up a new House Intelligence Committee report on Benghazi and eagerly asked Republican Jeff Flake “is it time for the Republicans to drop the Benghazi conspiracy theories?”
Saturday morning, Erica Werner at the Associated Press, aka the Administratino's Press, channeled her inner Nancy Cordes to play "gotcha" with Republicans who won election to the House on Tuesday.
Werner's report essentially regurgitated Cordes's petulance in the CBS reporter's question directed at House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday. Cordes identified supposedly stupid or ill-advised things some of the incoming freshmen have said in the past, while of course not identifying a single similar thing a sitting Democratic Party congressman has said on the floor of the House or in House committee hearings during their tenures. Excerpts follow the jump (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
You really have to watch the clip of President Obama strutting his self-righteous anger at states that are imposing Ebola quarantines. I, Barack thunders that such quarantines reflect a lack of leadership, and "that's not who I am." Thank you, sir, for letting us know what a strong leader you are.
On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough scalded President Obama's self-righteous hypocrisy. Mockingly quoting the President, Scarborough said "'This is America. And we do things differently'—unless it's in Barack Obama's own government, the military." Where of course a quarantine is being imposed on soldiers returning from Ebola hot zones. In the unkindest cut, Scarborough cast Obama's hypocrisy as "a Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker moment." Ouch.
Let she who is without geography sin cast the first globe! On her MSNBC show last night, Rachel Maddow mercilessly mocked Darrell Issa for confusing Guinea with Guyana. The Republican congressman made his mistake during a discussion of the country in which the latest Ebola outbreak began. Issa said it was "Guyana," a South American country, whereas in fact it was Guinea, a West African one.
Fair enough. Issa should have gotten his countries straight. But of all the hosts in the MSNBC lineup, Rachel Maddow should have been the last to have the chutzpah to highlight Issa's blooper. For you see, just last month, Maddow made a big geography blooper of her own. During a discussion of President Obama's then-impending trip to Estonia--a Baltic country--Maddow went on—repeatedly and at length—about the last time a president had visited . . . the Balkans.