I took some flak awhile back for saying that--his liberalism notwithstanding--Chris Matthews had a patriotic streak.
More evidence for that notion on this evening's Hardball, as Matthews twice derided President Obama's response to ISIS as "dainty," and kvetched that "I don't see us doing anything."
On Wednesday's New Day, CNN kept up their skepticism of the Obama administration's talking points on ISIS. Chris Cuomo noted that "the word from the White House is...that we are having success....How does that make sense, given...we just saw what happened in Paris?" Christiane Amanpour threw cold water on John Earnest's claim that there wasn't a military solution for the terrorist group: "You have to eradicate ISIS, and that's not going to happen with some nice de-radicalization programs."
In a welcome change of pace for MSNBC programming on Tuesday night, liberal primetime host Rachel Maddow was given the night off in favor of NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, who anchored the network’s 9:00 p.m. Eastern coverage of the Paris Islamic terror attacks and closed with a brief but astute commentary on how it’s doubtful that Paris will change the global ISIS strategy.
Last week, ex-Bill Clinton adviser Paul Begala snarked on CNN that during the most recent Republican presidential debate, the candidates mentioned Hillary Clinton so often that they came off as “creepy…in a stalker sort of way…Maybe it's affectionate…Maybe they’re like junior high schoolboys.”
Vox's David Roberts has joined Begala in likening the GOP contenders to middle- or high-schoolers, but his concern is aggression, not affection. In a Monday series of sixteen tweets later collated and posted on the magazine’s site, Roberts argued that when the candidates talk about how they’d deal with ISIS, they sound like “insecure, hormone-ridden teenage boy[s]” and “status-obsessed, chest-beating adolescents.”
CNN's Dana Bash hounded Senator Ted Cruz on Tuesday's New Day over President Obama slamming the Republican presidential candidate at a press conference earlier in the day. Bash touted how "President Obama called you out...and he said it was shameful for saying that there should be, effectively, a religious test for refugees — especially since...your family benefitted from the policies of America — allowing refugees in."
Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera unleashed on President Obama on Monday's Hannity, after the American leader doubled down on his strategy against ISIS at a press conference earlier in the day. Rivera bluntly stated that "the President's feelings are way too squishy for me," and that "this is malignant wishful thinking on the President's part." He later contended that "to compare them to any organization, other than the Taliban before 9/11, is really sophomoric."
Many on the left have accused conservatives of exploiting the Paris terrorist attacks for political gain. On Monday, Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas jumped on the pile, alleging that the right’s main reaction to the attacks was not sadness or outrage, but “excitement” over the prospect of stirring up Islamophobia -- perhaps to the point of getting the Middle East war that they supposedly want so much.
“Finally! An excuse to wield their favorite tool—fear!” wrote Kos. “Because if there’s one sentiment that defines conservative ideology, it’s fear. Fear of the blacks, the communists, the immigrants, the liberal college professors, the Mexican rapist/drug dealers, the sleeper cells hiding amidst Syrian refugees…This is a movement that can’t speak to people’s economic plight, but it sure can rail about the monsters under the bed!”
On Monday, CNN's Christiane Amanpour and two of her network's analysts blasted President Obama moments after he ended a press conference where he defended his anti-ISIS strategy. Amanpour underlined that Obama "something that was pretty incredible...that our strategy is working. People do not believe that to be the case. The only strategy that's working is the strategy that he tends to dismiss — and that's the ground troop strategy. Sinjar, Tikrit, Kobani — those are the only ISIS strongholds that have been taken back by a combination of American intelligence and air power, and local ground forces."
The obvious pull quote of the day from President Obama's contentious press conference in Antalya, Turkey is this statement: "What I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning or whatever other slogans they come up with ..." Obama then claimed that any ideas coming from those who believe in such a notion have "no relationship to what is actually going to work to protect the American people and to protect the people in the region."
Ed Driscoll at PJ Media believes that these words are "the president’s equivalent of Carter’s malaise speech" in the 1970s. Just in case he's right, related stories at the Associated Press and the New York Times have not mentioned Obama's statement, a clear indicator of his lack of genuine resolve, in their coverage.
As of early this morning, Matt Drudge was carrying a link to a story headlining how President Obama is "under fire for saying ISIS 'contained' just hours before Paris attack."
Well, Obama is under some fire, but Drudge's link is to coverage at the UK Daily Mail. That's unfortunately unsurprising, because there is little to no mention of Obama's naive, foolish and callous statement in the U.S. establishment press. So Obama may be "under fire" from people who are paying attention, but low-information news consumers (and voters) who didn't happen to see the original Thursday interview will likely remain unaware of it. In one such example of convenient oversight, the Associated Press published a Thursday evening story on that interview, and decided that its only newsworthy element was Obama's immigration-related criticism of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Former Democratic operative turned journalist George Stephanopoulos on Thursday and Friday threw softballs at Barack Obama, setting the President up to attack certain Americans as bigots and to trash Ben Carson. On Thursday's Nightline, the journalist asked about Donald Trump’s immigration and deportation plans. Stephanopoulos wondered, “So, what do you think when you hear people cheer for that?” Obama sneered, “I think is that there's always been a strain of anti-immigrant sentiment in America.”
Friday's CBS Evening News previewed an upcoming 60 Minutes exposé on the "widespread failures in the system that grants top-secret security clearance to federal employees and contractors." Scott Pelley pointed at Bradley Manning as a prime example of "how top-secret clearances fall into dangerous hands." Pelley featured several clips from his interview of Manning's former supervisor in Iraq, who told her superior that "he cannot be trusted with a security clearance; we can't deploy him; and he's most likely a spy."