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.
Military
By Tom Blumer | November 19, 2015 | 10:48 AM EST
Several times in the past, we've heard President Barack Obama, and occasionally his press secretary, tell America that the nation's commander-in-chief learned about certain events the same way many of the rest of us did: by seeing them on TV or reading newspaper accounts. A Republican or conservative president hauling out this excuse even once would face endless outrage and ridicule, respectively, from the news and entertainment divisions of the establishment press's networks.
Former CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson, who is now an independent investigative journalist, has revealed one reason why Obama's level of claimed ignorance has been so high. It's because he won't look at information he doesn't like, or which doesn't conform to his preconceived notions — even in very serious matters relating to national security. It seems highly unlikely that Attkisson is the only reporter in the nation who has learned this.
By Mark Finkelstein | November 18, 2015 | 9:35 PM EST
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."
By Michael McKinney | November 18, 2015 | 11:27 AM EST
Morning Joe on Wednesday discussed the recent remarks by President Obama on Republicans who are “afraid of orphans and widows.” When the discussion turned to David Ignatius for commentary, he gave a defense of Obama. Scarborough would press Ignatius with on using "the widows and orphans" to antagonize Republican governors. While Ignatius conceded there is always room to correct the words used, he thought the President was on point.
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 18, 2015 | 8:55 AM EST
On Wednesday’s Fox & Friends, co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck pressed White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest over language used by Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama following last week’s ISIS terrorist attack in Paris.
By Mark Finkelstein | November 18, 2015 | 7:09 AM EST
Suggestion for John Kerry: if traveling makes you so tired that you say things undermining the war against radical Islamic terrorism, do us all a favor—stay home on Nantucket and conduct your diplomacy by Skype . . .
On today's Morning Joe, here's how Mark Halperin explained Kerry's despicable statement about the "legitimacy" and "rationale" of the Charlie Hebdo attacks: "Secretary Kerry has a history when he's tired in particular after he hurtles around the world of speaking imprecisely." Was Kerry speaking "imprecisely"—or did he let the truth slip of precisely how he and President Obama really feel?
Vox Writer: When GOP Candidates Talk About ISIS, They Sound Like ‘Status-Obsessed, Chest-Beating Adolescents’
By Tom Johnson | November 17, 2015 | 9:27 PM EST 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.”
By Curtis Houck | November 17, 2015 | 8:52 PM EST
On Tuesday night, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC saw no reason to inform their viewers of Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertion that he could recognize there having been a “rationale” and “particularized focus” for Islamic terrorists to carry out the January attacks in Paris on the offices of Charlie Hebdo but not for the “indiscriminate” attacks that occurred in the very same city on Friday.
By Michael McKinney | November 17, 2015 | 1:56 PM EST
Morning Joe featured on Tuesday, an interview with Congressman Peter King. Early into the segment, Mika Brzezinski began a war of words with Congressman King. After Brzezinski introduced the topic, King stated, “I'm extremely concerned because what the President is telling us is not true.” Brzezinski interrupted the Congressman, saying that “there is vetting,” and arguing that he was wrong. What followed was a tense segment where the Morning Joe crew questioned King on his statements and his argument’s credibility.
By Mark Finkelstein | November 17, 2015 | 7:58 AM EST
If Mike Barnicle were around at the beginning of WWII, perhaps he would have written "we better not fight back. It might make Hitler mad."
On today's Morning Joe, the cringing former Boston Globe columnist, second-guessing a united front against terrorism, worried "wouldn't . . . creating a NATO force just add fuel to the recruiting fever that ISIS employs within Europe?" Maybe Mike should start referring to ISIS as Borg. After all, he apparently believes that resistance is futile.
By Tom Johnson | November 16, 2015 | 5:52 PM EST
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!”
By Matthew Balan | November 16, 2015 | 5:15 PM EST
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."