Call Ayman Mohyeldin "the Duke Ellington Reporter" in homage to the jazz great's "Don't Get Around Much Anymore." Or perhaps you could say that Mohyeldin had his Pauline Kael moment, after the New York Times movie critic who, as legend has it, averred she couldn't understand how Nixon won since she didn't know anyone who voted for him.

Isn't a reporter supposed to, you know, get around and speak with people with a range of views?  Not Ayman. On this evening's Hardball, Mohyeldin said that "every single person I've spoke to" said [Trump's Muslim immigration plan] would be "disastrous." But just a bit earlier in the show, Michael Steele cited a poll showing that 56% of Americans believe that Islam is incompatible with American values. Mohyeldin apparently didn't have a chance to chat with any of the majority of Americans. Not surprising, coming from the man who called American Sniper Chris Kyle a "racist" who went on "killing sprees."

For a moment there, it looked like John Heilemann might go Absolut Olbermann and call Donald Trump a "fascist" for his proposal which would for the time being bar the entry of all Muslims into the United States.

But Heilemann backed off that f-word. While noting "some will say fascist" about Trump or his policy, Heilemann declared "I'm not saying that." Instead, he settled for asserting that there are "many voters in the country who are in fact reactionary" and that there is no way to describe Trump's policy "other than reactionary." 

Following President Obama’s Sunday night address, the always large post-event panel on CNN had plenty to say, but it was quite the disconnect as many of their political commentators hailed the “straightforward” speech by the President while two of their foreign policy analysts panned the President’s “self-congratulation” and having “his head...in the clouds if he thinks this current strategy is going to succeed.”

Maybe you're a liberal, reluctant to accept Charles Krauthammer's conclusion that President Obama's speech on terror tonight was a "complete failure." Fine. But there's no getting around Richard Engel, whom no one would accuse of conservatism. Speaking with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, the bleak assessment of NBC's chief foreign correspondent was that President Obama laid out "the same strategy that hasn't been working for last several years."

After a point-by-point takedown of Obama's weak tea, Engel concluded "the course of treatment that he laid out for this sick patient with cancer with no immediate cure does not seem like an incredibly strong prescription." Ouch.

On Tuesday night, ABC and CBS refused to acknowledge a pair of points in its respective stories concerning news that additional U.S. special forces will be stationed inside Iraq to fight ISIS and will engage in combat roles. Along with not mentioning that the move represented the latest example of backpedaling by President Obama on a pledge to not put U.S. troops on the ground, the two networks skipped the admission by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that ISIS is not “contained” in a rebuke to the President’s recent claims.