On Monday's The Situation Room on CNN, host Wolf Blitzer described Republican presidential candidates as putting out a "steady drumbeat" of "harsh anti-Muslim sentiments" because of their expressed concerns about ISIS terrorists exploiting America's refugee program to enter the country, even though the candidates who want to restrict immigration of Syrian refugees still support helping establish refugee camps near Syria, and mostly support increasing military efforts to combat the terrorists who persecute them.
Syria
By Curtis Houck | November 23, 2015 | 8:08 PM EST
The New York Times earned its keep as a foot soldier for the Obama administration as White House correspondent Michael D. Shear offered a piece in Monday’s paper lamenting that many of the President’s foreign trips have been “hijacked” by breaking news stories with the Paris terror attacks “spawn[ing] another distraction” from Obama’s agenda.
By Matthew Balan | November 23, 2015 | 5:51 PM EST
On Monday's New Day, CNN's Chris Cuomo attacked both Donald Trump and the majority of the American public for their stance against allowing 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country. Cuomo asserted that Trump was "playing into an us versus them mentality," and spotlighted the latest Bloomberg poll result on the issue: "Look at the numbers on the Syrian situation. Look at what the American people say...We haven't seen numbers like this in America since 1938, when people were obviously desperate; obviously, running for their lives."
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 23, 2015 | 3:48 PM EST
On Sunday’s Reliable Sources, CNN’s Brian Stelter did his best to play up how after the Paris terrorist attack many Americans have had a “fearful, sometimes even xenophobic” reaction. At the same time, the CNN host dismissed fears of a future terrorist attack us unwarranted and irrational. He touted the standard liberal line that much of America’s reaction has been “xenophobic” based in “fear which is a “crippling poison.”
By Matthew Balan | November 23, 2015 | 1:03 PM EST
Manuel Bojorquez zeroed in on the plight of a Syrian refugee family in Texas on Monday's CBS This Morning, and played up how they "feel misjudged after the Paris attacks, and after Texas recently ordered volunteer organizations that help resettle refuges from Syria to discontinue those plans immediately." Bojorquez later spotlighted how "about dozen people — some armed with long guns — protested in front of a mosque outside Dallas" against the Obama administration's plan to bring 10,000 refugees from Syria.
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 23, 2015 | 10:34 AM EST
On Monday’s Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie grilled Secretary of State John Kerry on the United States’ strategy to defeat ISIS yet the NBC host failed to question Kerry on his recent inflammatory comments in which he suggested a rationale existed for the terrorists that attacked Charlie Hebdo's headquarters in January.
By Mark Finkelstein | November 23, 2015 | 9:27 AM EST
Death of a Salesman's Willy Loman was a guy "out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine." President Obama sees ISIS as Willy's bad mirror image, dismissing the terror group as guys with "conventional weapons and good social media."
On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough blasted Obama's dangerous insouciance, calling it "staggering to our allies. It is staggering to people like Frank Bruni, a liberal columnist. It is staggering to Diane Feinstein, liberal Democrats. It is staggering to the world. The president's in a bubble by himself, saying that these are just bad guys with guns and good social media."
By Brad Wilmouth | November 23, 2015 | 12:36 AM EST
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.
By Kyle Drennen | November 22, 2015 | 4:11 PM EST
At the top of NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, host Chuck Todd dismissed security concerns over terrorism as nothing more that bigotry: “How will the ISIS threat and the politics of fear impact the 2016 campaign? Also, Syrian refugees and America, are there legitimate reasons to slow the process or is this just Islamaphobia?” Teasing the upcoming segment later in the show, Todd proclaimed: “...the Republican presidential candidates have been playing on the politics of fear in an extraordinary way.”
By Kyle Drennen | November 22, 2015 | 11:18 AM EST
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.”
By Tom Johnson | November 21, 2015 | 11:56 AM EST
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 Republicans make him look like Alexander the Great. They treat the whole subject like a plaything, a useful cudgel during a presidential campaign. Refugees! Kurds! Radical Islam! We need to be tougher!...That isn't leadership. It barely even counts as coherent thought. It's just playground jeering.”
By Matthew Balan | November 20, 2015 | 5:30 PM EST
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 Syrian refugee to come into this country any time soon." She later touted how "some say that's just one part of what some call what's becoming a disturbing climate in America."