Roger Cohen is a columnist for the international edition of The New York Times, and he wrote an eye-opening column for Friday headlined “Obama’s Syrian Nightmare.” American readers can find it online, but will its harsh verdict on Obama’s Syria policy make an impact on the overall media tendency to paint Obama’s legacy in happy rainbow colors? 

“Syria will be the biggest blot on the Obama presidency, a debacle of staggering proportions,” Cohen began.

On Friday's CNN Tonight, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen contended that moderate Muslims were partially to blame to the ongoing threat of Islamist terrorism. Host Don Lemon spotlighted a Tweet from Rupert Murdoch, where the media magnate wrote, "Maybe most Muslims peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer, they must be held responsible." Cohen replied, "I do hold Muslims responsible to this degree: I don't think that we can solve this problem, Don, until moderate Muslims really speak out."

“Deep Cuts in Social Services” By Conservatives Led to London Riots

“Frustration in this impoverished neighborhood, as in many others in Britain, has mounted as the government’s austerity budget has forced deep cuts in social services. At the same time, a widely held disdain for law enforcement here, where a large Afro-Caribbean population has felt singled out by the police for abuse, has only intensified through the drumbeat of scandal that has racked Scotland Yard in recent weeks and led to the resignation of the force’s two top commanders....Economic malaise and cuts in spending and services instituted by the Conservative-led government have been recurring flashpoints for months...As the budget cuts take hold, risk of unemployment increases and social measures like youth projects are sacrificed, Mr. Beech said, and ‘all logic says there will be an increase in antisocial behavior.’” – London-based reporter Ravi Somaiya on the riots there, August 8.

Norway Terrorist’s “Fellow Travelers,” Gingrich and Rep. Peter King

“Breivik has many ideological fellow travelers on both sides of the Atlantic. Theirs is the poison in which he refined his murderous resentment....Republicans like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Representative Peter King, who have found it politically opportune to target ‘creeping Shariah in the United States’ at a time when the middle name of the president is Hussein. – International columnist Roger Cohen, posted to nytimes.com July 25.

The New York Times posted a surprising column by international columnist Roger Cohen that appeared in its international edition Tuesday, “In Defense of Murdoch.” That would be media mogul Rupert Murdoch (a name loathed by all good liberals)whose vast empire of newspapers and television news is under siege after allegations of phone hacking including missing teens, police officers, even a former prime minister.

Fair warning: This column is a defense of Rupert Murdoch. If you add everything up, he’s been good for newspapers over the past several decades, keeping them alive and vigorous and noisy and relevant. Without him, the British newspaper industry might have disappeared entirely.

For the last several months, New York Times reporter turned international columnist Roger Cohen has filed naïve apologist columns about Iran, often attacking Israel in the process. Previously mocked for this embarrassing display of Obama-mania in March 2008, Cohen attracted negative attention on the foreign affairs front earlier this year by telling readers how good things really were for Jews in Iran. After that line of argument failed to convince, he then accused Israel of lying about the Iranian threat while constantly insisting that Iran was actually a functioning and reformist democracy. Cohen minimized the danger posed by Iran's demonized leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, excusing his anti-Israel rantings. And of course, Cohen strongly favored Obama's brand of diplomacy with Iran as opposed to Bush's hostility. Cohen's Thursday column from Tehran, "Iran Awakens Yet Again," which ran in the Times international edition the day before the vote, featured some poorly timed fawning over Iran's "unpredictable" democracy.