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."
Barack Obama
By Tom Blumer | November 16, 2015 | 4:22 PM EST
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.
By Alexa Moutevelis Coombs | November 15, 2015 | 2:24 PM EST
In the episode “The Big Sleepover” of Last Man Standing, Eve’s friend has overstayed her welcome at the Baxter household and interfered with Mike’s (Tim Allen) relationship with his daughter. Eve finally finds a way to get her friend to find another place to stay because she doesn’t want her dad “moping around like Obama got a third term.”
By Tom Blumer | November 15, 2015 | 11:44 AM EST
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.
Chad Henderson Walls Off Twitter Account After NewsBusters Criticizes His Tweet on GOP Candidates' Readiness
By Tom Blumer | November 14, 2015 | 10:56 PM EST We'll have to live without Chad Henderson's tweets for the time being. Once again, Henderson, as he did in 2013, has taken his Twitter account private, limiting it to "confirmed followers." This time he likely did so in reaction to a NewsBusters post earlier this afternoon by P.J. Gladnick.
Henderson first gained notoriety during the initial Obamacare sign-up process in late 2013 when he claimed to have "enrolled" himself and his father when virtually no one else could even access the HealthCare.gov web site. The press unskeptically lapped up the Organizing for Action volunteer's story until Reason.com's Peter Suderman shredded it. It turned out that Henderson had only set up a profile for himself and had not purchased any health care plan. Henderson resurfaced on Twitter after the Paris terrorist attacks yesterday, asking: "Do Trump, Rubio, and Carson have the experience and knowledge to prevent and react to a similar Paris attack? Not at all, folks."
By Curtis Houck | November 14, 2015 | 9:29 PM EST
A special Saturday edition of Fox News Channel’s Special Report aired due to the terror attacks 24 hours earlier in Paris with a panel of The Weekly Standard’s Steve Hayes, U.S. News & World Report’s David Catanese, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. Collectively, the panel had a variety of takes, ranging from slamming the Democratic presidential candidates for seeming “very small” after the attacks to observing that the U.S. has not “done whatever it takes” to stop ISIS.
By Geoffrey Dickens | November 14, 2015 | 1:00 PM EST
It’s hard to imagine CBS Democratic debate co-moderator Nancy Cordes drilling Hillary Clinton with hardball questions when she’s already dubbed her the “undisputed frontrunner.”
By Geoffrey Dickens | November 13, 2015 | 12:01 PM EST
Viewers of Saturday night’s Democratic debate probably shouldn’t expect any tough questions, at least from the right, coming from debate moderator John Dickerson.
By Scott Whitlock | November 13, 2015 | 11:41 AM EST
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.”
By Tom Blumer | November 12, 2015 | 11:55 PM EST
The "fact-checking" press has become a parody of itself during the past several years.
It's not only because of their irritating penchant for putting statements by Republicans and conservatives under a twisted microscope while ignoring drop-dead obvious falsehoods delivered by Democrats and leftists. It's because, among other things, the fact-checkers often admit that a statement is true, but then proceed to essentially say, "So what?" They also take policy goals articulated by candidates, which may or may not come to pass, render an opinion that it can't be done, and then pretend that they've actually proven something. An example of each annoying habit was found in Tuesday evening's Associated Press "fact check" of statements made by Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush during the most recent Republican presidential candidates' debate.
Daily Beast Pundit: Dems Finally Got Their Act Together For 1992, But ‘Delusional’ Republicans Won’t For 2016
By Tom Johnson | November 12, 2015 | 6:01 PM EST It’s often noted that Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, just as Democrats had lost five of six before that. Dems snapped out of it thanks to a Bill Clinton-led tack towards the center, but Michael Tomasky predicts that the GOP will stay to the right in 2016, thereby extending its slump.
After Michael Dukakis’s defeat in 1988, observed Tomasky in a Tuesday piece, Democrats at last could “say to themselves, OK, we’re screwed unless we change. Welfare reform? Free trade?...Whatever, man…The question for the Republicans is, is this 1988 or 1992? I think it’s 1988, because they haven’t yet lost that third one [in a row]. It’s the third one that drives it home. Especially if it’s to you know who.”
By Curtis Houck | November 11, 2015 | 11:43 PM EST
On Wednesday night, NBC Nightly News neglected to inform its viewers of a new report concerning the scandal-ridden Department of Veterans Affairs and the $142 million it paid out in bonuses to employees (including some who were facing discipline and/or recently fired). Compiled by the House Veterans Affairs Committee, the report stated that some of those who received bonuses still got them despite the fact that “several of them were under investigation or accused of mismanagement.”