Not even a lifeline could have helped her . . . There was a telling moment on today's Morning Joe when Joe Scarborough challenged April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks to cite some of President Obama's foreign-policy successes.
Ryan was reduced to replying "that's kind of tough. Hmm, that's a tough one . . . I have to really ponder that."
While on Thursday’s edition of The Nightly Show on Comedy Central, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich expressed concern that the media has been covering the terrorist group ISIS too heavily and in turn has been causing the group’s ranks to swell. After being asked by host Larry Wilmore to explain why “all these westerners [are] joining ISIS,” Reich dismissed that premise by declaring that “there are not that many trying to join ISIS” considering: “Out of 600 million Europeans and Americans you’ve got, what, 400, 800 trying to join ISIS? This is not a big deal.”
CBS's Lara Logan refreshingly brought new attention to the plight of the ancient Christian communities in Iraq on Sunday's 60 Minutes, as they face annihilation by ISIS. Logan pointed out how ISIS, "just like the Nazis marked the property of Jews, Christian homes...have been marked with this red symbol....When ISIS puts it on your home, you either convert to Islam, pay an extortion tax, or face the sword."
Warning: readers are advised to hide the sharp objects before viewing the clip of Morning Joe's review of the Middle East today. The picture painted is one of the utter failure of US foreign policy, leaving a devastated, deadly region in its woeful wake.
We open with President Obama's "mission accomplished" moment from last year in which he called US policy in Yemen "successful." Cut to Jim Miklaszewski saying that the White House had to order US special forces out of the country, leaving us with absolutely no leverage. Then to Iraq, where two experts say Iraq as a country is finished and falling under the hand of Iran's radical Quds forces. On to Israel, where even Richard Engel chides President Obama for the churlish way he has perpetuated his public spat with Bibi. Donny Deutsch sounds a political note, observing that many Dem-leaning Jews—including big donors—side with Bibi, thus presenting Hillary with a big challenge for 2016.
On Tuesday, CBS This Morning introduced its coverage of the ongoing U.S. nuclear negotiations with Iran by promoting President Obama blaming the rise of ISIS on the Bush administration as well as his condemnation of the Republican letter to the leadership of Iran.
On Wednesday's All Things Considered, NPR's Ari Shapiro spotlighted Cage, a British organization that ran to the defense of "Jihadi John," the ISIS member who infamously beheaded several hostages on video. Shaprio slanted toward Cage by playing four soundbites from two talking heads from the organization, as well as a clip from the terrorist himself, who has been identified as Mohammed Emwazi.
News concerning the mass kidnapping of Christians by ISIS in Syria worsened on Thursday with reports from multiple human rights groups that raised the initial number of those taken from 150 to now at least 220. If you watched the network evening newscasts, though, you would not have known that if you had tuned into CBS or NBC. This latest case of network bias by omission comes as NBC has yet to cover this story on either Today or NBC Nightly News.
Haras Rafiq blasted the blame-everyone-but-the-terrorist mindset of many on the left on Thursday's New Day on CNN during a discussion of ISIS member "Jihadi John," who has been identified by several media outlets as Mohammed Emwazi. Rafiq singled out a British organization, CAGE, for their defense of Emwazi, who has personally beheaded several Western hostages: "I'm quite disgusted at the way that they've actually tried to co-opt the victim mentality as an excuse almost to try to justify this person's radicalization."
As of Wednesday morning, NBC's morning and evening newscasts have yet to cover ISIS's kidnapping of up to 150 Christians from northeastern Syria on Monday. On Wednesday, Today yawned at this latest example of the Islamic extremist group's persecution of Christians. Instead, they devoted 1 minute and 13 seconds to a Slate writer's advice to parents on giving their children allowances.
Early Tuesday morning, the terrorist group ISIS entered a village in northeastern Syrian and kidnapped droves of Christians with estimates ranging from 70 to as many as 150 people. For viewers that tuned into English-language network NBC and Spanish-language networks Telemundo and Univision for their Tuesday evening newscasts, however, they were left completely in the dark on this story as it received not a single mention.
President Obama is so wedded to his faulty notion that ISIS has absolutely nothing at all to do with Islamic theology that he banned a group of reform-minded Muslims from the just-concluded Countering Violent Extremism summit, the Washington Examiner is reporting today.
Earlier this week I noted an excellent piece in The Atlantic examining the very real Islamic theological underpinnings that drive ISIS from the inside-out. Now The Daily Beast is taking President Obama to task for his "tap-dance around whether ISIS is 'Islamic' or not."