Following the president’s comments comparing Republicans in Congress to the terror-sponsoring hardliners in Iran, Charles Krauthammer eviscerated Obama's entire conception of the Middle East nation. Appearing on The Kelly File last night, the Fox personality hit the president for being “delusional...pretending that those who chant death to America are some kind of KKK fringe in Iran.”
Terrorism
NBC News Terrorism Expert: ‘We Have to Put Ourselves in the Eyes’ of Terrorists to ‘Understand’ Them
By Curtis Houck | January 15, 2015 | 5:46 PM EST On Wednesday’s edition of The Cycle on MSNBC, NBC News terrorism expert Evan Kohlmann was at it again, telling the hosts that we, as Americans, must “put ourselves in the eyes” of Islamic terrorists considering “there wouldn't be violent attacks but there would be an uproar” and “anger” among Christians if Muslims burned crosses or trampled “Christian artifacts.”
By Curtis Houck | January 12, 2015 | 10:34 PM EST
On Monday, ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir and the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley did their best to move on from the Obama administration’s decision to not have President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, or Attorney General Eric Holder attend the march against Islamic terrorism in Paris on Sunday that drew well over one million people.
All told, ABC ran only a 42-second segment on the White House’s response to the criticism on Monday and CBS had a news brief. Along with one tease on CBS, their coverage combined for a scant one minute and three seconds.
By Curtis Houck | January 8, 2015 | 12:15 AM EST
Following the deadly Islamic terrorist attack in Paris on Wednesday, major broadcast networks ABC and NBC joined other news outlets in not showing any of the controversial cartoons of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad from the Charlie Hebdo magazine during their evening newscasts.
Despite initially telling Buzzfeed that they would not be showing any of the cartoons, CBS News did go forward and displayed three of them on the air during the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. The three were shown as part of a report by CBS News foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer from Paris that led off the broadcast.
By Curtis Houck | August 11, 2014 | 4:25 PM EDT
Any intraparty criticism of President Obama’s recent foreign policy moves regarding Iraq was nowhere to be found on NBC’s morning or evening news programs as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leveled some criticism at Obama on the subject in an interview with The Atlantic that was published over the weekend.
Both Sunday and Monday mornings’ installments of Today and Sunday night’s NBC Nightly News ignored this angle of disagreement among arguably the two most well-known and influential figures in Democratic politics as Obama authorized U.S. air strikes against ISIS militants in northern Iraq late last Thursday and throughout over the weekend. [MP3 audio here; Video below]
Diaz-Balart Badgers Guest: ‘How Many Terrorist Attacks in the U.S. Have Been Carried Out' by Illegal Immigrants?
By Curtis Houck | August 5, 2014 | 5:35 PM EDT On his MSNBC show Tuesday morning, Jose Diaz-Balart invited on conservative commentator and film maker Dennis Michael Lynch to discuss a series of documentaries he has made that are critical of U.S. immigration policy and illegal immigration. From the start of the segment, it was clear that Diaz-Balart would be at odds with Lynch’s viewpoints and only grew to the point where he hounded Lynch on whether illegal immigrants have committed terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
After airing an excerpt from one of the documentaries highlighting concerns about illegal immigrants causing a competition for jobs with American citizens, Diaz-Balart told Lynch that “there are a lot of studies from both the left and right that show that undocumented immigrants don’t take American jobs” and asked him why he thought this was not the case. [MP3 audio here; Video below]
By Connor Williams | August 4, 2014 | 12:40 PM EDT
In a surprising segment, CNN’s New Day discussed the role of the media in the Israel-Hamas conflict and whether they are providing proper context regarding the two sides. In an interview with co-host Kate Bolduan, guest Lee Habeeb, columnist for National Review, slammed the media for its biased coverage of the issue. In fact, in a recent piece for NRO, Habeeb went so far as to claim that the media have acted as "co-conspirators" to Hamas.
When Bolduan asked where Habeeb believed the media was lacking, he argued that “the point of the spear is the media and dead children and dead women...and I don’t believe the media is covering it.” Toward the end of the segment, Bolduan cited Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal, who claimed that the U.S. has now adopted the Israeli narrative. The New Day co-host wondered how it could go both ways. Habeeb blasted the media again: [MP3 audio here; video below]
By Connor Williams | July 31, 2014 | 4:40 PM EDT
As the Israel-Hamas conflict rages on, it appears that the Israelis have lost Joe Scarborough as a trusted ally. On the July 31 edition of Morning Joe, the former Florida Congressman ripped Israel for their “indiscriminate” attacks upon Gaza, and feared that this would only cause the conflict to worsen in the future.
Following Ayman Mohyeldin’s pro-Hamas reporting on the issue, Scarborough reacted to the news that an Israeli rocket reportedly hit a UN school in Gaza: [MP3 audio here; video below]
By Connor Williams | June 4, 2014 | 5:27 PM EDT
Once again, an MSNBC host is playing up the idea that “there must be something larger” to justify what, on its face, seems to be a disastrous prisoner swap in the Bowe Bergdahl-Taliban exchange.
On the June 4 edition of her Now program, host Alex Wagner, ever the apologist for the president, hoped that the trade for POW Bowe Bergdahl would open up broader war-ending negotiations with the Taliban [MP3 audio here; video below]: