Afghanistan

ABC, CBS, and NBC ballyhooed former Defense Secretary Robert Gates's attacks on President Obama and other high government officials on their Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning newscasts. NBC's Brian Williams and CBS's Norah O'Donnell also trumpeted the former Cabinet official's "devastating critique" of the President in his upcoming memoir. All three networks also played up Gates's self-…

At the top of Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer portrayed former Defense Secretary Robert Gates as an ungrateful and disgruntled ex-employee: "Blindsided. President Obama's former Defense Secretary Robert Gates takes on his old boss – the man who awarded him the Medal of Freedom – in a blistering new memoir. This morning, what may have made him turn?" [Listen to the audio or watch the…

Earlier this week, NBC Sports announced that "Moscow-based TV journalist Vladimir Posner (also frequently spelled "Pozner") will be a correspondent for NBC Olympics’ late-night show with Bob Costas during the Sochi Games." To call Posner's background "problematic" is like saying that Bob Filner, former Democratic Mayor of San Diego, has a bit of a problem with how he treats members of the…

I think we have the winner in the "If a Republican or conservative had said it" media bias category this year, if not this decade. In the book "Double Down" by liberal journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann (reviewed by Peter Hamby at the Washington Post on Friday), President Barack Obama, while discussing drone strikes in 2012, reportedly told aides that he's "really good at killing…

On Wednesday's PoliticsNation, as MSNBC's Karen Finney joined host Al Sharpton in slamming Republicans who liken President Obama to a "dictator," Finney charged that President Bush "lied us into a war" that has resulted in U.S. troops still being in Afghanistan "12 years later," apparently without noticing that President Obama is the commander-in-chief who currently is in charge of whether troops…

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has done some crazy things in her life, but what she did last month really takes the cake. Appearing live on Syrian television, McKinney said that Syria’s Civil War was part of a plot created by the United States shortly after 9/11 (video follows with transcript and commentary):

No website outdoes the Politico when it comes to looking at the world through Beltway-stereotyping glasses. A post this morning on Republican congressmen and senators' views towards attacking Syria exemplifies that outlook. Apparently, in the fevered minds of Alex Isenstadt and James Hohmann, a GOP lawmaker learning about any idea to intervene militarily automatically salivates at the…

When George W. Bush was president, America's media loved reporting international demonstrations against him once things in Iraq turned south. With this in mind, it will be interesting to see if the same historically anti-war press will cover a picture depicting Barack Obama as the devil published Wednesday in the popular Egyptian newspaper Al Wafd.

There was an anti-war protest in Boston on Saturday with some attendees marching to the Beacon Hill home of Secretary of State John Kerry and even knocking on his door. But you likely didn't hear about this, for outside of local papers and the Associated Press, American media didn't care.

HBO's Real Time is currently on vacation, but host Bill Maher is still finding ways to offend conservatives while sticking a foot in his mouth. On Saturday he tweeted, "Kudos to Barry for restoring constitution re war powers. Tea People shld luv it but of course wont cuz President Blackenstein did it":

David Letterman took a comedic swipe at George W. Bush and Barack Obama Wednesday. Talking about what appears to be a looming American strike on Syria, the CBS Late Show host said, “It's going to be kind of an enjoyable switch for Obama. Now he can start a war that the next president will be stuck with” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer had some harsh words for the White House Wednesday. Appearing on Fox News’s Special Report, Krauthammer said President Obama has made America “irrelevant” in the Middle East.

Two reporters at the Associated Press covering the trial of the alleged (but really confessed) perpetrator of the Ft. Hood massacre still believe there is a "key but difficult question" which needs to be answered: "Why did Maj. Nidal Hasan attack his fellow soldiers in the worst mass shooting ever on a U.S. military base?" Although the narrative of Nomaan Merchant and Michael Graczyk is…

Ted Koppel made a fascinating observation about terrorism and the recent embassy evacuations that certainly won't please President Obama or his supporters in the media. Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, Koppel said, "With a conference call, Al Qaeda has effectively shut down 20 U.S. embassies around north Africa and the Middle East...The terrorists have achieved more with one phone call than…