Foreign Policy

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough continued his almost relentless attacks on Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain Monday this time also throwing an unnecessary barb at former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. When the "Morning Joe" discussion turned to what the Cain campaign is doing in Iowa to prepare for the upcoming caucuses, the supposedly conservative co-host said to Time magazine's Mark…

There really is no limit to the hypocrisy of Bill Maher. Despite having gotten fired by ABC shortly after the 9/11 attacks for calling America cowards due to our use of long-range cruise missiles, the host of HBO's Real Time on Friday raved about President Obama's deployment of unmanned predator drones to kill people from thousands of miles away (video follows with transcript and commentary):

There are softballs and then there are softballs. On Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory teed one up for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that was specifically designed to mock the Republican presidential candidates while allowing her to brag uninterrupted about the foreign policy successes of Barack Obama (video follows with transcript and commentary):

I'm not sure what press reports media analyst Howard Kurtz observed since Thursday's announcement that Moammar Gaddafi had been killed in Libya, but they certainly can't be what most people in this country have seen. On CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday, Kurtz actually asked his guests why the press aren't giving President Obama more credit (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bill Maher on his HBO program Friday said, "If you just presented the Republicans with Obama's resume and didn't say who it was, they would erect statues to this guy." After mentioning the deaths of Osama bin Laden and Moammar Gaddafi, Maher continued, "Just the killing alone, Michelle Malkin would name her vibrator 'Obama'” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Updated : More analysis and full transcript added. Guthrie takes swipe at GOP 2012 field.  On Friday's NBC Today, fill-in co-host Savannah Guthrie grilled Arizona Senator John McCain on his criticism of Barack Obama's foreign policy positions in the 2008 campaign and urged: "Bin Laden is gone. Anwar al Awlaki, who was the rising star in al Qaeda, is gone. Qadhafi is gone. Drone strikes have…

Hundreds of Coptic Christians traveled to Washington D.C. yesterday "from as far as New York and Chicago" to call on President Obama to push Egypt's government to protect their brothers and sisters from persecution. Kudos are in order for the Washington Post for devoting a 14-paragraph story on page B3 of the October 20 paper. Editors also published a large photo from the demonstration,…

For the past few years, fear of China's predatory mercantilism has been steadily growing in America, both amongst the public and in elite business and political circles. But last week, for the first time, one could discern the genuine possibility that America might actually do something about it — even if it means a trade war. It's not that anything new has been revealed about China's…

Earlier today, officials confirmed that Gaddafi has been killed at the hands of National Transitional Council forces near his hometown of Sirte. The former Libyan leader was found hiding with bodyguards beneath a road near the city. He had been injured by a NATO airstrike, and died from wounds suffered during his capture. How do you think Libya will proceed without Gaddafi? Do you think Obama…

Early on Thursday's The Daily Rundown on MSNBC, as news was breaking of the reported death of Libyan dictator Moammar Qadhafi, host Chuck Todd used the opportunity to declare: "...a trillion dollars and thousands of U.S. lives to topple a dictator in Iraq, it's a billion dollars and no U.S. lives to topple a dictator in Libya. That's a – that's a pretty stark contrast." [Audio available here…

In an interview light on substance and heavy on praise with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aired on Monday's NBC Today, correspondent Savannah Guthrie fawned: "Hillary Clinton of course is known for keeping a tireless pace....[her] approach is a combination of blunt talk, personal charm and above all, frequent-flyer diplomacy." Later, Guthrie sympathetically informed viewers: "She has…

Only at the self-described "Essential Global News Network" could the Sunday deaths in Egypt of 26 people, mostly Coptic Christians, be kept out of a story's headline and their mention deferred until the third paragraph. But that's what readers will see in the four-paragraph grab which follows from a much longer item by the Associated Press's Maggie Michael yesterday:

A Mexican President praises Governor Rick Perry for offering in-state tuition to illegal immigrants in Texas.  Mitt Romney uses footage of it in a campaign ad.  Something wrong with that?  Apparently yes--in the eyes of Chuck Todd. The host of MSNBC's "Daily Rundown" critically quizzed Romney campaign strategist Russ Schriefer over the ad today.  Video after the jump.

Sometimes, I think that we wouldn't have a useful press at all if it weren't for the British press. The big news out of the International Monetary Fund this weekend was, as reported by the UK Telegraph, that it "may need billions in extra funding." Specifically, it "may have to tap its members – including Britain – for billions of pounds of extra funding to stem the European debt crisis."…