Springtime for Mahmoud
Diane Sawyer sat down to ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [MA] some tough questions today, and a weather report broke out. Having spent last week in Syria, Diane is now in Iran on the second leg of her All-Dictator Tour. She began her interview of MA, televised on this morning's GMA, by asking him "are you sending Iranian weapons into Iraq?"In lieu of an answer, MA went Sam Champion on Sawyer: "Let me…
Gabler's Gripe: Fox, Rush, 'Singled Out' WaPo Columnist Who Called Tro
I was curious as to how Neal Gabler would opine. Surely, there was no way the resident aggressive lefty at Fox News Watch would defend the odious statements of William Arkin, who in this column libeled the US military as "mercenaries" and claimed we treat them to "obscene amenities." As it turns out, Gabler didn't, even going so far as to call Arkin's statements "idiotic." However . . . that…
The NewsBusters Weekly Recap: February 3 to
This week, Chris Matthews' anti-Bush bigotry spilled over into a profanity laden rant. The "Hardball" host dropped the F-bomb during a live interview with Don Imus. Meanwhile, CNN’s Paula Zahn connected opposition of illegal immigration to, you guessed it, the Ku Klux Klan. This is the same network, however, that tried to downplay proven religious bigotry by a blogger for the John Edwards…
Matthews: 'Rajiv, Tell Me What a Loser Paul Bremer Was
Talk about leading the witness . . . Rajiv Chandrasekaran was the Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post during the tenure of Paul Bremer as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in the period succeeding the removal of Saddam Hussein. Chandrasekaran is the author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a book generally critical of Bremer's administration -- but apparently not critical…
Sawyer's Sympathy for the Syrian Dictator
Imagine that during the days of apartheid in South Africa, Diane Sawyer had just completed an interview of the white leader of the regime. What are the odds she would have emerged to inform viewers, in sympathetic tones, that the leader had reminded her of an old Afrikaaner saying to the effect that change must come slowly? Yet that's just what Diane did after her interview with Syrian…
Diane Doesn't Challenge Despotism of Syria's Assad
When a despot you're interviewing denigrates the value of democracy in another country, wouldn't your journalistic instincts prompt you to ask him about the utter lack of democracy in his own? Not in Diane Sawyer's case.The ABC powerhouse is in Syria this week. This morning's GMA aired an interview she scored with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Joe Biden would surely declare Assad "articulate…
Prof Pushing 'Spat-upon Myth' is Debunked (Twice) in the Very Same Mag
Holy Cross College Professor Jerry Lembcke's 1999 column, "We Are What We Remember" (HTML link), was originally published in the April edition of Holy Cross Magazine (original PDF of the entire magazine is here; Lembcke's column is on Page 74).
Lembcke's core claim is that "the image of the spat-upon veteran is mythical ....." This is a narrative that at least two Greater Cincinnati-area…
Russert: Obama 'On the Money' in Calling Iraq 'Dumb War
Not that there was ever much doubt where Tim Russert aligns, but it was nice to get concrete confirmation on today's Meet the Press. Grilling John Edwards over his vote to authorize the war and his expression of support for it as late as 2004, Russert pointed out that Obama had staked out a firmly anti-Iraq war position before the conflict began. Russert displayed a two-part graphic of Obama'…
Hillary's Time Machine: Wouldn't Have Started War if She Were Prez in
Hillary has gone John Kerry one better. The junior senator from Massachusetts of baleful Gallic mien merely voted for the $87 billion . . . before he voted against it.That's nothing. Hillary Clinton fired up the Time Machine, travelled back to 2002, and assured her fellow Dems that had she been president, the war in Iraq would never have happened.On this afternoon's Hardball, Chris Matthews…
