On Monday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson called out The New York Times for cheering how the French media ignored leaked emails from French presidential contender Emmanuel Macron. On Tuesday, the Times published a Rachel Donadio article headlined "Why a Hacking Attack Failed to Sway the French Vote for President."
Donadio (or her Times editors) felt compelled to offer joy and relief that France has no infernal Fox News to somehow undermine democracy (that is, Democrats).
On Monday's New Day, as CNN's Christiane Amanpour informed viewers of the French presidential election results, she twice tagged defeated conservative candidate Marine Le Pen as "extreme" and "far right," and also charged that she campaigned on "fear and hatred and loathing." She also made sure to bring up the anniversary of Europe's victory over Nazi Germany, and relayed to viewers that the government of Germany -- "of all places" -- is concerned that Le Pen could be elected next time if Emmanuel Macron fails as president. Amanpour: "Now, today is V-E Day, which is obviously the celebration of European victory against the Nazi war machine. It comes one day after the extreme far right candidate herself was defeated."
After touting President Obama’s endorsement of Emmanuel Macron last week, the networks were back Monday to offer full reports gushing about his election victory. The liberal candidate beat conservative candidate Marine Le Pen by a 2-1 margin, which all three networks characterized as a defeat against “extremism” and the “far right.” NBC’s Richard Engel was so excited about the news, that he actually compared Le Pen’s defeat to the defeat of Nazi Germany.
As is almost always the case, signs of trouble preceded the latest shooting in Paris, which left one police officer dead and wounded two bystanders before police killed the gunman, later identified as French national Karim Cheurfi, a known criminal with a long, violent record. ISIS claimed to be behind the attack. According to police, a note praising ISIS fell out of Cheurfi's pocket when he fell.
On Monday’s NBC Today, while reporting on the results of the first round of France’s presidential election, Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel made no secret of his distaste for one of the candidates as he accused her of running a “xenophobic” campaign that she was “modeling” on Donald Trump.
When MSNBC contributor and Daily Beast foreign editor Christopher Dickey appears to fill in MSNBC viewers on European politics, it's generally not long before his contempt for conservatives is made obvious. On Saturday's MSNBC Live, Dickey tagged right-wing French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen as a "crypto-fascist" and recalled that the French public believe President Donald Trump is "nuts." By contrast, Dickey fawned over "progressive" candidate Emmanuel Macron as an "Obama-like" "moderate" who was "thoughtful" enough not to "try to capitalize" on the most recent terrorist attack in Paris.
Amanda Taub’s “Interpreter” piece on the upcoming election in France, in Friday’s New York Times was snottily headlined “A Small French Town Infused With Us-vs.-Them Politics.” That town, Frejus, was no doubt also infused with current events, as suggested by the Times’ own lead story on Friday: “Gunman In Paris Shoots Officer; Terrorism Seen.” Taub managed to completely ignore that issue in favor of condescending theories about France’s “us and them” ethnocentrism, making Taub’s think piece chiding the town’s punitive politics (doubtless written before the attack) look both out of date and sanctimoniously naïve.
The press's determination to gin up criticism of President Donald Trump at every conceivable turn was on clear display yesterday at the Associated Press. In its timeline coverage of the Paris terrorist attack which left one police officer dead and two seriously wounded, the AP deliberately twisted Trump's comment that it "looks like another terrorist attack."
In the moments following President Trump’s Thursday press conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, MSNBC and its myirad of guests swiftly condemned Trump for referring to the deadly shooting in Paris on the Champs-Élysées as a terrorist attack.
Appearing on MSNBC in the 3 p.m. ET hour on Thursday, during breaking news coverage of a shooting along the Champs Elysees in Paris, Daily Beast World News Editor Christopher Dickey was more worried by the prospect of France’s “very far-right party” using the incident as an issue in the nation’s upcoming presidential election than he was with the welfare of people caught up in the violence.
Appearing as a guest on Thursday's The Last Word on MSNBC, Daily Beast foreign editor and MSNBC political commentator Christopher Dickey aimed snide name-calling at White House advisor Steve Bannon. After calling him a "snob," the liberal commentator also remarked that he looks like a "slob" and a "dirty old man," as he went along with host Lawrence O'Donnell's suggestion that the Donald Trump advisor looks homeless. O'Donnell described Bannon as looking like he "slept in the subway last night" as he wondered how people in France view the Donald Trump advisor: "So what do they think when they see the guy who looks like he slept in the subway last night and he's the one who's talking to the President?"
Recent terrorist attacks in Ankara, Turkey, and Berlin, Germany, add to a growing list of incidents that are becoming increasingly difficult to remember. Does one begin the list with the plane hijackings in the '60s and '70s, or the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, or the USS Cole attack in 2000, or the second World Trade Center attack in 2001, or Ft. Hood, San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris or Nice? And that's not all of them, nor will it be the end of them, if we don't have a better response.