Iraq

On Wednesday’s CBS "Early Show," correspondent Sheila MacVicar described Barack Obama’s visit to Israel’s Holocaust memorial during his continuing Middle East tour as: "...yet another chance to see how the Senator looks in statesman clothes." MacVicar imbued Obama with the mantel of "statesman" just last Friday when she described the upcoming trip: "...Senator Obama is taking to the skies to…

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman appeared on Wednesday's "Good Morning America" to gush that the very act of Barack Obama going on his Middle East trip makes one think "he comes back a little wiser, a little smarter." Friedman also asserted that the candidate's middle name, Hussein, would be a plus for him as president. He opined, "I was in Cairo a few weeks ago. And one of things that…

The Columbia Journalism Review, not previously known as a Republican stronghold, sees liberal bias in the Times's rejection of an op-ed by John McCain supporting the war, a week after the paper ran an anti-war op-ed by his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama. CJR contributor Lester Feder wrote of Deputy Editorial Page Editor David Shipley's rejection:McCain partisans have decried the Times's…

Is the Washington Post starting to take columnist Howard Kurtz's concerns about an Obama-loving media to heart?An editorial in its Wednesday edition entitled "Mr. Obama in Iraq: "Did He Really Find Support for his Withdrawal Plan?" makes one wonder. In fact, this piece was so skeptical of the differences between what the press have been reporting about the presumptive Democrat presidential…

Me and Mrs. Jones,we've got a thing going on.We both know that it's wrong,but it's much too strongto let it go now. -- Billy Paul, "Me and Mrs. Jones"Don't get me wrong.   I'm not suggesting there's anything untoward between Mika Brzezinski and the Dem presidential candidate.  But like the star-crossed couple of the song, the two do share a tragic bond, trapped as they are in an inability to…

CBS tried to bring some balance Tuesday night to Barack Obama's Magical Media Tour by having Katie Couric interview both Barack Obama and John McCain, and though she pressed Obama repeatedly on the success of the surge, Obama still came out ahead since CBS devoted more than seven minutes (over two excerpts) to Couric's questions and Obama's answers as the two sat together in a foreign setting…

For years Chris Matthews has been proclaiming defeat in Iraq, on an almost nightly basis, on "Hardball" but on Tuesday night he finally admitted the success of the surge that John McCain supported. However, the MSNBC host claimed it would be Barack Obama that would get to enjoy the spoils. After Newsweek's Howard Fineman suggested, "We're not losing," and pointed out the surge success would make…

NBC's David Gregory, substitute-hosting on Tuesday's "Today" show, argued with Rudy Giuliani that any notion of Barack Obama's foreign policy naivete has been refuted by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. Gregory contended that Maliki's suggestion of a U.S. troop withdrawal by 2010 "validated" Obama's position. Giuliani scoffed that Democratic presidential nominee wouldn't have even been able…

Journalist George Stephanopoulos and ABC's Diane Sawyer rhapsodized over Barack Obama's Middle East trip on Tuesday's "Good Morning America." Stephanopoulos swooned that the visit to the region was going "better than they could have imagined in the Obama campaign." He then proceeded to narrate footage of the Democratic candidate. [Audio available here] While video of Obama playing basketball with…

On Tuesday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith talked to "Evening News" anchor Katie Couric about Barack Obama’s trip to Iraq and asked: "He's had a very full plate here the last three or four days. Is it -- is there a way to sort of gauge what the Senator has been able to accomplish thus far?" Couric, who along with the other network anchors is following Obama on the trip, responded: "Well,…

The things people will do for love.  Take David Shuster.  So eager is the Obama inamorato to cover for his man, he's willing to sacrifice all semblance of reason.  Faced with the implacable fact that Obama was wrong in opposing the surge, Shuster has been reduced to claiming that Americans don't care about the surge's success. Shuster made his descent into abject sycophancy on today's Morning Joe…

More than three times as many Americans see a media tilt in favor of Democrat Barack Obama than toward Republican John McCain. A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey released Monday, of 1,000 likely voters, “found that 49 percent of voters believe most reporters will try to help Obama with their coverage, up from 44 percent a month ago,” compared to a piddling 14 percent who “believe most reporters…

On Friday's Countdown show, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann used a sloppily worded statement by an 83-year-old decorated veteran, retired Colonel Bud Day, who volunteered for both World War II and the Vietnam War, and who ended up spending 30 months as a POW, a man whom Olbermann called "dangerously deluded" and derided as a "slob" and a "clown," to paint John McCain as agreeing with what the MSNBC host…