Middle East

Last Sunday, the media were reporting that the Muslim Brotherhood was sitting down with Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman, in a completely unrelated story, the BBC reported that British Prime Minster David Cameron announced that "State multiculturalism has failed": "David Cameron has criticized 'state multiculturalism' in his first speech as prime minister on radicalization and the causes…

 On Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News, after anchor Brian Williams asked correspondent Richard Engel to respond to concerns about the radical nature of the Muslim Brotherhood that have been expressed by former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Engel asserted that the movement is "not al-Qaeda, it’s not the Taliban," but, as he went on to compare the group instead to Hamas, partly because they "…

It appears Chris Matthews' arrogance knows no bounds. On Monday's "Hardball," the MSNBCer actually said, "I think [Sarah Palin's] talking to people who don't read newspapers, don't pay attention to serious television broadcasts, whether the Lehrer Hour or anything like it or even this program" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Next time Rachel Maddow cites a movie to bolster her argument, she might want to watch it first. On her MSNBC show Thursday night, Maddow disparaged Fox News hosts Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Center for Security Policy founder Frank Gaffney for warning of a Middle Eastern caliphate possibly emerging in the wake of upheaval in Egypt and of Muslim Brotherhood subversion in the US.…

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift must have felt like a fish out of water during the taping of this weekend's syndicated "McLaughlin Group." In a lengthy and tremendously informative segment about the crisis in Egypt, the host and his other three guests - Pat Buchanan, Monica Crowley, and Mort Zuckerman - gave the perilously liberal columnist quite a lesson regarding the Obama administration's…

"He's shameless, isn't he?" asked FNC's Steve Doocy, co-host of "Fox & Friends, about MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews, who recently compared the Muslim Brotherhood to the Tea Party. "Chris Matthews is not a journalist," replied MRC President Brent Bozell. "He's a parody of himself." On the February 4 "Fox & Friends," the NewsBusters publisher acknowledged that while most of the coverage…

As pro-Mubarak forces continue to clash with democratic protesters in the streets of Cairo and the situation in Egypt remains volatile and uncertain, NBC's David Gregory confidently declared that the Muslim Brotherhood has no interest in turning Egypt into an Islamist state. On the February 4 edition of MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports," the moderator of "Meet the Press" blithely dismissed…

MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews appeared on Morning Joe, Friday, to slam President Obama's handling of the escalating crisis in Egypt, saying it made him "ashamed as an American." Matthews, who famously declared Obama gave him a "thrill" up his leg, excoriated what he perceived to be the President's disloyalty to Egypt's leader, Hosni Mubarak. The Hardball host berated, "And Barack Obama, as much…

"These reporters are going to eat their words in a big way,"  NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell predicted on last night's "Hannity" regarding the mainstream media personalities who have credited President Obama with the popular uprising against dictator Hosni Mubarak in Egypt: What happens when the government crumbles? What happens when this country is…

Something unusual happened on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show the other night -- a guest expressed an opinion that didn't dovetail with Maddow's. This doesn't occur often, presumably not by accident. Here is an exchange on Monday between Maddow and former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, now the director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, over political upheaval in Egypt and the…

Having mercilessly attacked Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) for six days in a row, MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Wednesday set his sights on conservative talk show host Glenn Beck. After an opening teaser in which the "Hardball" host referred to "the right-wing freak-out over Egypt," Matthews ended up doing two segments about the Fox News star in which he and his perilously liberal…

Whatever may happen in the hours after I write this column, two things are certain: The next chapter in the magnificent and ancient civilization of the Nile will be yet to be known. And the role that America plays in Egypt's great, unfolding story remains also in doubt. I well understand the Obama administration's uncertain message in the first week of the Egyptian tumult. We have always been…

Is the cat fight a strictly feminine affair, or can a man and woman engage in one?  Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski certainly seemed to offer up a fair facsimile of the genre today. The two traded feline fisticuffs on Morning Joe.   Scarborough went first, swiping at Katie Couric for having cavorted on a Miami beach with her beau before departing for Egypt.  Mika later retaliated, archly…

It was 16 degrees warmer in my upstate New York town this morning than it was in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.  If any further portent of the apocalypse is necessary, consider that on his MSNBC show this evening, Cenk Uygur compared Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan . . . and clearly came down on the side of Ronaldus Maximus. The subject was Egypt.  Uygur played the clip of Reagan's immortal "tear…