Middle East

On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann used a clip of U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Tim Osborn, stationed in Iraq, commenting on how he had previously felt that the war in Iraq "wasn’t ever going to stop," to fit into the Countdown host’s suggestion that American troops had remained in Iraq too long. But what Olbermann did not show his viewers is that Staff Sergeant Osborn had also…

On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann delivered a "Special Comment" in which he invoked Nazi Germany and suggested that blocking construction of a mosque near Ground Zero could be the first of a "thousand steps" toward another holocaust. He also hinted at a moral equivalence between the Islamic Empire’s conquests and America’s expansion into the lands of Native Americans as he…

So there was Robert Gibbs on the White House lawn, defending to Mika Brzezinski the letter from the Obama administration saying it favored a compassionate release of the Lockerbie bomber over a prisoner transfer.  Oh, wait.  That wasn't the White House press secretary—it was Chuck Todd.  Sorry about that. But when you view the video I think you might forgive my error.  Todd certainly came across…

Mango diplomacy, maybe.  Mango defense, not so much.It would be much less disconcerting to say the above headline is a joke, ripped from the headlines of The Onion.  But alas, it is frighteningly accurate.Hillary Clinton recently lauded the benefits of Pakistani mangos in a discussion of better trade cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan.As Reuters reports, "Hillary Clinton has lots to…

The Israeli commandos who intercepted a flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip on May 31 were cleared of wrongdoing by a military inquiry into the matter. The same panel faulted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for "mistakes that were made in decisions, including some taken at relatively high levels," according to retired Israeli Major General Giora Eiland. While we at NewsBusters have taken Reuters…

CNN fired an editor for expressing "a lot [of] respect" for a Hezbollah leader the US had designated a terrorist.  So how has ABC dealt with someone with similar views?  By hiring her and awarding her the prestigious plum of host of This Week.So what's the difference between Octavia Nasr and Christiane Amanpour?  Not much, says Cal Thomas, when it comes to their views.  It's just that Amanpour…

AOL News contributor Paul Wachter launched an inflammatory attack on Pope Benedict XVI in a Thursday post where he also defended recently-fired CNN editor Octavia Nasr for her eulogy of Hezbollah's spiritual leader. After hinting that the network "overreacted," Wachter suggested that CNN should also fire "anyone who speaks highly of the pope, who...has contributed to the deaths of millions from…

Reporting on CNN's firing of Octavia Nasr, AP's David Bauder buried the lede in his 7-paragraph July 8 story. Here's Bauder's fourth paragraph wherein he described the Lebanese cleric that Nasr had praised as "[o]ne of Hezbollah's giants [she] respects a lot" (emphasis mine):Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah died Sunday after a long illness. He was staunchly anti-American and…

[Update, 2:22 pm Eastern: CNN.com put up an article on Nasr's "leaving" at 12:31 pm Eastern on Thursday, just before this item went up. H/t: NewsBusters reader johnny dollar.]Both CNN and CNN.com have punted on the firing of Octavia Nasr, the network's senior editor of Middle East affairs, after she mourned the death of Islamist cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, "one of Hezbollah's giants…

At the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog (HT Instapundit), Byron York documents the results of some Lexis Nexis searching: Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program in the New York Times: 0. Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program in the Washington Post: 0. Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program on NBC Nightly News: 0. Total words about the NASA…

CNN's senior editor of Middle East affairs on Sunday publicly expressed regrets for the death of Hezbollah's Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah the cleric that possibly orchestrated the 1983 bombing of two Marines barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. According to the New York Times, he also "justified suicide bombings and other tactics of asymmetrical warfare by arguing that if Israel and its allies used…

They're a militant Shiite Muslim organization defined by the U.S. government as a terrorist group, but don't tell that to CNN senior editor of Middle Eastern affairs, Octavia Nasr. In a July 4 post on her Twitter account, Nasr openly admitted to mourning the loss of Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah: Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah's giants I respect…

Catching up on an item from last week on the Tuesday, June 8, NBC Nightly News, correspondent Tom Aspell portrayed the residents of Gaza as living through a life prison sentence imposed by Israel: "Israel's blockade on Gaza isn't just about preventing goods from getting in, it's about preventing 1.5 million Palestinians from getting out. It sentences them to life inside a 140-square-mile prison…

During an interview on CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, Rabbi David Nesenoff, known for exposing Helen Thomas’s anti-Semitic views, informed viewers that, up until now, he has considered himself to be a liberal Democrat – who even opposed the Iraq War and supported Barack Obama – but now asserts that "I have to really reevaluate liberal and conservative and really find out where I stand because…