War on Terrorism

In case you missed the media coverage of the Fort Hood shooting for the last several days, let's sum up the main theme:  Nidal Malik Hasan is not a terrorist. CNN continued that theme early Thursday morning with an interview from a profiler who claims that Hasan is nothing more than a lonely, wifeless, psychopath in the midst of a midlife crisis.  Criminologist Pat Brown states that: "He…

This sort of thing an actual journalist would have flagged as dubious, but not Rachel Maddow.On her MSNBC show this past Monday, Maddow and guest Jeff Sharlet, an author and contributing editor at Harper's Magazine, were talking about the so-called Stupak amendment in the House health bill to prevent weakening of the ban on federal funding of abortion.Here's how the revelant portion of the…

It's one thing to avoid the "terrorist" label when reporting on Ft. Hood suspect Major Nidal Hasan. It's quite another to say that those who do use it are making a political calculation to "paint the Democrats as soft terror." Yet that's what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow insisted on her Nov. 11 broadcast. Maddow launched into a minute-and-a-half soliloquy on why it is bad for the Democratic Party when…

Taking to his Twitter account to take a swipe at flyover country, the New York-based editor of a print journalism trade publication all but stuck his tongue out at middle America while chanting "nya nya nya nya boo boo." Tweeted Greg Mitchell of "Editor & Publisher" around 10:40 a.m. EST (h/t Dan Gainor):New Yorkers happy to host trial of 9/11 mastermind: Unlike wimps in heartland who tremble…

On last night's "Rachel Maddow Show", the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh commended President Obama for taking the reins in Afghanistan. Hersh stated that Presidents must decide their own war strategies. But in the early stages of the war in Iraq, Hersh was a leading critic of similar actions by the Bush administration. Hersh's hypocrisy suggests he is more concerned with the political implications of…

(The following is satire -- I hope) Forget Ford Hood and investigating the so-called "terror" connections of Nidal Hasan. Yours truly has come across something the current crowd running our government might see as even more sinister. The Obama administration, the FBI, the Justice Department, and, most importantly, the White House's speech police simply have to get on this right away. You see,…

Networks Decide Attack Wasn't Terror: 85 percent of the broadcast stories didn't mention the word "terror." ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news referenced terrorism connections to the Fort Hood attack just seven times in 48 reports. ABC, CBS, NBC Follow White House Line: Before Obama's Nov. 10 speech, 93 percent of the stories had ignored any terror connection. But after Obama hinted at what ABC…

As we survey the horror of the Ft. Hood massacre, it might be useful to remember that we’ve been here before, with another shooting 16 years ago. The circumstances were very different, but the reaction of the media and other elite – the excusing, the spinning, the slight regard for the victims – has been eerily similar. On Dec. 7, 1993, aboard a crowded rush hour Long Island Railroad…

CNN misquoted a soldier at Fort Hood who was wounded in last week's shooting to  suggest that the soldier's recollection that Major Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" before firing was in doubt. Many in the media have been doing their best to downplay evidence suggesting Hasan was acting in accordance with radical Muslim beliefs."I was sitting in about the second row back when the assailant stood up…

As is seemingly tradition, the media is once again playing that classic game known as ‘How Can We Blame Bush?'  It's the party favorite where liberals take the biggest headline of the day, and immediately link Bush to the cause in one fell swoop, eliminating all facets of rationale.  Now, syndicated columnist Gwynne Dyer has introduced his own version, something that is only surprising in the…

MSNBC's Chris Matthews has said some things that would make your scratch your head - like getting a thrill up his leg from a speech given by Barack Obama. However, this one will really make you wonder what he was thinking. On his Nov. 9 broadcast of "Hardball," in an interview with Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Matthews compared the incident of Maj. Nidal M…

Two-and-a-half years before Army Major Nidal Hasan, a Muslim medical doctor, murdered 13 at Fort Hood in Texas in what more-and-more looks like a jihadist terrorist attack given his anti-American rants and ties to Islamic extremists, ABC's since-canceled Boston Legal drama ridiculed the idea a doctor could be a terrorist. A scene in the episode first aired on Tuesday, May 8, 2007 -- meant to show…

Appearing on the Dr. Nancy program on MSNBC Friday, NBC News terrorism analyst Roger Cressey warned against labeling the mass shooting at Ft. Hood as terrorism, despite the apparent radical views of the shooter: “We’ve heard some family references that he was being criticized for his Muslim faith, that’s all we know right now....It’s still premature to draw the terrorism conclusion.”Prior to…

As reports of the Fort Hood shooting began to pour in yesterday, numerous news outlets neglected to mention that the shooter is a Muslim. Either the potential import of this fact was completely lost on these journalists, or they omitted the shooter's Muslim affiliations out of a concern for political correctness.CBS and NBC both omitted the shooter's faith in their East Coast feeds last night, as…