War on Terrorism

Today, the world has learned that terrorists with the Taliban, the group of Islamic fundamentalist jihadists who have rained terror on Afghanistan and Pakistan for nearly two decades, "attacked a school in Peshawar, killing 141 people, 132 of them children." The death toll will almost certainly rise as some of the 114 children the BBC has reported are injured fail to survive. But don't ask…

"I think this guy has a lot more, a lot different motives than religion driving him. And he finally found a way, anyway, to express himself in his end as he died."  That was how Hardball host Chris Matthews closed a December 15 roundtable discussion segment about Sydney hostage-taker Man Haron Monis. Earlier in the segment, Matthews seemed perplexed as to why Americans would fear a similar…

With 2015 only a couple of weeks away, Ed Schultz just managed to sneak under the wire in the race for Most Inane Question of the Year by an MSNBC Host.  Speaking to Valerie Plame's husband Joe Wilson on the The Ed Show this evening, Schultz suggested: "Your wife was outed by the Vice-President and now he's saying he has no problem with torture. How do you feel about that? I mean isn't it torture…

On Monday's CBS This Morning, co-host Gayle King claimed that Americans were "divided" over the CIA's use of enhanced interrogation techniques after September 11th. However, the latest CBS News poll she cited "shows that 49% of Americans feel aggressive interrogation techniques like waterboarding are sometimes justified. 36% say they are never justified." The remaining 14% said that it "depends"…

This week, journalists seize on a partisan Senate Democratic report to scold the CIA for its conduct of the War on Terror during the Bush era, but deny there's any news value in Jonathan Gruber's admission that ObamaCare was sold using duplicitous tactics, calling it a "nothing burger."

On Sunday, NBC’s Meet the Press hosted former Vice President Dick Cheney to speak on the recent Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation tactics on suspected terrorists. While Cheney spoke out in defense of the program, moderator Chuck Todd asked his guest “when you say waterboarding is not torture, then why did we prosecute Japanese soldiers in…

In his "Critic's Notebook" on the front of Thursday's Style section, Washington Post art critic Philip Kennicott descended into another rant suggesting the United States is barely more moral than Islamic State beheaders. Americans are not a good people; we are a horrible people, ruthless and then cluelessly patriotic. The headline was "Senate report's real question: Who are we? Gauzy view of…

Wrapping up a report on Friday's NBC Today about CIA Director John Brennan reacting to the Senate Democrats' "torture report" during a Thursday press conference, chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell highlighted: "The unveiling of the brutal tactics gave American adversaries a chance to accuse the U.S. of hypocrisy – on International Human Rights Day, no less."

During a Thursday press conference, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell seized the opportunity to lecture CIA Director John Brennan as she rattled over the "torture" techniques detailed in the recently released report by Senate Democrats: "...waterboarding, near drowning, slamming people against the wall, hanging them in stress positions, confining them in small boxes or…

Kristen Welker, NBC News White House Correspondent, served as fill-in host on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports Thursday afternoon and took the opportunity to badger Congressman Peter King (R-N.Y.) over the Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists. Speaking to her Republican guest, Welker asked “some of the…

Nearly six years into Barack Obama's presidency, it's still George W. Bush's fault. Early Wednesday morning, Julie Pace at the Associated Press proved yet again why it is more than appropriate to characterize the wire service where she works as the Administration's Press. The headline at Pace's story tells us that poor President Barack Obama still has to confront the "Bush legacy," and is still…

On Wednesday, Michael Morrell, former Deputy Director of the CIA and current CBS News Senior Security Contributor, appeared on CBS This Morning to discuss the Democrat-led Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists. While the former CIA official vehemently rejected the contents of the report, co-host Norah O’Donnell did…

Appearing on Wednesday's NBC Today, former CIA Director Michael Hayden went after the network for hyping the so-called "torture report" released by Senate Democrats on Tuesday. After Hayden denounced the partisan report as something that "reads like a prosecutorial screed rather than an historical document," co-host Savannah Guthrie pressed him on what he disagreed with. Hayden replied: "Well, I…

Who were those guys on Morning Joe today—two Feinstein staffers? Nope, they were Mark Halperin and Jeremy Peters, making like Dem aides in defending the report on the CIA that Dem Senator Diane Feinstein released yesterday. Halperin, head of Bloomberg Politics, had the chutzpah to claim that the report was not "political."  Peters of the New York Times then chimed in to say that in releasing the…